drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

is an extent of land where water from rain and melting snow or ice drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water drains into those channels, and is separated from adjacent basins by a drainage divide. Major drainage basins are coded by hierarchy within the National Catchment Boundaries (NCB) dataset, with primary drainage basins attributed Level 1 and smaller river catchment subdivisions attributed Level 2. Beyond that, minor river and creek watersheds are ranked by the Pfafstetter Coding System. This article deals with surface water rather than groundwater basins, such as the

Great Artesian Basin The Great Artesian Basin (GAB), located in Australia, is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over , with measured water temperatures ranging from . The basin provides the only source of fresh water through much of ...

. Australia has twelve distinguished NCB Level 1 drainage divisions or thirteen after splitting the South East Coast division at the

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

–

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 ...

border as defined by the Australian Water Resources Assessment 2012, a hydrological survey conducted by the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, and brought together ...

. Runoff from these divisions generally flows into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

, the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-smal ...

and

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains ...

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List of NCB Level 1 drainage basins

* A New drainage basin codes assigned by the

in 2010. Previous codes were labelled using Roman Numerals. Se

for details. * B Long term average from July 1911 to June 2010 * C The obsolete Australia River Basins 1997 survey listed the

Bulloo-Bancannia drainage basin The Bulloo-Bancannia drainage basin or Cooper Creek–Bulloo River Basin is a Level 2 drainage basin that covers part of western Queensland and New South Wales. It was recognised by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO as a subdivision of the Lake ...

as a separate division, but has now been combined with the Lake Eyre Basin. * D Known in Queensland as Gulf Basin

List of NCB Level 2 drainage basins

The following is a list of

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...

catchments that are subdivisions of the basin containing them.

North East Coast

* Jacky Jacky Creek * Barron River * Mulgrave- Russel Rivers * Johnstone River * Tully-

Murray Murray may refer to: Businesses * Murray (bicycle company), an American manufacturer of low-cost bicycles * Murrays, an Australian bus company * