Goulburn River - Overview

Overview

North of Eildon the Goulburn River enters the northern plains of Victoria and eventually flows into the Murray River near Echuca. This area is a very productive irrigated agricultural area. The Goulburn River was named after Henry Goulburn. There is also a Goulburn River in New South Wales.

Tributaries include the Broken, Rubicon, Delatite, Howqua, Jamieson and Yea Rivers.

Much of the flow is extracted, and the river is very heavily regulated, which has strongly affected the river's ecosystem. With recent years being some of the driest on record in the basin, there has been even further stress on the river's ecosystem.

Because of all this there has been much controversy over the construction of the North–South Pipeline, which will pipe 70 billion litres of water annually to Melbourne's water supply. There are arguments that all the water piped to Melbourne will be saved water, by the upgrade of the irrigation infrastructure in the Goulburn river basin all a part of a food bowl modernisation project.

In June 2008 the Murray-Darling Basin Commission released a report on the condition of the Murray-Darling basin, with the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee rivers both rated in a very poor condition in the Murray-Darling basin with fish stocks in both rivers were also rated as extremely poor.