Apart from some rain over the past week or so, a lack of rain and natural flows since 2022 means the Wimmera catchment is rapidly drying. This is leading to decreasing water levels in storage lakes and dams, and a greater need for careful water management.

Adapting water-for-environment flows to meet environmental, social and recreational needs while assessing dry conditions is critical to conserve water for future flows if conditions remain dry.

Wimmera CMA is planning summer flows to support important habitat for waterway plants and wildlife including our fragile populations of platypus and river blackfish, Wirrap, in the MacKenzie River. Part of this is directing water to wildlife refuge pools, hoping to prevent them from drying out and to help the river environment recover when conditions improve.

Refuge pools

With the threat of continuing dry conditions and coming into summer, Wimmera CMA is also working on a joint project with the Victorian Environmental Water Holder to protect four drought refuge pools in the Lower Wimmera River between Dimboola and Jeparit.

Drought refuges are sections of a waterway that hold water through long dry periods. This project is connecting these pools to the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline so they can maintain ecological values and increase resilience until a wet period occurs.

Summer Flows

Water-for-environment flows have started into refuge pool watering points.

Other flows, December to early January:

• Lower Mt William Creek and the Wimmera River
• MacKenzie and Burnt Creek

Keep updated with current flows via the Wimmera River Flows online map