Gully maintenance and monitoring

Even the most effective gully repair works will eventually fail without regular monitoring and timely maintenance.

The Gully Maintenance and Monitoring (GMM) project monitored 24 sites repaired under the Landholders Driving Change project (2017-22). Annual monitoring, using tools like the Land Condition Assessment Tool (LCAT), demonstrated that maintenance was essential, especially after large-scale works involving land reshaping. The project also demonstrated that working with nature and time often resulted in more cost-effective outcomes.

The project successfully built trust and collaboration among landholders, scientists, engineers, and government. NQ Dry Tropics Soil Conservation Officer, Bernie Claussen, led the GMM project, and produced a technical report based on three and a half years of annual checks on the 19 small-scale and five large-scale repaired gully sites. She said the report offered wide-ranging insights to guide future gully repair, based on what did, and didn’t work.