Protect Your Creek

About Bulimba Creek and Its Catchment

Bulimba Creek is located in the eastern and south-eastern areas of Brisbane and generally flows northwards into the Brisbane River.

The Bulimba Creek catchment comprises a complex network of creeks and major tributaries, some of which are unnamed, occupying 122 square kilometres, or about 10 per cent of Brisbane’s area. This makes it one of the largest creek catchments in the City. The catchment area extends from the southern suburbs of Kuraby and Runcorn to Hemmant and Murarrie in the north. About 120,000 people call this area home.

The catchment is ringed by significant remnant forest and has extensive areas along the creek corridor that can be restored. The catchment area contains 16 bushland remnants, seven freshwater swamplands and 10 significant riparian remnants.

The upper reaches of the catchment contain undulating hills with narrow valley floors, while the central and downstream reaches feature a wide flat floodplain. Land is currently used for residential, rural-residential, commercial, industrial, recreational and open-space purposes. There are also remnant bushland and wetland areas, with about 10 per cent of the catchment containing bushland vegetation and wetlands.

What Is a Catchment?

A catchment is an area of land bounded by natural features, such as hills, from which all water run-off flows to a common low point, such as a creek, lake, river or bay. The Bulimba Creek catchment covers 122 square kilometres and runs from the Runcorn and Kuraby area to Murarrie.

Catchment boundaries may not be readily distinguishable in urban areas. Frequently, the older main roads in an area run along ridges, which may indicate the boundaries of a catchment. In the Bulimba Creek catchment, these boundaries are Rochedale Road, Wynnum Road, Cavendish Road, Mains Road, Pinelands Road, Calam Road and Compton Road. Many of the activities that take place in the catchment will affect the water quality of the creek and its tributaries and, in turn, that of Moreton Bay.

Natural Catchments

Much of the water that falls onto a natural catchment is absorbed by soil and plants. Ground-covering plants, which bind the soil and slow water flow, reduce soil erosion caused by stormwater. As water makes its way down the creek, rocks and meanders in the waterway system also slow the water flow.

Past landuse activities have decreased the amount of original bushland in the Bulimba Creek catchment. Remnants remain in:

• Toohey Forest Park;
• Karawatha Forest Reserve;
• Seven Hills Bushland Reserve;
• Brisbane Koala Bushlands;
• Whites Hill Bushland Reserve;
• Pine Mountain, or Boral, Bushland;
• Belmont Hills Bushland Reserve;
• Hemmant Quarry;
• and other wetlands and small bushland areas at various locations along the tributaries and main channel of Bulimba Creek. 

Most of the catchment continues to be developed for residential and industrial use. 

Waterwatch

The Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee is actively involved in Waterwatch. The Waterwatch program encourages partnerships between government, community and industry to address water quality issues. From Waterwatch Queensland:

Waterwatch Queensland is part of a national community-based water quality monitoring program that assists communities to assess catchment health by monitoring the local aquatic environment. Based on the monitoring results, groups work with all interested parties to translate their knowledge of water quality problems into constructive action (like streambank revegetation, litter clean ups, fencing and/or reducing pollution from stormwater) that may be identified as necessary.

Trained B4C volunteers regularly monitor water quality at sites along Bulimba Creek using several methods of water quality data collection.

Much of the water testing completed by B4C uses the traditional testing kit, in which chemical reactions producing colour change are used to measure pH, dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, nitrates and chlorides. Physical tests are used to determine temperature and turbidity. Observations are made of flora and fauna, macroinvertebrates and erosion.

Data collected through routine testing by B4C are included in the Waterwatch Database for the region and used to monitor adverse changes in the creek.

B4C uses the Waterwatch kit extensively for education at high schools, primary schools and even TAFE colleges.

B4C also uses Hydrolab's hand-held Quanta ® water quality monitoring system to collect a wide range of information precisely and quickly. It can be used to sample or monitor water from almost any source, from rivers to sewers to tanks to aquaria.

The battery-powered device has a TRANSMITTER, which is lowered on a cable into water up to 100m in depth, attached to a DISPLAY UNIT which allows viewing of five parameters at once. The system can measure:
temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, specific conductance, depth, and oxidation-reduction potential.

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