The results are in for Glenthorne’s water survey

A bathy­met­ric sur­vey of Glenthorne’s mid­dle dam has revealed that although the dam is par­tic­u­lar­ly deep in one small sec­tion – mea­sur­ing a total of 6 metres deep when full – the depths of the remain­ing sec­tions of the dam are between 1 – 3 metres deep.

These find­ings mean that there are many options for the even­tu­al design and mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the dam to cre­ate a cen­tral wet­land fea­ture that has water year-round.

An above-water-lev­el sur­vey was also con­duct­ed on the area around the mid­dle dam, which includ­ed the low­er dam and down­stream. This will inform the over­all design of the whole water sys­tem for the property.

The Glen­thorne Nation­al Park Mas­ter Plan pro­pos­es con­cepts that include the cre­ation of a per­ma­nent wet­land fea­ture as well plans to restore water flows to the low­er part of the property.

The restora­tion of flows to the low­er part of the prop­er­ty will help the restora­tion of the creek line, pro­vid­ing habi­tat for aquat­ic flo­ra and fau­na cur­rent­ly absent from this part of the property.

Options are being con­sid­ered to estab­lish a water flow mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion on the prop­er­ty that will pro­vide real-time data on flow vol­umes and dura­tions. This is in addi­tion to the infor­ma­tion being gath­ered by ecol­o­gists on flows post rainfall.

Recent rain­fall events in the area have demon­strat­ed how quick­ly water flow is gen­er­at­ed upstream and on the prop­er­ty. The recent rain­fall events in Feb­ru­ary were suf­fi­cient to total­ly fill the top dam from empty.

Under­stand­ing the rela­tion­ship between rain­fall and water flows on the prop­er­ty is crit­i­cal to ensure the safe and effec­tive man­age­ment of water on the prop­er­ty, includ­ing the design of key com­po­nents of the cen­tral hub area detailed in the mas­ter plan.

Are there any fish in the dam?

Ecol­o­gists have also con­duct­ed a sur­vey of the mid­dle dam that has revealed that there are no fish present despite being stocked in the past.

This is good news as the species of fish pre­vi­ous­ly stocked were non-native species, like trout, which are known to have neg­a­tive impacts on native fauna.

The dam is not life­less though and the sur­vey did dis­cov­er lots of long-neck tur­tles, along with yab­bies and shrimp, all of which are native to the area.

Click the link below to see the tur­tles in action.

After a quick health check, the tur­tles were returned to the dam.

Main image: Glen­thorne’s mid­dle dam.