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Border Rivers: Region description

  • The Border Rivers catchment is highly dependent on surface water for agricultural purposes.
  • Agriculture is the main economic driver for most of the towns within the region.
  • The Basin Plan, jurisdictional water sharing plans, and interstate agreements between Queensland and New South Wales guide water management in the catchment.

Border Rivers catchment map. Water use: 1.1% of Australia’s water use. Land use: 57% of the region used for grazing. Water resources: 90% sourced from surface water. Water management: guided by the Basin Plan.

For further information about the region scroll down this page or click on the links below:

 

Geographic information

Murray River (Alison Pouliot © 2009)

 

General description

Area: 10,000 km²
Population: 50,000 (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] 2016)

 

 Map of key rivers and towns. The Border Rivers area is physically defined by the Barwon, Macintyre, and Dumaresq river catchments. Major towns include Goondiwindi in the centre of the region, and Stanthorpe in the east. The Great Artesian Basin underlies the western half of the Border Rivers catchment.
Figure R1 The Border Rivers catchment

 

  • The Border Rivers catchment is located in the northern part of the Murray–Darling Basin. The catchment overlaps the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
  • Agriculture, particularly irrigated agriculture, is a major economic driver for most of the towns within the region, including the larger regional centres of Goondiwindi and Stanthorpe.
  • Water use in the catchment makes up around 4.4% of the Murray-Darling Basin's total water use.
  • Grazing and dryland agriculture accounts for approximately 80% of land use in the Border Rivers catchment.
  • As only 13% of the catchment is intercepted by large reservoirs, the Border Rivers is primarily a free-flowing system. The catchment has the highest percentage of pre-development end of system flows of any of the developed catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin.

 

Water resources

Map of 3 major storages. Pindari is in the southeast of the catchment, capacity 312,000 ML. Glenlyon is in the central east, capacity 252,655 ML. Coolmunda is in the northeast, capacity 69,060 ML.
Figure R2 Major storages in the Border Rivers catchment; capacity of each storage is also shown

 

  • Most of the region's water supply is sourced from the region's three major reservoirs—Pindari, Glenlyon and Coolmunda—mainly for agricultural purposes.
  • Some surface water supply is also sourced from rivers and on-farm storages.
  • Groundwater, also an important water resource within the region for agricultural purposes, is sourced from alluvial deposits (including Border Rivers Alluvium, Macintyre Alluvium, and Ottleys Creek Alluvium), sandstone aquifers in the Great Artesian Basin and fractured rock sediments.