Resilient Rivers

The Wet Tropics region of north Queensland is the highest rainfall area in Australia, with some locations—such as the Bellenden Ker Range—receiving in excess of 8 metres of rainfall annually (BOM, 2023). This unique climatic setting creates dynamic and highly responsive catchments, where many waterways are steep causing water to move through the system fast during storm events.

These hydrological characteristics are natural, however they can become particularly hazardous during extreme weather, especially in modified catchments. Recent flooding events, most notably following Cyclone Jasper in December 2023 and the significant rainfall and floods across the Ingham region in early 2025, have caused widespread damage to public infrastructure, agricultural land, and waterways. These events highlight the urgent need to increase the resilience of our waterways.

Rivers are naturally mobile systems, however their capacity to erode banks and shift course has been significantly exacerbated by changes in land use, particularly the clearing or degradation of riparian vegetation. Deep-rooted vegetation helps to bind the soil together, strengthening the banks and increasing their resilience against erosion. In many areas, the loss of these critical buffer zones has reduced the stability of riverbanks, impaired water quality, and left the surrounding landscape more vulnerable to erosion during high-flow events.

Building waterway resilience in the Wet Tropics requires a coordinated and long-term approach, including the restoration and protection of riparian corridors, reforestation of degraded catchments, and land management practices that work with, rather than against, the natural hydrology of the region.

Case Studies

Lower Barron River 2023 –  2024 (Cyclone Jasper Floods)