Largest Lakes in Australia

Geography

Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre is in the deserts of central Australia, in northern South Australia. It is located around 700 km (430 mi) north of Adelaide, and 400 km (250 mi) from the nearest point of the South Australian coastline. Marree is located at the northern end of The Outback Highway at the junction of the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks. William Creek, the closest town to the lake, is 200 km (120 mi) away along the unsealed Oodnadatta Track, and still over 60 km (37 mi) from the edge of the lake. Halligan Bay is one of only a few public lookouts. The lake covers over 9,000 km2 (3,500 sq mi).

History

The lake lies mostly within the traditional lands of the Arabana people, for whom it holds deep spiritual significance in their Dreaming stories. The Dieri people have long ties to the eastern portion of the lake. Kuyani are the Traditional Owners of the Southern end of Lake Eyre and surroundings and also hold significant song and story lines on their Land.

In the 1860s, explorer Peter Egerton-Warburton wrote that the lake was dry, and "terrible in its death-like stillness and the vast expanse of its unbroken sterility". British geologist John Walter Gregory wrote in his 1906 book on central Australia that while the lake was sometimes described as "a fertile land of lakes", others called it a "desert of the worst type".

History

Approximately 35,000 years ago, the lake water was fresh to brackish, but has become increasingly saline since.

In a 2016 case in the Supreme Court of South Australia, the lake was noted as a sacred site and ownership was contested by three claimant groups: the Kokatha, Adnyamathanha/Kuyani and Barngarla peoples. The court ruled that none of the groups would be awarded native title to the area, as although all three groups had 'significant and credible spiritual connection to parts of Lake Torrens' it was not possible to 'prioritise one set of spiritual beliefs over the other'.

Description

Lake Torrens lies between the Arcoona Plateau to the west and the Flinders Ranges to the east, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) north of Port Augusta and about 345 kilometres (214 mi) north of the Adelaide city centre. The lake is approximately 30 metres (98 ft) above sea level, with a maximum depth of 1 m. It is located within the boundaries of Lake Torrens National Park.

Lake Torrens stretches approximately 250 kilometres (155 mi) in length and 30 kilometres (19 mi) in average width. It is Australia's second largest lake when filled with water and encompasses an area of 5,745 square kilometres (2,218 sq mi).

Usually the Lake Torrens catchment is an endorheic basin, having no outflow of water to the ocean.

Andamooka Island is the largest of several islands, lying along the western shore.

Description

Lake Gairdner is located about 440 kilometres (270 mi) northwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about 150 kilometres (93 mi) northwest of Port Augusta in the foothills on the northern side of the Gawler Ranges and to the west of Lake Torrens.

The lake is over 160 km (99 mi) long and 48 km (30 mi) across with salt over 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) thick in some places.

Lake Gairdner was named by the Governor of South Australia, Richard MacDonnell in October 1857 after Gordon Gairdner, a chief clerk of the Australian Department in the Colonial Office.

Lake Gairdner along with Lake Everard and Lake Harris form the extent of the Lake Gairdner National Park. The lakes were all once part of an inland sea that stretched all the way to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Description

Lake Mackay is the fourth largest lake in Australia. It measures approximately 100 km (60 mi) east-west and north-south. The darker areas of the lakebed are indicative of some form of desert vegetation or algae, some moisture within the soils of the dry lake, and the lowest elevations where pooling of water occurs. In this arid environment, salts and other minerals are carried to the surface through capillary action caused by evaporation, thereby producing the white reflective surface. Visible are various brown hills scattered across the eastern half of the lake and east-west-oriented sand ridges south of the lake.

Description

The lake adjoins Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park to its west and lies adjacent to Lake Callabonna linked by Salt Creek to its north, the southern Strzelecki Desert to its east, and the Frome Downs pastoral lease to its south. The ancient Lake Mega-Frome (Lakes Frome, Blanche, Callabonna and Gregory) was last connected to Lake Eyre 50–47 thousand years ago. The region in which it is situated has little rainfall and is very sparsely settled, with the closest settlement to it being Arkaroola Village some 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-west of its closest shore.

Public road access to the lake is limited to a single, rough four-wheel drive track which commences from the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park headquarters at Balcanoona (Virlkundhunha) station 30 kilometres (19 mi) west.

History

The traditional owners of the area are the Mantjintjarra Ngalia peoples, whose range extended from around Lake Wells in the east, to Lake Darlot and Lake Miranda in the west, to Cosmo Newberry through to Leonora and Lake Barlee up to Wiluna in the north.

