'Inland ocean' of Lake Eyre Basin to be harvested under flood plain proposal

Floodwater from Lake Eyre Basin could be harvested for limited use in farming under a draft plan released by the Queensland government.

The creeks and rivers of the Georgina and Diamantina catchment are dry most of the year, but during the wet season, monsoonal rains create an "inland ocean" that can travel all the way to South Australia.

Near the headwaters of the Diamantina River at Nuken Station, about 100 kilometres north-west of Winton, cattle producer David Batt has lived through flood and drought.

But even in the driest years, the river runs.

"I've been here since 1984, and there's never a year that it hasn't run," he said.

"In a big wet season like the one we just had, there's a mountain of water coming down."

Dams and waterholes catch some of this "overland flow", while pumps, levees or other obstructions can divert water to storage for use when the rain stops.

Under the current water plan, which is due to expire in 2027, landholders can harvest water during a flood without a licence for domestic or livestock use.

Queensland Department of Water executive Chris Wake said the proposed changes would allow up to 1,000 megalitres, or a billion litres, for drought-proofing fodder crops, organic stock supply chains or public amenities.

"Effectively, it's making it easier to access overland water up to a certain threshold," he said.

It would also double the existing unallocated water to 27,000 megalitres.

Boom and bust, top and bottom

Queensland's north west has already begun exploring dryland irrigation of sorghum and hay, which can be stored underground for years as a backup supply of cattle feed until the next drought.

Mr Batt said the opportunity to do the same in his region was huge, but said any harvest should be restricted by flood height.

"A lot of years it (the river) doesn't run very big, so there would need to be restrictions on the height, I imagine," he said.

"They've made (cropping) work up around Maxwellton on the Flinders River, so I can't see why it won't work here."

At the bottom of the catchment, organic cattle producer Janet Brook was not convinced.

Her operation on the low-lying border of South Australia and Queensland relies on the monsoonal rainfall that feeds Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, even if a drop never falls on her property.

"It happens quite frequently; you get a big rainfall in the upper parts of the catchment … we get nothing at the bottom," she said

"We're depending on that water to flow through.

"You'll end up with less water coming down, less water flooding out across the landscape, and less feed growth (grass)," she said.

"Even small earthworks such as a grader, a built-up road, can have massive effects on the natural flow."

Ms Brook supplies OBE Organics, a beef producer and exporter based in Birdsville.

She said it was hard to know if her operation would benefit from the water allocated for organic grazing because the plan lacked detail.

"There's no mechanism within the plan that I can see dealing with the cumulative effect of take," she said.

"Are we going to see death by a thousand cuts?

"As for allocating water especially for organic producers for processing, I'm not sure why.

"I don't see its relevance … whether you're organic or whether you're in conventional, you're still into beef production."

Modelling flows 'not available'

David Phelps is the chief executive of Desert Channels Queensland, the natural resource not-for-profit that supports graziers and communities managing land in the Diamantina-Georgina catchment.

He said there was no modelling in the plan to show what impact taking the water would have.

"It's not quite clear within the current plan just how that water might actually be harvested,"

he said.

"What controls the department may have in place is unclear at the moment."

A Queensland Department of Water environmental assessment published in June 2026 found modelled flow data for the catchment was "not available," that the full volume of water in the catchment was not known and the impact on wetlands was not well understood.

Queensland Water Minister Ann Leahy said the government would consider doing further modelling.

"It is very difficult to model a lot of things with overland flow because you need to have a lot of measurement points," she said.

"If people want more information, we're happy to go and do that work and provide that information to producers.

"We're looking for the information to come back from residents, from landholders, from traditional owners, from councils."