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Water resources - Overview - New South Wales

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Basin & Surface Water Management Area: Bellinger River

Introduction

The Bellinger River Basin occupies an area of about 3000 square kilometres on the North Coast of New South Wales and includes the catchment of the Nambucca Rive

The Bellinger River catchment is situated on the Mid North Coast of NSW encompassing approximately 1,000 square km. The two main rivers in the catchment are the Kalang River to the south and the Bellinger River to the north. The Kalang River flows into the Bellinger just upstream from the river mouth. The catchment is approximately 70 km long and 20 km wide. Most of the catchment is mountainous with limited areas of flat land associated with river and creek valleys and the coastline.

Topography has been a dominant factor in development, with the steep areas remaining under forest cover while the narrow flood plain and associated foothills have been cleared for grazing, cropping and other uses.

Urban development is mainly limited to the small towns of inland Bellinger and coastal Urunga. Raleigh, Repton, and Mylestom are smaller villages also located on the coast. Most of the forest is contained in either National Parks or State Forest areas.

Forestry operations are an important contributor to the local economy. Mixed farming land uses occupy both undulating and flat land on the floor of the catchment. Produce includes dairy, beef, pork, and crops such as maize, sorghum and vegetables. Other economic activities that occur in the catchment include fishing, tourism, oyster and fish farming.

The Bellinger catchment is highly valued for its natural beauty and contains some regionally significant rainforest. The valley is also famous for the Ringwood Tree and the freshwater turtle (Elseya georgesi) which are only found locally.The key catchment management issues are water quality, river bank stability and weed invasio

Nambucca Catchment is one of the smaller north coast catchments, with its headwater in the Great Dividing Range about 50 km from the coast. The population of the catchment is approximately 19,000 and the towns of Macksville, Bowraville and Nambucca Heads are the principal centres. Dominant industries in the region include tourism, fishing, timber, beef and dairy cattle.

Approximate annual rainfall is 1400 mm on the coastal fringe, falling to 1270 in the southern areas of Taylors Arm and Eungai. In the upper reaches of the catchment, 2200 ha of forest is reserved in the Dungirr National Park.

Vital Statistics:

Area:	3,060 Km2
Total storage volume:	380
Total surface water use:	0 ML/yr
Development category:	MEDIUM DEVELOPMENT
Mean annual run-off:	1,482,000 ML/yr

Please note: No data were supplied about total surface water use for some river basins (eg. unregulated basins in NSW).

A four-class classification system was developed to provide a simple method to communicate the status of the use and allocation of Australia's water resources in relation to sustainable water management.

It is important to recognise that adequately quantifying a sustainable flow regime or sustainable yield and consequent operating rules is a complex matter. State, Territory and scientific agencies continue to develop and apply methods and measures for determining sustainable flow regimes and sustainable yields.

This categorisation provides a general guide only. Please refer to the State and Territory Overview and Technical reports for detail on the analysis methods used.

	Category	Development status
1	<30%	Low development
2	30 - 70%	Moderate development
3	70 - 100%	Highly developed
4	100%	Overdeveloped

* Water use as a percentage of sustainable flow regime (surface water) and sustainable yield (groundwater)

PLEASE NOTE:

Sustainable Yield:

NSW is introducing volumetric licenses for the management of unregulated valleys and is currently collecting a wide range of data in unregulated basins.

The sustainable yield concept, ie the amount of water that can be diverted from rivers in perpetuity, is recognised in NSW. However NSW's current management practices views the sustainable yield as an allowable daily extraction volume as opposed to an annual yield figure. As well future reviews of the performance of the management rules to be adopted in each valley plus additional knowledge at that time may result in changes to the rules and hence changes to the "Sustainable Yield".

NSW has taken the approach that it is better to await the availability of data on the unregulated basins based on reliable and realistic analysis than to divert limited resources from this process to provide data based on unreliable information and inappropriate analysis. Accordingly the Sustainable Yield has not been calculated for the unregulated basins in NSW.

However an attempt was made to obtain a categorisation for the catchment based on the work done for the stressed streams.

A variable P was determined for the total catchment on the basis of the combined stress classsification results from the stressed streams analysis, where P = Total area of sub-catchments with high combined stress / Total area of classsified sub- catchments in basi

Categorisation was on the basis that:

 Category 1 applies for 0% <= P
< 30% Category 2 applies for 30% <= P
< 70% Category 3 applies for 70% <= P
<100% Category 4 applies for P = 100% 

Please refer to the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website for further information about this Basin.

PLEASE NOTE:

Categorisation:

Cateogorisation of the SWMA has been based on the classification system developed for the NSW Stressed Rivers Approach to the management of unregulated streams.

The stressed rivers classification system separates subcatchments into nine categories (stressed and unstressed) based on assessments of both current environmental and hydrologic stress. This is illustrated by the matrix in Figure 1 of the Stressed Rivers Report(s) available from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website http://www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au . These reports also provides some of the rationale underlying the different categories.

In summary : Category 1 - comprises subcatchments with Low Combined Stress Category 2 - comprises subcatchments with Medium Combined Stress Category 3 - comprises subcatchments with High Combined Stress Category 4 - comprises Unresolved subcatchment

The distribution of categories across the SWMA is illustrated in the Figures in the Stressed Stream Report for the Bellinger and Nambucca Basins at the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website http://www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au .

How saline are the surface water resources in the Bellinger River surface water management area?

No data were available about the salinity of surface water resources in the Basin / SWMA for the Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000.

Major water storages

Table: Major water storage areas:

Storage name:	Capacity (ML)
Woolgoolga Dam	270
Hungry Head	110
Coffs Harbour Weir	no data
Unnamed dam (Nabiac)	no data
Warrell Creek Weir	no data
Total	380

Further Information

• View the New South Wales Water Resources Assessment 2000 Report
• View the New South Wales Water Resources Assessment 2000 Technical Report
• Link to data available for download on the:
• Surface Water Management Areas
• Data from the 1985 Review of Australia's Water Resources and Water Use
• Link to the Map Maker to make a map using this information.
• For more information about water and other natural resource issues link to www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au.