| Menindee Lakes | |
|---|---|
 Satellite photo of Menindee Lakes | |
  Menindee Lakes | |
| Location | Far West, New South Wales |
| Coordinates | 32°20′59″S 142°22′08″E / 32.34972°S 142.36889°E |
| Lake type | Ephemeral fresh water |
| Primary inflows | Darling River |
| Primary outflows | Darling River |
| Catchment area | 273,229 square kilometres (105,494 sq mi) |
| Basin countries | Australia |
| Managing agency | Murray Darling Basin Authority |
| Designation | National park: Kinchega |
| Built | 1949 |
| First flooded | 1968 |
| Max. length | 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) (Lake Menindee only) |
| Max. width | 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) (Lake Menindee only) |
| Surface area | 47,500 hectares (117,000 acres) |
| Average depth | 7 metres (23 ft) |
| Water volume | 1,731,000 megalitres (1.403×106 acre⋅ft) |
| Surface elevation | 60 metres (200 ft) AHD |
| Settlements | Menindee |
| References | [1][2][3] |
The Menindee Lakes is a system of 9 large, but relatively shallow lakes, located in south-west New South Wales on the Darling (Barka) River, about 200 km upstream of the Darling River's junction with the River Murray. The Darling River is fed by nine major tributary river systems flowing from south-east Queensland and north and central NSW. The town of Menindee is close to the lakes and Sunset Strip township is on the northern shore of Lake Menindee. The nearest city is Broken Hill.[4]
There are 4 main lakes in the system:
- Lake Wetherell
- Lake Pamamaroo
- Lake Menindee (the largest lake, also known as Lake Minandichi[5])
- Lake Cawndilla.
The lakes rely on replenishment, when water flows over the banks of the Darling (Barka) River.[4] The NSW Government modified the lakes (completed 1968) to improve their storage capacity for farming, recreation, mining and urban water supply and to help manage floods in the Darling River. In the 1960s, governments decided to use some of the lakes as water storages, building a large weir (Main Weir) to divert water into lakes Pamamaroo, Tandure and Bijijie. Levees, block dams and channels were built to regulate the flow of water in the system. There is relatively little information on the flooding regimes of the lakes before they were regulated (dammed) in the 1960s but they were undoubtedly highly productive and important wetland systems where many fish were spawned.[4]
The Menindee Lakes Water Storage Scheme supplies water to Broken Hill, the lower Darling and to water users along the Murray River in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. Seven of the lakes have been incorporated in an artificially regulated overflow system providing both for flood mitigation and as storage for domestic use, livestock and irrigation downstream. The lakes are also important for waterbirds.
Recent research (Thoms and Delong 2018) found that the food webs have changed in a way that suggests that the ecological resilience of the system has declined.[4]
The lakes were filled to capacity in 2021 with Lakes Cawndilla and Lake Menindee filling completely in early September meaning that the system was filled to over 98 per cent capacity with water flowing into Lake Speculation for the first time since 2012.[6]
- ^ "Menindee Lakes Storages". Water delivery: storages. State Water Corporation. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
brochurewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
ancoldwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c d Moritz, Craig (February 2019). "Investigation of the causes of mass fish kills in the Menindee Region NSW over the summer of 2018–2019". Australian Academy of Science.
- ^ Sturt, Charles (1849). Narrative of an expedition into Central Australia. London: T & W Boone.
- ^ "After historic fish kills and drought Menindee Lakes hit capacity for first time in almost a decade". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 11 September 2021. Retrieved 11 September 2021.