Responding to unprecedented rainfall
The wettest Spring on record for both NSW and across the Murray Darling basin has brought with it tremendous hardship for thousands of people.
The exceptional weather has helped drive the devastating flooding from which communities across much of regional NSW are still recovering, while others brace for their turn for floodwaters to arrive.
As manager of the state’s major supply dams, including the 20 large dams across regional NSW, WaterNSW operations have been centred on flood operations for many months.
Dam personnel on site – often living in flooded communities themselves - and expert planners have been working to manage huge volumes of water, not seen in decades, that have flowed into dams over the past 12 months, reaching a peak in Spring.
As back-to-back rain events and major storms created these large inflows into the dams and generated equally high levels in the creeks and rivers downstream of the dams, WaterNSW staff worked hard to grab the severely limited windows of opportunity to protect local communities.
In the Lachlan system, floodwaters that devastated communities such as Forbes in mid-November were still making their way downstream to communities such as Condobolin and Lake Cargelligo many weeks later.
Water released from dams must go somewhere, and a 10% reduction risks pre-flooding downstream when water from the vast surface area of the dam storage is released into the narrow confines of the river, with potentially more wet weather forecast.
To help get this incredibly delicate balance right WaterNSW for months held regional advisory panels in key river valleys, with landholders, councils and agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology, and the NSW State Emergency Service.
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Published date: 25 January 2023
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