Territory Stories

End of Wet Season Stream Flow Measurements, Roper River, May 2014

Details:

Title

End of Wet Season Stream Flow Measurements, Roper River, May 2014

Creator

Kerle, Errol; Waugh, Peter; Northern Territory. Department of Land Resource Management

Collection

E-Publications; E-Books; PublicationNT; Aug-14

Date

2014-06-01

Location

Roper River

Description

Early dry season snapshot measurements were taken on the Roper River to establish water quality and quantity conditions at commencement of baseflow conditions. The snapshot measurements are used to: 1. Refine and calibrate the hydrological model used to assess resource availability and allocations. 2. Better define aquifer recharge/discharge zones along the river, and 3. Provide a dataset of comparable flow and water quality measurements at identical periods in the annual water cycle.

Notes

Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT)

Table of contents

Summary -- Aim -- Introduction -- Observations -- Discussion -- Conclusion -- Recommendations -- References

Language

English

Subject

End of Wet Season Stream Flow Measurement

Publisher name

Northern Territory Government

Place of publication

Palmerston

Series

Aug-14

Format

24 pages : illustrations, colour maps ; 30 cm.

File type

application/pdf

ISBN

1743500637; 9781743500637

Use

Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright owner

Northern Territory Government

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/260106

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/492338

Page content

12 Figure 7 Roper River Conductivity Profile May 2014 pH All headwater sources (Little Roper River, Waterhouse River and Thermal Springs) have slightly acidic waters with pH between 6.3 and 6.9. Downstream from the confluence of Little Roper and Waterhouse Rivers, pH rises to a slightly alkaline 7.08 at G9030176. Despite higher alkalinity inflows from Elsey and Salt Creeks (7.4 and 7.3 respectively), overall pH falls back to 6.9 at G9035294 before rising steadily as the river continues downstream. Overall, pH measurements conducted in May 2014 were lower than those collected in the October 2013 snapshot measurements, probably due to dilution from wet season recharge and reduced retention period of water within the aquifer immediately after the wet season. Interestingly, pH levels in discharges from the North-West are significantly less than those collected in October, while those flowing from the South show much smaller variation. This is possibly due to higher rainfall totals to the north and shorter retention periods in the aquifer for water flowing from the north-west. Figure 8 Roper River pH Profile May 2014