Scientists share water quality insights with the community
TropWATER scientists Zoe Bainbridge and Stephen Lewis shared the latest results from the Landholders Driving Change (LDC) Community Water Quality Sampling Project at a special event in Collinsville in November.
Zoe provided an overview of the project’s progress during the past seven years, including the number of participating properties, sampling sites, and water quality samples collected by local landholders. She highlighted how results had been communicated to graziers and how feedback from landholders in the community had shaped the program.
A key strength of the project was the strong collaboration between JCU TropWATER, NQ Dry Tropics, and local graziers. Each participating property received an update for the 2024–2025 wet season, showing individual site results for this Wet season and a comparison to earlier sampled years.. Zoe also explained how the data was helping to guide investment decisions and improve modelling accuracy for the region through a multiple lines of evidence approach.
Stephen took attendees on a journey through the Burdekin River’s long-term discharge and flood history, drawing on more than a century of river gauge records from Clare and Home Hill, and even further back — 350 years — using luminescent lines in coral cores. With a coral slice and UV lamp in hand, Stephen demonstrated how these glowing layers reveal past flood events. He also discussed long-term sediment loads and how they reflected changes in land use and environmental conditions across the Burdekin Basin.
Zoe and Stephen showed how the LDC Community Water Quality Sampling Group was helping to build a clearer picture of how, when, and where sediment moved during different flow events. During the past seven years, landholders around Bowen and Collinsville have collected wet season samples from nine monitoring sites across major tributaries and sub-catchments.
This data is helping the Queensland Government’s Paddock to Reef (P2R) Program refine its modelling and direct future investment. It also supports the LDC project’s broader goals — improving gully repair prioritisation and land management practices to keep soil on the land and improve water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.
TropWATER has also developed a conceptual map of Burdekin fine sediment sources, transport, and export, a useful reference for anyone wanting to understand how sediment travelled through the catchment available here.
JCU TropWATER training for water quality samplers at Havilah Station
JCU TropWATER and NQ Dry Tropics visited Havilah Station to train station workers in water sampling techniques.
Although Havilah had previously been part of the community monitoring program, sampling had paused for a period, and this visit marked a welcome restart. Zoe and Stephen demonstrated how to collect samples correctly, while NQ Dry Tropics staff explained how they’ll retrieve samples after the wet season and deliver them to TropWATER’s laboratory for analysis.
Havilah Station is located along an important waterway, Rosella Creek, which discharges into the Burdekin River.
Station Creek, a tributary of the Bowen River, has been the focus of major streambank restoration work to reduce erosion.
This event was delivered through the Landholders Driving Change Phase Two project, funded by the Queensland Government under the Queensland Reef Water Quality Program.
