INTERSECTING STREAMS SURFACE WATER RESOURCE PLAN Surface Water Resource Description Appendix A NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment | dpie.nsw.gov.au Published by Department of Planning, Industry and Environment dpie.nsw.gov.au Title: Surface Water Resource Description Subtitle: Appendix A First published: July 2019 Department reference number: INT18/23607 More information www.industry.nsw.gov.au/water Acknowledgements This document was prepared by Jamie Foster. It expands upon a previous description of the Intersecting Streams published by the NSW Office of Water in 2011. The maps in this report were prepared by Bilal Hossain. They contain data sourced from: Murray-Darling Basin Authority © Commonwealth of Australia (Murray–Darling Basin Authority) 2012. (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence) NSW DPI Water © Spatial Services - NSW Department of Finance, Services and Innovation (2016), Panorama Avenue, Bathurst 2795 spatialservices.finance.nsw.gov.au NSW Office of Environment and Heritage Atlas of NSW Wildlife data © State of New South Wales through Department of Environment and Heritage (2016) 59-61 Goulburn Street Sydney 2000 www.biotnet.nsw.gov.au NSW DPI Fisheries Fish Community Status and Threatened Species data © State of New South Wales through Department of Industry (2016) 161 Kite Street Orange 2800 www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/species-protection/threatened-species-distributions-in-nsw © State of New South Wales through Department of Planning, Industry and Environment 2019. You may copy, distribute, display, download and otherwise freely deal with this publication for any purpose, provided that you attribute the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment as the owner. However, you must obtain permission if you wish to charge others for access to the publication (other than at cost); include the publication in advertising or a product for sale; modify the publication; or republish the publication on a website. You may freely link to the publication on a departmental website. Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing (July 2019) and may not be accurate, current or complete. The State of New South Wales (including the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment), the author and the publisher take no responsibility, and will accept no liability, for the accuracy, currency, reliability or correctness of any information included in the document (including material provided by third parties). Readers should make their own inquiries and rely on their own advice when making decisions related to material contained in this publication. Surface Water Resource Description Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview of the Plan area .................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Water management units ................................................................................................... 3 1.3 History of water management in the Intersecting Streams WRPA ..................................... 3 1.3.1 Early wetland and water managment .......................................................................... 3 1.3.2 NSW water reforms ..................................................................................................... 3 1.3.3 Cap on diversions (CAP) ............................................................................................. 3 1.3.4 Water sharing in the Intersecting Streams unregulated rivers..................................... 4 2. Regional Setting ........................................................................................................................ 6 2.1 Climate ............................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Land use ............................................................................................................................. 9 2.3 Topographic and stream description ................................................................................ 12 2.3.1 Western Catchments (Paroo & Warrego) .................................................................. 12 2.3.2 Eastern Catchments (Culgoa, Narran and Moonie) .................................................. 14 2.3.3 Southern Catchment (Yanda Creek) ......................................................................... 15 2.4 Streamflow characteristics ................................................................................................ 17 Highlighting blocks of text .............................................................. 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Environmental Assets .............................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Parks and reserves ........................................................................................................... 21 3.2 Wetlands ........................................................................................................................... 22 3.3 Hydrologic indicator sites .................................................................................................. 22 3.4 High ecological value aquatic ecosystems ....................................................................... 23 4 Water Quality ........................................................................................................................... 27 4.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 27 5 Riparian and geomorphic condition ......................................................................................... 29 6 River operations and management .......................................................................................... 31 6.2 Storages and regulating structures ................................................................................... 31 6.2 Licenced water use ........................................................................................................... 31 6.2.1 Unregulated river entitlements .................................................................................. 32 6.3 Water trading .................................................................................................................... 34 6.4 Environmental water ......................................................................................................... 34 6.4.1 Held environmental water .......................................................................................... 34 6.4.2 Planned environmental water .................................................................................... 34 Glossary .......................................................................................................................................... 35 References ...................................................................................................................................... 38 NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment | INT18/23607 | i Surface Water Resource Description Figures Figure 1-1: Intersecting Streams Water Resource Plan Area (SW13) .............................................. 2 Figure 1-2: Location of unregulated water sources in the Intersecting Streams WRPA ................... 5 Figure 2-1: Average annual rainfall in the Intersecting Streams water sources ................................ 6 Figure 2-2: Average monthly rainfall for selected stations in the Intersecting ................................... 7 Figure 2-3: Average annual evaporation for the Intersecting Streams WRPA .................................. 8 Figure 2-4: Average monthly evaporation at Goodooga (Culgoa water source) 1889–2017 ........... 8 Figure 2-5: Land use map of the Intersecting Streams WRPA ....................................................... 11 Figure 2-6: Annual flows in the Moonie River at Gundablouie 1945–2017 ..................................... 17 Figure 2-7: Daily flow in the Moonie River at Gundablouie 1945-2017 ........................................... 18 Figure 2-8: Annual flows in the Culgoa River at Brenda 1960-2017 ............................................... 18 Figure 2-9: Daily flow in the Culgoa River at Brenda 1960-2017 .................................................... 18 Figure 2-10: Annual flows in the Warrego River at Fords Bridge 1921-2017 ................................. 19 Figure 2-11: Daily flow in the Warrego River at Fords Bridge 1921-2017 ...................................... 19 Figure 3-1: Instream values for the Intersecting Streams WRPA ................................................... 25 Figure 3-2: Distribution of threatened fish species within the Intersecting Streams WRPA ............ 25 Figure 3-3: Endangered ecological communities in the Intersecting Streams WRPA .................... 26 Figure 4-1: Water quality condition of the Intersecting Streams WRPA .......................................... 27 Figure 5-1: Percent cover of native woody riparian vegetation in the Intersecting Streams WRPA 30 Figure 5-2: Geomorphic recovery potential in streams in the Intersecting Streams WRPA............ 30 Figure 6-1: Location of major weirs in the Intersecting Streams WRPA ........................................