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Levees, channels and water storages built on the world's floodplain wetlands control flows for irrigation, flood mitigation and erosion management. Assessing their distribution and hydrological impacts through time and across broad extents is limited by significant costs and technical challenges. We tested the effectiveness of three new semi-automated geographic information systems and traditional visual interpretation techniques for detecting earthworks. We used commercially or freely available two-dimensional and three-dimensional spatial imagery within 19 quadrats in an agricultural floodplain of the Murray-Darling Basin, southeastern Australia. Semi-automated digital elevation model (DEM) analysis performed best for spatial accuracy (78% of earthworks correctly predicted within 25 m), overall classification accuracy (97.7%) and kappa (0.64), compared with traditional visual interpretation techniques using Landsat TM (52%, 96.3%, 0.39), SPOT (53%, 95.8%, 0.27) and aerial photography (72%, 97.2%, 0.31). DEM analysis also outperformed semi-automated image segmentation (16%, 93%, 0.29) and integrated analysis (75%, 96.0%, 0.43) that used spectral information. Semi-automated techniques were slow (DEM analysis: 27 418 s/km2; integrated analysis: 27 737 s/km2; and image segmentation: 1439 s/km2) compared with visual interpretation (Landsat TM: 109 s/km2; SPOT: 166 s/km2; and aerial photography: 276 s/km2); however, processing speed of semi-automated techniques can be further increased without compromising accuracy. Semi-automated techniques also offered operational autonomy following model calibration. High quality, cost-effective earthwork mapping techniques, particularly the semi-automated techniques in this study, are critical for understanding and managing ecosystem health, flood risk and water security in developed floodplains worldwide and should be implemented by governing institutions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lowbidgee floodplain is the Murrumbidgee River’s major wetland in southeastern Australia. From more than 300,000 ha in the early 1900s, at least 76.5% was destroyed (58%) or degraded (18%) by dams (26 major storages), subsequent diversions and floodplain development. Diversions of about 2,144,000 ML year-1 from the Murrumbidgee River come from a natural median flow of about 3,380,000 ML year-1 providing water for Australia’s capital, hydroelectricity, and 273,000 ha of irrigation. Diversions have reduced the amount of water reaching the Lowbidgee floodplain by at least 60%, from 1888 to 1998. About 97,000 ha of Lowbidgee wetland was destroyed by development of the floodplain for an irrigation area (1975-1998), including building of 394 km of channels and 2,145 km of levee banks. Over 19 years (1983-2001), waterbird numbers estimated during annual aerial surveys collapsed by 90%, from an average of 139,939 (1983-1986) to 14,170 (1998-2001). Similar declines occurred across all functional groups: piscivores (82%), herbivores (87%), ducks and small grebe species (90%), large wading birds (91%), and small wading birds (95%), indicating a similar decline in the aquatic biota that formed their food base. Numbers of species also declined significantly by 21%. The Lowbidgee floodplain is an example of the ecological consequences of water resource development. Yanga Nature Reserve, within the Lowbidgee floodplain, conserved for its floodplain vegetation communities, will lose these communities because of insufficient water. Until conservation policies adequately protect river flows to important wetland areas, examples such as the Lowbidgee will continue to occur around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levees on the lower Tuross River in south-eastern Australia reflect a complex interplay between depositional and erosional processes. Stream power, conditioned primarily by valley width, is the key determinant of levee morphology and sedimentology in this confined valley setting. Three styles of levee are described. The Rewlee levee is functionally linked to a flood channel in narrow valley settings (< 250 m). These levees contain a diverse facies assemblage characterized by various scales of erosion surfaces. Vertical accretion on levees has produced conditions under which stream power values exceed the threshold for catastrophic floodplain stripping. The levee at the Mortfield site is associated with less confined settings (valley width 500–600 m), which present lower flood stage and stream power conditions. This levee hosts a wide range of facies, but erosion surfaces are seldom observed. In the more open valley setting at the Central site (valley width 700–1000 m), levees comprise uniform, fine-grained deposits, which grade to pronounced distal floodplains with backswamps. As levees reflect a combination of within-channel and overbank processes, both depositional and erosional, these geomorphic features influence the character and sedimentology of adjacent landforms and the associated alluvial architecture of the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]