Breadcrumb

Lake Eyre Basin bioregion

Eringa waterhole in the Macumba catchment, SA. April 2013 Credit: Catherine Miles (Miles Environmental Consulting)

This bioregional assessment helps us understand how coal seam gas and coal mining development could affect water resources and water-dependent assets in the Lake Eyre Basin bioregion. It identifies where potential impacts might occur, as well as the areas that are unlikely to be affected.

Lake Eyre Basin bioregion

The Lake Eyre Basin bioregion covers an area of about 1.31 million square kilometres of central and north-eastern Australia, which is almost one-sixth of the country. It extends across parts of Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and the Northern Territory and incorporates the whole of the Lake Eyre drainage basin. The bioregion was selected for assessment because of the likelihood of coal seam gas and coal mining development and the potential for water-dependent impacts on the environment and other industries that use water such as agriculture.

Subregions

The Lake Eyre Basin bioregion includes four subregions: the Galilee, Cooper, Pedirka and Arckaringa subregions.

The boundaries of the subregions in the Lake Eyre Basin bioregion follow the boundaries of four geological basins known to contain coal and coal seam gas: the Pedirka and Arckaringa basins in the west, and the Galilee and Cooper basins in the east. Some water resources outside the bioregion that could potentially be impacted by coal seam gas or coal mining development in the Lake Eyre Basin bioregion will also be considered in the assessment.

Supporting knowledge projects

Several related projects investigated the surface and groundwater resources in coal basins within the Lake Eyre Basin, including.

  • Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Monitoring
  • Lake Eyre Basin Springs Assessment
  • Arckaringa Basin and Pedirka Basin Groundwater Assessment
  • Numerical groundwater model for the Galilee Basin
Last updated:
2 May 2018