Design, construction and management of flood refuge mounds

Abstract

Although widespread flood events are infrequent in Australia, when they occur, the resulting losses on the impacted communities are substantial and devastating.
Such an event occurred in north and north-west Queensland during the early months of 2019.
Record-breaking rain fell continuously for more than a week in the Southern Gulf Catchments and the Northern Lake Eyre Basin, causing extensive flooding locally and in the vast catchments downstream.
The North-west Queensland Monsoon event of 26 January – 9 February 2019: report of a landholder survey into impact and recovery, produced by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, estimates 457,000 cattle, 43,000 sheep, 710 horses, and over 3,000 goats died during this event with floodwaters impacting more than 11 million hectares of grazing land.
While not all those animals died from drowning, the lack of high ground to escape the floodwaters is thought to have contributed enormously. The information contained in this booklet describes how to make Flood Refuge Mounds (FRMs) to provide somewhere for stock to shelter in such a rare event
as that which occurred in 2019.