BURDEKIN DRY TROPICS NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2016-2026
56 including the Black River;
• the Bowen aquifers – Don River Alluvium, Euri Creek Alluvium, Granite and Town Common Alluvium;
• the Highlands sub-artesian area; and
• part of the Greater Western subartesian area.
Western areas of our region( Galilee Geological Basins) are a recharge source for the groundwater of the Great Artesian Basin, which underlies 22 per cent of Australia. The basin lies largely beneath arid areas where groundwater is the only reliable source of good-quality water for human activity, and supports important natural ecosystems, including significant mound springs.
Regional groundwater vulnerability mapping developed by the Queensland Government identifies the sensitivity of groundwater sources to potential pollutants. Figure 14 shows that groundwater most vulnerable to potential pollutants occurs mostly in the upper reaches of the catchments and the lower Burdekin River floodplain. Land use mapping for the corresponding areas displayed in Figure 10, p 50 show that the upper catchment reaches are relatively undeveloped and any impact from potential pollutants( such as fertiliser and pesticides, septic tank effluent, landfills) would be isolated to townships and mining activities. However, the groundwater in the Lower Burdekin subcatchment, supports significant irrigated cropping which has led to a degradation of ground water quality. This is discussed further in the Lower Burdekin catchment section and the Burdekin WQIP.
3. Aquatic ecosystems
Aquatic ecosystems in our region include rivers and wetlands, many of which are listed in the National Directory of Important Wetlands( Figure 13), including the significant inland freshwater wetlands- Valley of Lagoons and the Scartwater aggregation. Further east, the Townsville-Burdekin wetland aggregation is one of the most extensive on Australia’ s east coast and includes the Bowling Green Bay Ramsar-listed wetlands( Environment Australia, 2001). These wetlands play an important function in the landscape and in the health of the GBR by removing excess nutrients, chemicals, pollutants and sediment before they reach sensitive seagrass communities and near shore coral reefs. Many popular and important commercial and recreational seafood species, including Mangrove Jack, Barramundi, Mullet, eels, crabs and prawns, also depend on these wetlands and waterways for habitat, and other parts of lifecycle including mating, spawning and dispersal. their
Our region’ s freshwater rivers and streams drain a diversity of tropical landscapes including semi-arid drylands, wooded grasslands, mountainous tropical rainforests, coastal plains and wetlands. They are essential for environmental, agricultural and other anthropogenic uses. While work has occurred over the last 10 years on
understanding water quality and downstream impacts on the GBR, in-stream health of our waterways linked with catchment scale land capability is poorly documented. In many freshwater ecosystems, the key influences on
Figure 14- Groundwater vulnerability
Monitoring has raised concern about the ability of local seagrass meadows to recover from environmental disturbances due to reduced water quality with declining seagrass abundance, very poor seed banks and reproductive effort.( McKenzie, et al., 2012)
Figure 13- Wetlands
WATER