Environmental water managers have protected a portion of the flows following rainfall and flows into the Barwon-Darling during March and April 2021. The additional flows will help native fish to travel along the Barwon-Darling to improve opportunities for them to feed and breed. An update is available here.
ver the summer of 2020-21, around 23 GL of water for the environment was delivered across the Lower Gwydir, Gingham and Mallowa Creek systems within the Gwydir Valley and downstream.
In combination with natural flows, water for the environment helped improve the condition of the Gwydir Wetlands Ramsar sites located on ‘Old Dromana’ and ‘Goddard’s Lease’. They also provided habitat for a range of waterbirds, fish, frogs, and turtles after an extended dry period.
Floods that hit the Gwydir catchment in late March, 2021, brought a mixture of devastation and life to the communities and ecosystems that depend on the catchment’s rivers. As the entire Gwydir catchment was doused with heavy rainfall between March 22 and March 24, downpours quickly translated into a significant, widespread flooding event. We tracked this event, including its volume and extent, as it moved throughout the channels in the Gwydir system and beyond.
The Condamine catchment recieved good rainfall in early 2021 with some areas recieving up to 200 mm between January and March. Runoff from these rains contributed to natural inflows that complimented Commonwealth water for the environment. Stay current with these events and their outcomes via the CEWO Event updates below. Event update #1 –…
The last four years have been the driest on record across much of the northern Murray-Darling Basin, despite rain earlier in 2020, and the current La Nina. Parts of the Barwon River have not flowed for over 60 days, and the river is drying back to waterholes. So, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) have coordinated for freshes of water for the environment to be released down 200+ km’s of the upper Barwon system between December 2020 and January 2021.
The Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) have released Edition #3 of Going with the Flow. Check it out for a summary of the latest basin-wide monitoring activities for the MER project.
A basin-scale highlights map is also available below for a brief on how our rivers and wetlands were tracking over winter/spring 2020.
Flows have enabled the revival of ecosystems within the Lower Balonne with monitoring showing good responses in waterbird activities and others.
