LANDSCAPE REMEDIATION
“ The project’ s made a real difference. We’ re keeping more water in the paddock, there’ s a lot less runoff, and the pasture’ s come back strong. Before, this area around the gully was pretty bare, hardly any topsoil, just that sodic clay showing through. Now, there’ s at least twice as much grass as there used to be, maybe more.” Graham Gordon
Halting a 50-year-old gully
Just downslope from recent erosion control works, a 50-year-old active gully was showing signs of continued degradation, with head cuts threatening to advance further into the landscape.
Grazier Graham Gordon wanted to trial low cost interventions to intercept and spread surface water approximately 30 metres before it reached the gully system, minimising concentrated flow and reducing erosive energy. Erosion in this area was driven by high-velocity runoff across fragile, slaking-prone soils rather than by large volumes of water.
To stabilise the upper gully head, rock fill was used instead of heavy machinery intervention, which could have exacerbated erosion due to the soil’ s sensitivity. Further downstream, a section of the gully had already reached bedrock and posed a risk of undercutting the upper system.
To address this, 14 porous check dams, or leaky weirs, were installed. These slowed water movement, captured sediment, and gradually raised the gully bed, helping to reduce erosion within the gully and upslope by improving water infiltration.
The remediated areas were mulched and protected with a level rock weir above the gully head to reduce flow speed and mitigate scouring. To support long-term recovery, cattle were excluded from the area for at least two growing seasons, allowing native vegetation to re-establish and the soil to stabilise.
Before: May 2019 After: October 2022
These before and after photos are looking downslope from the western branch of the gully.
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