GEOMORPHOLOGY REPORT - CRC LEME

Question 3: Understanding of the drivers of floodplain health with respect to groundwater
processes
The combined LIDAR and SPOT/ASTER interpretation assisted in mapping floodplain health
and allowed prediction of the geomorphic, soil, and sedimentologic parameters influencing
associated with salt stores and recharge, important to the health of floodplain vegetation.
Integrated products relating to floodplain health are found in the GIS and Atlas and include
the Conductive Groundwater, Conductive Soils, Surface Salinity, Salinity Hazard, and Salt
Store maps.
Question 4: Identification of the high recharge areas in the floodplain?
ASTER and LIDAR interpretation we predict will identify potential areas on the basis of
abandoned or stagnant river channels or scroll bars lacking an impermeable clay drape. These
will need to be field verified, however, especially as stagnant or abandoned channels may
well have their bottoms sealed by clay. This would leave only the youngest meander scroll
bars which lack the pervasive clay drape, or where the clay drape is very thin, as areas of high
potential recharge on the floodplain. Mapping surface recharge are found in the GIS and
Atlas include the Flush Zone Thickness, Flush Zone Conductivities, Extent of Flush Zones,
and Groundwater Recharge maps.
Question 5: What is the extent and thickness of the Blanchetown Clay and the Coonambidgal
Formation?
We can’t answer this question in this area from surface exposures as imaged by satellites or
scanned to form DEMS. Nor are they visible in preliminary field observations. We regard
this question as answerable only through a combination of AEM and bore hole data, as
showing the Thickness of Quaternary Alluvium, Extent of Quaternary Alluvium, and Depth
to Top of Blanchetown Clay maps in the GIS and Atlas.
Question 6: Where is salt stored in the unsaturated zone?
We predict that contextualised analysis of surface soil samples will help identify these areas
of salt storage, backed up by analysis of shallow (above the water table) borehole samples.
integrated products relating to salt stores Conductive Groundwater, Conductive Soils, Surface
Salinity, Salinity Hazard, and Salt Store maps in the GIS and Atlas.
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