DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES
Floodplain Management
Related Links
The Bureau of Meteorology website provides daily River Height Bulletins (external link) across Victoria, as well as Stream Guaging Information (external link) for Australia. It also provides a Victorian Flood Warning Centre (external link).
Flooding costs Victoria $56 million each year on average in damages to property, buildings, infrastructure and agricultural production. Floods also cause social disruption and hardship to communities living on floodplains.
The Victorian Government, through its Victorian Flood Management Strategy, has instigated major floodplain management reforms. These include:
- devolving floodplain management and rural drainage responsibilities to Catchment Management Authorities
- introducing a floodway zone, rural floodway overlay and land subject to inundation overlay into the Victorian Planning Provisions, enabling adoption by councils into their planning schemes
- letting contracts to include all available data on digitised maps
- producing a Floodplain Management Manual
Anyone wishing to develop land, or build, who may have concerns about possible flooding problems, should contact their local Catchment Management Authority, or Melbourne Water (external link) if the land is within the Metropolitan area.
A wide range of flooplain data can be accessed via MapShare (external link) in the form of an interactive map, using information from DPI/DSE. The Catchment and Water Mapper section provides information on themes such as rivers, 1 in 100 year flood, floodways, and river basins.
© The State of Victoria, 1996 - 2008.
This document was last reviewed on 24/09/2008