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Environment
Catchment management
A drainage basin is an extent of land where water from rain drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, estuary, wetland or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water drains into those channels, and is separated from adjacent basins by a drainage divide.
The drainage basin acts like a funnel, collecting all the water within the area covered by the basin and channeling it into a waterway. Each drainage basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins by a geographical barrier such as a ridge, hill or mountain which is known as a water divide.
Catchment management programs consider all land use activities within that catchment or drainage basin as they impact on the receiving water body.
The Land and Water Australia website and the Department of Water website contain a large amount of useful publications on catchment management issues, look for the publications tittles water notes and water facts .
The Department of Water has a number of fact sheets on catchment management. Links are provided below to those that may be of particular interest.
Water facts
- Algal blooms
- Flooding in Western Australia
- Groundwater pollution
- Living streams
- Living wetlands : an introduction to wetlands
- Managing groundwater use
- Salinity
- The water cycle
- Water words
- Western Australia's groundwater resources
- What is groundwater?
Water notes
- Demonstration sites of waterways restoration in Western Australia
- Determining foreshore reserves
- The ecology of wheatbelt lakes
- The effects and management of deciduous trees on waterways
- Establishing samphires in the Avon catchment
- Flood proofing fencing for waterways
- Habitat of rivers and creeks
- Herbicide use in wetlands
- Importance of large woody debris in sandy bed streams
- Indentifying the riparian zone
- The Kimberley river environment : about the Kimberley rivers
- Lamprey guides
- Livestock management : construction of livestock crossings
- Livestock management : fence location and grazing control
- Livestock management : watering points and pumps
- Long-term management of riparian vegetation
- The management and replacement of large woody debris in waterways
- Management of sediment in pools of the Avon River system
- Monitoring and evaluating river restoration works
- Protecting riparian vegetation
- Revegetating with native grasses in the Avon catchment
- Riparian zone revegetation in the Avon catchment
- River and estuary landscape appreciation and protection
- Rivers of the Kimberley : about the Kimberley rivers
- Rushes and sedges
- Safeguarding Aboriginal heritage
- Sediment in streams
- Simple fishways
- The value of large woody debris (snags)
- The values of the riparian zone
- Weeds in waterways
- Wetland buffers
- Wetland vegetation
- Wetlands and fire
- Wetlands and weeds
- Wetlands as waterbird habitat
- The wheatbelt's ancient rivers
- Wild rivers in Western Australia
For more information contact:
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