Lake Barlee was named by John Forrest, who encountered it on 18 May 1869. Forrest's party, which was searching for the lost explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, became bogged while trying to cross the salt lake. After extracting their horses, they skirted the lake for nearly a week. On 25 May, Forrest climbed Yeedie Hill and saw the extent of the lake. Forrest named the lake after Frederick Barlee, the Colonial Secretary of Western Australia.

Description

Lake Barlee is situated on the Yilgarn block 65 kilometres (40 mi) southeast of Youanmi and 160 kilometres (99 mi) north of Bullfinch, on the border between the shires of Sandstone and Menzies. It is more than 100 kilometres (62 mi) from west to east, and about 80 kilometres (50 mi) from north to south.

Lake Barlee and other lakes in the area are cenozoic palaeovalleys, fed predominantly by groundwater flowing through ancient palaeochannels. The channels are filled with calcretes and alluvial clay-quartz units.

Like most of the clay playas in the area, it is usually dry but can fill when tropical cyclones become rain-bearing depressions after they cross the coast. It fills about once every ten years on average, after which the water usually persists for another six to nine months.

Geography

Lake Argyle normally has a surface area of about 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi). The storage capacity, to the top of the spillway is 10,763 gigalitres (3.801×1011 cu ft). The lake filled to capacity in 1973, and the spillway flowed until 1984. Lake Argyle's usual storage volume is 5,797 gigalitres (2.047×1011 cu ft), making it the largest reservoir in Australia. The combined Lake Gordon/Lake Pedder system in Tasmania is larger but is two dams connected by a canal. At maximum flood level, Lake Argyle would hold 35,000 gigalitres (1.2×1012 cu ft) of water and cover a surface area of 2,072 square kilometres (800 sq mi).

History and construction

The construction of the Ord River Dam was completed in 1971 by Dravo Corporation. The dam was officially opened the following year. The dam wall is 335 metres (1,099 ft) long, and 98 metres (322 ft) high. The earth-fill only dam wall at Lake Argyle is the most efficient dam in Australia in terms of the ratio of the size of the dam wall to the amount of water stored. The lake was named after the property it partly submerged, Argyle Downs.

Ord River Dam post office opened on 1 March 1969 and closed on 15 November 1971 demonstrating the approximate duration of the construction camp.

In 1996, the spillway wall was raised by 6 metres (20 ft), which doubled the dam's capacity. Sediment flowing into the dam caused concerns in the mid-1990s that the dam's capacity could be dramatically reduced.

Description

Kumpupintil Lake is about 160 kilometres (99 mi) long and located 300 kilometres (190 mi) east of Newman.

The 33,000-hectare (82,000-acre) lake typically is dry, except during very wet periods such as the 1900 floods and in many recent tropical wet seasons since 1967. It lies on the Tropic of Capricorn, due east of the mining town of Newman and the Jigalong Community. It is at the northern side of the Little Sandy Desert and south of the Karlamilyi National Park. The Canning Stock Route passes down the western shores of the lake and the surrounds consist mostly of sand dunes. Its elevation is 325 metres (1066 ft) above mean sea level.

The lake is important to Martu people for spiritual and ceremonial reasons, as well as being an important place for water and traditional food.

History

Lake Amadeus is on Aboriginal land, and is covered by the Katiti and Petermann Aboriginal Land Trusts.

The first European to arrive at the lake, the explorer Ernest Giles, encountered it in 1872. Giles originally intended to honour his benefactor Baron Ferdinand von Mueller with the eponym Lake Ferdinand. However, Mueller prevailed upon Giles to instead honour King Amadeo I of Spain (reigned 1870–1873, known in English as King Amadeus I), who had previously bestowed honour on him. The lake's expanse proved a barrier for Giles, who could see both Uluru and Kata Tjuta but could not reach them as the dry lake bed was not able to support the weight of his horses.

Description

Lake Neale was named after Frank Neale, one of the pilots of an aerial expedition to accurately survey the desert regions northwest of Alice Springs in 1930. Neale flew one of the two planes that had been hired by explorer Donald Mackay for the expedition. The team made 15 survey flights over 24 days, in which they mapped the dimensions of Lakes Amadeus and Neale and found the even larger Lake Mackay, further to the north.

