Border Rivers catchment
Legend
Ramsar site
DIWA site
| Security | Registered entitlements (ML) |
|---|---|
| High | |
| Medium (QLD) | 10,610 |
| Unsupplemented (QLD) | 1,000 |
| General (NSW) | 269 |
| Total | 11,879 |
Environmental watering in the catchment in 2011-12
To date (up to 6 February 2012) around 0.6 gigalitres of unregulated water has been used in an ongoing action to support natural flows that promote native fish movement and maintain high value waterholes and riparian vegetation within the Sundown National Park.
Environmental watering in the catchment in previous years
No Commonwealth environmental watering has occurred in the Border Rivers catchment prior to 2011-12.
Catchment profile
Where is it?
The Border Rivers region is based around the Macintyre River and the Dumaresq River, which merge to form the Macintyre River. The Macintyre River ultimately becomes the Barwon River. The region is bounded to the east by the Great Dividing Range, the north by the Condamine-Balonne and Moonie regions, the south by the Gwydir region and to the west by the Barwon-Darling region. The slopes region lies west of Ashford and Texas to below Boggabilla and is characterised by undulating country with numerous permanent and semi-permanent billabongs. The plains region is downstream of Boggabilla where the terrain is undulating to flat. Floodplains stretch west towards Mungindi.
The Border Rivers region covers 45,675km2 or 4.4 per cent of the area of the MDB. The Macintyre River's main tributary is the Severn River. The principal tributaries of the Dumaresq River are the Beardy River and Ottley's Creek. Major water storages constructed since the late 1960s enable irrigated agriculture on the plains. The Weir River is the only significant tributary downstream of Boggabilla.
What makes this place so special?
The Border Rivers catchment is an ecologically significant area because it includes:
- a diverse range of flora and fauna species, including waterlilies, river red gum, river cooba, freckled duck, weeping bottlebrush, New England tree frog and brolga
- species listed as vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), such as great egret, Australian painted snipe, Murray cod and Warra broad-leaved Sally
- river-fed wetlands
- a wetland of national importance
- large wetland areas which provide large amounts of organic carbon essential to ecosystem function and which supports a diverse population of waterbirds
- small effluent creeks that support waterbird breeding.
The only wetland identified as being nationally significant is the Morella Watercourse/Boobera Lagoon/Pungbougal Lagoon located on the Macintyre River floodplain. This site is considered one of the most important Aboriginal places in eastern Australia. As one of the few permanent waterbodies in the northern MDB the complex provides refuge for wildlife during periods of drought.
Sundown National Park also has ecological significance, hosting 11 rare and threatened animals, five rare or vulnerable plant species and permanent waterholes supporting a diverse range of waterbirds and aquatic biota.
What does the latest science say about the ecological health of the catchment?
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission Sustainable Rivers Audit (SRA) rated the overall health of river ecosystems in the Murray-Darling Basin. The SRA reports the overall ecosystem health of the Border Rivers catchment as moderate.
The CSIRO Sustainable Yields Report on the Border Rivers indicated that diversions in the catchment are 38 per cent of average available water. This is a high level of use which has reduced the reliability and volume of end-of-system flows. Under the best estimate 2030 climate average water availability would be reduced by 9 per cent, end-of-system flows reduced by 12 per cent and total diversions reduced by 2 per cent.
Note that the boundaries of this catchment as defined by the Sustainable Rivers Audit and the Sustainable Yields report differ slightly to the boundaries used here.