Gwydir River

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Gwydir River
In Bingara

In Bingara

Data
location New South Wales , Australia
River system Murray River
Drain over Barwon River  → Darling River  → Murray River  → Indian Ocean
source west of Uralla
30 ° 29 ′ 11 ″  S , 151 ° 25 ′ 26 ″  E
Source height 760  m
muzzle Barwon River Coordinates: 29 ° 29 ′ 36 "  S , 148 ° 41 ′ 11"  E 29 ° 29 ′ 36 "  S , 148 ° 41 ′ 11"  E
Mouth height 144  m
Height difference 616 m
Bottom slope 1.4 ‰
length 447.4 km
Catchment area 26,588 km²
Left tributaries Roumalla Creek, Camerons Creek, Bakers Creek, Keera Creek, Gouron Creek, Oaky Creek, Bora Creek, Halls Creek, Horton River , Bells Creek, Spring Creek, Long Creek, Mehi River , Tyreel Anabranch
Right tributaries Rocky River , Cachs Creek, Two Mile Creek, Abington Creek, Laura Creek, Georges Creek, Moredun Creek, Tienga Creek, Sandy Creek, Copes Creek, Myall Creek, Hallams Spring Creek, Warialda Creek, Spring Creek, Mosquito Creek, Deadmans Creek, Creamin Creek, Gingham Watercourse, Gwydir Anabranch, Big Leather Watercourse
Flowing lakes Collymongle Lagoon
Reservoirs flowed through Copeton Reservoir
Medium-sized cities Bingara , Moree
Small towns Yarrowyck, Bundarra, Gravesend, Pallamallawa
At Moree

At Moree

The river below Pallamallawa

The river below Pallamallawa

At Moree

At Moree

The Gwydir River is a river in the Australian state of New South Wales and belongs to the Murray-Darling Basin . It has two major tributaries - the Horton River and the Rocky River .

The Copeton Reservoir on the Gwydir River south of Inverell holds water for the surrounding cities, livestock and irrigation. Below the reservoir, the river offers some of the toughest whitewater trails in Australia. Before the construction of the reservoir and other regulatory measures, the Gwydir River poured into the Gingham and Lower Gwydir Wetlands , a marshland. The Gwydir Highway was named after the river.

Approximately 800  hectares of the Gwydir wetland were declared a wetland of international standing under the Ramsar Convention on June 14, 1999 . The Australian federal government bought the largest privately owned wetland land in New South Wales for AU $ 10 million. A new national park is to be created from this, as this wetland provides habitat for 160 species of birds, four of which are endangered.

geography

The Gwydir River rises in the southern part of the northern table country of New South Wales near the city of Uralla and flows 668 kilometers first to the northwest and then to the west. Shortly before Moree the river splits. The main arm is called the Mehi River in the following and flows parallel to the Gwydir River to the west , to flow like this into the Barwon River , a source river of the Darling River .

In the upper and middle reaches the river flows through the cities of Bundarra , Bingara , Gravesend and Pallamallawa .

To the west of Moree the Gwydir River splits further: the Lower Gwydir or Big Leather Watercourse is the southern branch of the river, the Gingham Watercourse the northern one. Gingham Watercourse flows west into Ballone Creek before it joins Big Leather Watercourse. The Big Leather Watercourse then flows into the Mehi River in the south. At Collarenebri , the Mehi River also flows into the Barwon River.

history

The botanist Allan Cunningham crossed the river at Gravesend in 1827 and named him after his patron Peter Robert Burell, 2nd Baron Gwydir , who based the title on Gwydir Castle in Wales . The federal constituency Division of Gwydir , which was created in 1901 and only abolished in the 2007 elections, was named after the river.

The iron lattice bridges that span the river in Bundarra and Bingara are considered important bridges of the colonial era.

Agriculture

At Moree there are large, artificially irrigated cotton fields , along with grain, cattle and other agricultural goods. The cotton industry depends on irrigation and has been particularly hard hit by the droughts in recent years, which have drastically reduced farm water allotments. In 2006 it was calculated that the cotton industry consumed 87% of the water used in agriculture from the Gwydir River.

The irrigation of the upper reaches of the Gwydir River led to a far-reaching reduction in the water level downstream. The reduction in water flow affected the landowners who had used the river water to water their cattle and to irrigate small fields of grain. The periodic flooding of watercourses that did not carry water all year round and of the wetlands in lands further away from the river also failed. These conflicts led to the formation of the Gwydir Regulated River Management Committee in 1997 and a water management plan that went into effect on July 1, 2004.

fauna

The Namoi turtle - also known as Bell's turtle - is endemic to the upper reaches of the Namoi River , the Gwydir River and the Macdonald River on the northwest slopes of the Northern Table Country .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Map of Gwydir River, NSW (760 m - 202 m) . Bonzle.com
  2. ↑ a b Map of Gwydir River, NSW (157 m - 144 m) . Bonzle.com
  3. ↑ Map of Gwydir River, NSW (202 m - 163 m) . Bonzle.com
  4. ^ Map of Gwydir River, NSW (164 m - 152 m) . Bonzle.com
  5. ^ Landscape - Carbon, Nutrients, Water and Productivity - Gwydir River . Australian Natural Resource Atlas ( Memento of February 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Erik Jensen: Gwydir Wetlands Property to Become a National Park . Sydney Morning Herald (February 18, 2010). Fairfax Media, Sydney
  7. ^ Bridge over the Gwydir River in Bingara
  8. ↑ Marian Wilinson: Cotton Sucking Life out of Murray . Sydney Morning Herald (August 16, 2008). Fairfax Digital
  9. ^ A b John J. Pigram: Australia's Water Resources: From Use to Management . CSIRO Publishing. Collingwood VIC (2007). ISBN 9780643094420 . Pp. 138-139
  10. ^ Threatened Species of the New England Tablelands & NW Slopes of NSW . NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service (2003). ISBN 0-7313-6673-5