South East Queensland waterways, land use and slope analysis

Harris, Bruce Robert (2008) South East Queensland waterways, land use and slope analysis. [USQ Project]

Preview	Text (Main Project) Harris_2008.pdf Download (4MB)
Preview	Text (Appendix D: Metatdata) Harris_2008_AppendixD_Metadata.pdf Download (19kB)
Preview	Text (Appendix E: Slope Classification land Use - Miami) Harris_2008_AppendixE_Slope_Classification_Land_Use_Miami.pdf Download (1MB)
Preview	Text (Appendix F: Slope Classification Land Use - OSRAS) Harris_2008_AppendixF_Slope_Classification_Land_Use_OSRAS.pdf Download (346kB)
Preview	Text (Appendix G: Land Use Report) Harris_2008_AppendixG_Land_Use_Report.pdf Download (5MB)
	Other (Appendix B: Drawings) Harris_2008_AppendixB_Drawings.zip Download (201MB)
	Other (ESRI) Harris_2008_ESRI.zip Download (128MB)
	Other (Map Info) Harris_2008_MapInfo.zip Download (127MB)

Abstract

A rapid population increase in South East Queensland (SEQ) has placed extra demands on the ecosystem of the region. This has led to an increase in the need to understand what’s happening within the landscape, in particular the need to understand more about the health of waterways and catchments. Therefore, there is a requirement for more information relating to waterways and catchments.

Information about waterways and catchments has become more important than ever before. Catchment groups, waterways managers, Local Governments and State Government
departments all valuing any data about waterways and catchments. This information assists them manage the health and remediation of these systems.

Any data that assists with planning and the continued maintenance of healthy ecosystems is highly sought after. Managing waterways to ensure environmental values are maintained while allowing for continued economic development is major challenge facing many areas of
Australia (Newham et al. 2004).

It has been identified by planners and users of the existing waterways data that there is a need for knowledge of lengths of streams in land use types, for existing and future land use. Identification of lengths of stream order in land use types would enable better management
of these waterways and assists with planning change, or lack of change for an area. This study provides information on the lengths of waterways in existing and future land use categories.

There was also a need for more information about SEQ waterways with regard their relationship with the slope of the land over which they lie. Slope analysis of waterways
assists in the estimation of sedimentation run-off and transport of pollutants through waterways. It also assists with such things as identifying nutrient export ‘hot spots’ that require treatment. Knowledge of slope of the land over which waterways flow can assist characterise land, and therefore help with the planning process. This study supplies information on the lengths of waterways in slope categories.

This study addresses the identified waterway, land use and slope requirements for the eastward draining (mostly into Moreton Bay) catchments and shires of SEQ. The project
builds on previous waterways and catchments data created by the author through a project at BMT WBM. This project created stream ordered waterways information of the region for the SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership (SEQHWP).

A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) created for the previous work is used in this new project as the basis to create categories of slope for SEQ. From the slope categories, lengths of stream ordered waterways are derived for each catchment and shire in the region. The waterways are also analysed with both existing and future land use categories. Finally, information about lengths of stream order within land use areas for each SEQ catchment
and shire is provided.

Lengths of waterways are already available for catchments, but not for the shires, and not for land use and slope categories for catchments or shires. So, while the project defines these waterway lengths in land use and slope categories, it also delivers another benefit in that it supplies areas of land use (existing and future) for the catchments and shires. It also delivers areas of slope categories for each of the catchments and shires in SEQ.
A major implication from this study is that it has become apparent that there is a straight forward, simplistic way to work out lengths of waterways, and indeed lengths of stream ordered waterways (see Figure 1-3 for explanation of stream ordered waterways) within catchments and land use areas (and any other large land area). This can be done without the need for detailed DEM construction and processing. It was found that for every square kilometre of catchment or land use there is approximately two kilometres of waterways. Also, for every square kilometre of land use there is approximately one kilometre of stream
order one waterways. Stream order two waterways are half the length of stream order one waterways. Stream order three waterways are approximately half the length of stream order two waterways, and so on.

The accompanying hard copy A3 Drawing addendum gives details for all catchments (Levels 1, 2 and 3) and shires, or parts of shires within the SEQ catchments area, detailing lengths of waterways within the various land use and slope categories.

Information from this study will be of use to a large number of organisations in SEQ, being delivered in various formats, from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data through to the A3 hard copy output. Any available resources for waterway management may be better
utilised with an improved knowledge of those waterways. To the authors knowledge, this is the first time this type of information has been created over such a large area, and over so many catchments and shires.

Statistics for this ePrint Item

Item Type:	USQ Project
Refereed:	No
Item Status:	Live Archive
Additional Information:	Appendix files have been loaded as Zip Files. Note that some of these files, eg. Matlab files, are unable to be opened in Windows.
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre:	Historic - Faculty of Engineering and Surveying - Department of Surveying and Land Information (Up to 30 Jun 2013)
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2009 08:27
Last Modified:	27 Sep 2022 03:48
Uncontrolled Keywords:	South East Queensland; waterways; catchments; ecosystems; land slope; slope analysis
Fields of Research (2008):	14 Economics > 1402 Applied Economics > 140205 Environment and Resource Economics 05 Environmental Sciences > 0502 Environmental Science and Management > 050209 Natural Resource Management 09 Engineering > 0909 Geomatic Engineering > 090903 Geospatial Information Systems
Fields of Research (2020):	38 ECONOMICS > 3801 Applied economics > 380105 Environment and resource economics 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410406 Natural resource management 40 ENGINEERING > 4013 Geomatic engineering > 401302 Geospatial information systems and geospatial data modelling
URI:	https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/5110

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