Pasture recovery, land condition and some other observations after the monsoon flooding, chill event in north-west Queensland in Jan-Mar 2019

Abstract

Monsoonal flooding rains to 800 mm across north-west Queensland during late January and early February 2019 resulted in the inundation of hundreds of thousands of hectares of grazing land. Pastures of the Mitchell Grass Downs and the Gulf Plains that support cattle production were impacted by the rain event, and particularly so, because the land had just suffered a prolonged drought of 5-7 years. An area of some 13M hectares were affected and an estimated 0.5M head of cattle were lost from cold, wet wind exposure and flooding. The immediate post-flood assessment, of pasture reported in this document, is a record that informs agricultural practices and forms an historical baseline, for future research of ways to better understand and implement best management practices, in the tropical landscape of north-west Queensland in northern Australia.