The Upper Yarra Reservoir is located east of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia, beyond Warburton within the locality of

Reefton Reefton is a small town in the West Coast region of New Zealand, some 80 km northeast of Greymouth, in the Inangahua River valley. Ahaura is 44 km south-west of Reefton, Inangahua Junction is 34 km to the north, Maruia is 63 ...

. Water from Upper Yarra Reservoir supplies towns in the upper

Yarra Valley The Yarra Valley is the region surrounding the Yarra River in Victoria, Australia. The river originates approximately east of the Melbourne central business district and flows towards it and out into Port Phillip Bay. The name Yarra Valley ...

, and

Silvan Reservoir The Silvan Reservoir is located in Silvan, Victoria, Silvan about east of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. It has a capacity of . The reservoir is operated by Melbourne Water. Operations Silvan is an off-stream storage res ...

, which transfers water to most parts of Melbourne. The management of 157,000 hectares of Melbourne's forested water catchments of the Upper Yarra such as the Watts ( Maroondah) were

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...

in the

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of sm ...

(MMBW) in 1891. In 1928, the Upper Yarra catchment was permanently added for water supply purposes. Approval to construct Upper Yarra Reservoir was granted in the early 1940s but due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

work did not start until 1948. When the Upper Yarra Reservoir was completed the total storage capacity of Melbourne's system was tripled to nearly 300,000 megalitres. Upper Yarra Reservoir has a capacity of and was completed in 1957, initially for the purpose of preventing flooding downstream. Upper Yarra Reservoir is also supplied by water transferred from the

Thomson River Dam The Thomson Dam is a major Clay core and rockfill embankment dam with a Uncontrolled, Ogee-shaped overflow weir and chute spillway across the Thomson River, located about east of Melbourne in the West Gippsland region of the Australian state ...

. As of January 2007, severe drought in south-eastern Australia had resulted in low water levels in the reservoir, which on 5 January 2007 was approximately half full. As of 22 July 2013, it contained 95,568 megalitres of water(47.6% full). The recorded water storage level in the dam in 26 September 2021 was 186,060 megalitres, equivalent to being 92.8 per cent full.

References

{{Melbourne dams Reservoirs in Victoria (Australia) Dams in Victoria (Australia) Melbourne Water catchment Rivers of Greater Melbourne (region) Yarra River Yarra Valley Dams completed in 1957 Embankment dams 1957 establishments in Australia

See also

References