Discharge Monitoring Sites in the Lake Wellington Catchment
There are nine discharge monitoring sites in the Lake Wellington Catchment.
Discharge monitoring sites in the Lake Wellington
salinity management planning area
Two monitoring sites are located at Clydebank on estuarine delta lake deposits to the west of Lake Wellington. The watertable in this area is less than one metre from the ground surface. Groundwater pumping has been identified as the key immediate option for salinity control in the Lake Wellington catchment.
Groundwater pump at the Lake Wellington discharge monitoring site
Community groundwater pumps are established where salinity is having the greatest social, economic and environmental effect and where the technical expertise indicates that benefits from groundwater pumping is likely to be highest. Pump testing in the Clydebank area suggests that an individual pump could influence the watertable over an area of approximately 600 hectares.
The Clydebank sites have been established to monitor the effectiveness of pumping. One is next to a community groundwater pump (Clydebank North site report) and the other is a control site about 2 km away, outside the influence of the pump (Clydebank South site report) . The pair of sites will be reassessed every three to five years to monitor the effect the groundwater pump has on the area of salt affected ground within its predicted effective area. This data will provide valuable feedback to the Lake Wellington community and help develop future salinity management strategies in the catchment.
Of the other seven sites in Lake Wellington sub-catchment, three are located near Rosedale, two at Maffra and two at Fulham East. The sites near Rosedale and Maffra are monitoring the effect of groundwater pumping. Of the sites at Fulham East, one is on the floodplain of the Thomson River and the second site is on the terrace just above this floodplain.
Go to the general section on dryland salinity monitoring in Victoria for further information.