Riverbank Rehabilitation Project

The key activities of the Riverbank Rehabilitation Project are:

• Riverbank rehabilitation at targeted sites for bed and bank stabilisation in partnership with Soil Conservation Service. 
• River experts giving land managers practical advice on caring for waterways and getting planning approvals.
• Reviewing planning and approval barriers that make riverbank rehabilitation hard for land managers and recommend ways to improve the process.

Project timeline

September 2021–June 2026: 

$18.46 million for riverbank rehabilitation at targeted sites across 7 NSW catchments from Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

November 2023–June 2026: 

$30 million from the Riparian Stabilisation Package (under Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements) to continue work in the initial 7 catchments, and expand to 4 additional catchments, totalling 11.  

These success stories and resources show how the project is making a difference in flood damaged areas.

Rehabilitating a site on the Wilson River

The rehabilitation of a site on the Wilson River in the Hastings catchment highlights the work of the project. In collaboration with the Soil Conservation Service, rock and timber structures were installed along with planting 2,030 native tube stock plants to ensure long-term protection of the riparian environment and prevent active erosion. 

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Video transcript

Rehabilitating the Wilson River

We are currently working in the areas that were most

impacted by the February and March flooding events in 2021.

These areas include the Richmond, Clarence, Nimbukah, McClay, Hastings, Manning and

Hawkesbury rivers and their major tributaries.

The project is being jointly funded by the NSW and Australian governments in

response to disaster declared high rainfall and flooding events.

The River Rehabilitation Project supports impacted

waterways and rural landholders in two key areas.

The first is targeted riverbank rehabilitation works focused on the protection of

high value agricultural, cultural and environmental natural assets.

The second provides direct support to flood impacted landholders through the

delivery of the riverbank erosion support process.

This support provides tailored technical advice on

what landholders can do to improve and manage riverbanks

and provides case management support to navigate the

approval pathways required to implement in stream works.

This process also aims to strengthen the quality of applications required for

waterway approvals therefore reducing delays.

Today we are on the Wilson River in the Hastings

catchment at one of our project sites for on-ground works.

We are undertaking highly targeted riverbank rehabilitation works that were

identified following a scientific prioritisation process

and are focused on the protection of high value

agricultural, cultural and environmental natural assets.

This site was prioritised due to the presence of key

assets at risk of erosion and with high recovery potential.

The assets protected and future-proofed by

undertaking this project include high value agricultural land,

threatened ecological communities, groundwater dependent ecosystems, threatened and

protected species, freshwater fish communities and key fish habitat.

This project site is located on an unconfined section

of the Wilson River that had channel widening throughout.

The downstream portion of the reach was actively eroding with a section of the left

bank retreating up to 30 metres following the 2021 flood events.

In addition, there was an existing in-stream rock grade control structure that was

at significant risk of being damaged resulting in

further accelerated and ongoing bed and bank erosion.

Our construction delivery partner, the Soil Conservation Service, has installed six

rock groins, rock revetment, timber pile

fields, a rock apron and flood chute armoring.

This project is really important for the Wilson River.

What it does is actually ensure we've got long-term protection

of upstream riparian environments

and ensuring that the nix zone doesn't progress

any further up the river and cause future damage

to not only the river system

but also adjacent landholders' farmland.

Over a five-year period,

this site lost about 35,000 cubic metres of sediment,

which ultimately impacts downstream waterways and users.

So it's really important to deal

with the erosion sediment issues

coming off this site as well,

not only the upstream environments.

This site was quite complex.

It has flood runners and flood shoots impacting on the site

and makes the hydraulics really complex.

So we engaged a sub-consultant to assist

with the modelling of this work

using a digital elevation model

and 3D modelling that we used

to also construct the works as well.

There was a total of 2,030 native tube stock planted on

the mulched batters of the riparian zone in April 2023.

Native endemic species planted included lomandra, sandpaper figs, casuarinas,

lilly pillies, blackwood and forest red gum.

Not only does this revegetation support riparian zone stability and resilience, it

assists in creating biodiverse habitat and wildlife corridors.

To support the on-ground works, we will be engaging with neighbouring landholders

by providing guidance and advice to best manage their riparian zones.

This will improve overall resilience of the river

and provide ongoing protection of the assets present.

One of the nice features of this big project was

that it incorporated a large revegetation component.

And that's allowed us to re-establish a

riparian corridor over this impacted section.

I've extended it by putting in a lot of eucalypts through here and fencing wide so

we'll get a koala corridor linking the revege

over there with right up through to the hills.

A small takeaway for other landholders that perhaps don't have such a major erosion

issue is to fence out the riparian zone, let as much vegetation grow as possible to

prevent these sort of problems developing.

These are really bulletproof river works, the best that we've ever done, so I'm

pretty hopeful that it's going to protect a large section of the river here.

Rehabilitating a site on the Rous River

Nobbys Creek was close to breaking its banks and joining the larger Rous River. This would have reduced its length by 150 meters, trigged upstream erosion due to a head cut and increased erosion around a newly isolated island.

The Riverbank Rehabilitation Project delivered on-ground works including stock exclusion fencing, weed control measures and the planting of native riparian vegetation. The images below show a section of the actively eroding riverbank before and after stabilisation works.