2016-07-18 General Committee Meeting - Item 3 - Attachment 1 - Flood Management Plan

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                                      “Some of the earliest references to flooding in the region date back
    History of                        to the late 1800’s.”
Flooding in Noosa


Like all areas of Australia, Noosa’s heritage includes        Shortly after this time a communal agricultural
thousands of years of Aboriginal history. However,            settlement began around Lake Weyba in the lower Noosa
little is known of significant weather events and their       River area made up of Brisbane people dispossessed by
impact on the lives of the traditional inhabitants of the     the 1893 floods.
area prior to the arrival of European settlers. The local
modern history of the region is often interspersed with       A handful of historical flood levels recorded in March
severe weather events resulting in shipwrecks and the         1955 represent the commencement of “official” flood
search and rescue of their survivors. It wasn’t until the     records held by the Noosa Council. These records were
mid-1800’s that official surveys and reconnaissance of        further supplemented following a significant flood event
the area were conducted. These early expeditions were         in February 1968.
seeking access to the region’s timber and the River offered
a useful means for transporting timber to the coast for
shipping to Brisbane.

The clearing of large areas of timber within the catchment
and its replacement with orchards, pastures and sugar
cane would have introduced the first significant man
made change to the runoff characteristics of the river
system. Cleared catchments typically have faster runoff
rates and combined with the inherent disturbance to the
ground cleared catchments will often lose large amounts
of topsoil due to erosion. The eroded soil is transported
into local waterways and water bodies often smothering
aquatic ecosystems and reducing their depth and
subsequent capacity to convey flood waters.

Some of the earliest references to flooding in the region
date back to the late 1800’s. During the “Brisbane” floods
of 1893 there are recounts of rain falling for nine days
during which Lake Cootharaba rose by two metres.
                                                              February 1931 Milk Delivery Noosa Council Library Archives




                                                                                              Noosa Council | Flood Management Plan | Page 10