Assessment of acidic saline groundwater hazard in the Western Australian Wheatbelt: Yarra Yarra, Blackwood and South Coast

Technical Report
While secondary salinisation has long been recognised to be caused by rising water-tables in the Wheatbelt region of south-west of Western Australia, it has only been recently recognised that there are additional risks coupled with the acidity of some rising groundwaters.
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This report provides an expanded regional assessment of the distribution, characteristics and interactions of saline groundwater-containing acidity in the WA Wheatbelt beyond that reported for the Avon.

The area includes the agricultural zones of the Yarra Yarra and Ninghan Basins, Upper Blackwood and selected South Coast catchments.

The assessment was coupled with investigations focused on improving understanding of the fate of metals and pH when acidic groundwater mixes with surface waters or discharges to lakes using geochemical mixing models and case-study investigations of lakes acidified by drainage waters.

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