Short Virtual Presentation & Digital Poster 10th Australian Stream Management Conference 2021

The March 2021 Flood On The Hawkesbury-Nepean River An opportunity to revisit The Flood-Dominated Regime and Drought-Dominated Regime Model (#24)

Tom Hubble 1 , H E Power 2 , R F Warner 3
  1. University of Sydney, University Of Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW
  3. University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW

The March 2021 flood on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River was the first major flood to occur in this catchment since 1990, and the first of any significance since the onset of a ‘Drought-Dominated Regime’ that began in the early 1990’s.  The March flood peaked at 12.9 metres (measured at Windsor Bridge) and resulted in the evacuation of several thousand people and one fatality. Many of the evacuees live in and around a region known as the ‘Sackville Bathtub’ which remained inundated for several days. The communities residing to the north of the river at North Richmond and Wilberforce were isolated for several days due to the floodwater submerging Richmond and Windsor Bridges as well as landslides, triggered by the flood-associated storms, which blocked the other main access road to this district.

Download Full Paper