Murray Darling Basin Authority Projects

A team from the Murray Darling Basin Authority (including its CEO Andrew McConville and a number of key technical staff) visited a number of the project sites along Water Gully on 19 April. This visit was part of an information gathering exercise to inform the current revision of the Murray Darling Basin Plan due to be released later this year, with the group wishing to better understand water issues and water management options in the Upper Namoi watershed catchment area.
 

Around 80% of the water which flows in the lower basin comes from upper watershed catchments like ours (which represent only 15% of the land area) and MDBA recognise that without well managed watersheds there can be no long term water sustainability for the Basin as a whole.

The Water Gully sequence of projects which are aimed at stabilising the drainage and slowing water flows out of one part of the Wallabadah subcatchment (from above the Racecourse 4kms through the village to the Quirindi Creek) are now recognised as one example of drainage management practices that may be widely applicable  to the many other watershed catchments along the Great Dividing Range, and the MDBA team were interested in seeing and understanding their impacts for potential inclusion in the revised Plan.

“When we see projects like this it really helps us to get a good understanding of what’s possible” commented MDBA CEO McConville.

Image 1 – Tania Hartigan welcoming the MDBA team and explaining community concerns about surface and groundwater

Image 2 – Tim Watts leading discussion on the process and values of slowing water in an incised drainage like Water Gully. 

Image 3 – Water Gully Project 1 site end 2019 at the start of the initial works.

Image 4 – The same Water Gully Project 1 site August 2025 – similar beneficial impacts are evident at the 5 other project sites to the junction of Water Gully and Quirindi Creeks