Treatment ( ENI17-2000 and CSIRO monitoring - commonly referred to as the LDC Learning Hub also has soil moisture probes and biodiversity monitoring ).
Mt Pleasant Station is a 14,000 ha grazing property located within the Bogie sub-catchment . This site was a new Landholders Driving Change ( LDC ) project initiated in 2019 , however , the property has undergone considerable land management changes and property improvements using the principles of regenerative grazing ( RCS method ) over the last 10-15 years .
The gullies on this property are generally the smaller , linear style gullies that act as extensions of the natural drainage network . Many of the gullies on this property were likely initiated under a previous management regime several decades ago . Therefore , the focus of the rehabilitation works at this site was on reinstating the hydrological function that was present in the landscape prior to channel incision . The Mount Pleasant Learning Hub features Mulloon Institute landscape rehydration techniques . These interventions are expected to restore landscape function through increasing rainfall infiltration and groundwater recharge ( landscape rehydration ), while demonstrating that ground cover and productive pastures are key to maintaining land and gully condition .
The project site is a fenced 220ha production paddock located between the Bowen Development Road and the Collinsville railway line . The paddock contains an unmapped gully / water course , including a large dam at the head of the catchment in a largely Goldfields land type . It was cleared in the 1970 ’ s and is now an open grassy woodland landscape . It is the current bull paddock , is set stocked , although a regime of wet season spelling has been practiced . There are extensive eroded and scalded areas in sections of the paddock . The gully / water course has historically active erosion features which have lowered the creek bed and impacted on the water cycle in the sub catchment . Initial assessments of the site indicated suitability for application of the principles of natural sequence farming and landscape rehydration .
Designed by the Mulloon Institute and implemented by local contractors , the site consists of :
● a series of 5 strategically placed v-notch log and rock weirs were constructed ;
● a “ leaky ” earth weir to divert water to where it previously flowed ; and
● a level sill bywash .
The works were carried out in September and October 2019 and took five and a half weeks to complete . The control site also has CSIRO monitoring .
Onsite vegetation , runoff and water quality data is collected by CSIRO , commencing in 2019 .
The location of the water quality monitoring sites , land condition and terrain analysis surveys are shown on Figure 24 . The water quality monitoring equipment was installed in early November 2019 ( Figure 25 ), and the terrain , pasture and biomass surveys were conducted in early December for the pre-wet analysis and in April 2020 and 2021 for the post-wet analysis . No assessment of pre-treatment gully erosion rates had been undertaken at this site .
Table 12 summarises the results for the Mt Pleasant site for 2019-20 and 2020-21 .
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