The first European to see Lake Neale was the explorer Ernest Giles in 1872. He was travelling towards Kata Tjuta after sighting the peak from a distance, but Lake Amadeus blocked his path. He sighted Lake Neale when he tried to reach Mount Unapproachable, on the northern side of the lake.

History

In 1963, the federal government provided a $5 million grant to Tasmania's Hydro-Electric Commission to build the 80-kilometre (50 mi) Gordon River Road from Maydena into the Gordon River area in the South West Wilderness region. Construction was underway by 1964, and in early 1967, Eric Reece, the Premier of Tasmania, formally announced plans to flood the natural Lake Pedder and the legislation was debated in the Tasmanian Parliament several days later. A small environmental movement was formed, which mobilised in the 1980s to stop the proposed Franklin River Dam.

There was a National Park out there, but I can't remember exactly where it was... at least, it wasn't of substantial significance in the scheme of things.

Dam and reservoir overview

Built by the Hydro Electric Corporation (TAS) between 1964 and 1974, the Gordon Dam wall is 198 metres (650 ft) long and 140 metres (460 ft) high, making it the tallest dam in Tasmania and the fifth-tallest in Australia. When full, Lake Gordon has capacity of approximately 12,400 gigalitres (10.1×10^6 acre⋅ft), making Lake Gordon the largest lake in Australia. The surface area of the lake is 27,800 hectares (69,000 acres), the equivalent of twenty-five times the amount of water in Port Jackson, and is drawn from a catchment area of 2,014 square kilometres (778 sq mi). The single controlled spillway is capable of discharging 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s).

Approximately 48 arch dams have been built in Australia and only nine have double curvature.

Early human history

Aboriginal people have lived in Tasmania for approximately 35,000 years, crossing over the Bassian Plain from the mainland. Early Aboriginal heritage sites indicate that they occupied SW Tasmania from that time, until early European colonisation, however, there are no known heritage sites within the Lake Pedder reservoir. Aboriginal Tasmanians used fire to clear vegetation and control the movement of macropods, which may have contributed to the extent of the buttongrass plains around the Serpentine valley and wider SW.

European surveyors found Lake Pedder during a trigonometric survey in 1835, with surveyor John Wedge naming it after the first chief justice of Van Diemen's Land, John Pedder.

Ecology

Lake Pedder had the highest number of endemic species for any lake in Australia, with numerous invertebrates only found on its shores, and several species of freshwater fish. The swamp galaxias is endemic to Lake Pedder and its tributaries, as was the Pedder Galaxias, now extinct in its native range.

The vegetation of the valleys around Lake Pedder varied from wetlands and buttongrass moorlands to eucalypt forests and rainforests.

Impact on the ecology of the Murray River

The construction of Hume Dam has caused significant changes to the flow patterns and ecology of the Murray River. Before the construction of the Hume Weir, flows in normal, non-drought years were low in summer and autumn, though still significant overall, rising in winter due to seasonal rainfall and reaching a flood-peak in late spring due to snow-melt in the Murray and its tributaries' alpine headwaters. The flow is now effectively reversed, with low flows in winter and sustained, relatively high flows in late spring, summer and early autumn to meet irrigation demands. The spring flood peak has been virtually eliminated.

The water released from the base of the Hume Weir is unnaturally cold, at least 10 °C (18 °F) colder than it naturally should be.

Description

The dam is a mix of a concrete gravity dam with four earth-filled embankments. The dam wall height is 51 metres (167 ft). The crest is 1,615 metres (5,299 ft) long, with the auxiliary embankments extending a further 1,010 metres (3,310 ft). The maximum water elevation above sea level is 194 metres (636 ft). When full, the dam wall holds back 3,005,157 megalitres (106,126.1×10^6 cu ft) of water at 194 metres (636 ft) AHD. The surface area of Lake Hume is 20,190 hectares (49,900 acres). The catchment area is 15,300 square kilometres (5,900 sq mi). The dam wall is constructed of rock covered with clay and other earth and is designed to carry vehicular traffic.

Location

Constructed over a 17-year period between 1919 and 1936, the Hume Dam is approximately 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) east of the city of Albury. The dam was built, involving a workforce of thousands, by a consortium of NSW and Victorian government agencies that included the Water Resources Commission of New South Wales, the Public Works Department of New South Wales, and the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria.

Supplies to the construction site were delivered via rail, through the construction of a branch siding from the Wodonga – Cudgewa railway. Hume Dam is jointly managed by Victorian and New South Wales authorities on behalf of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.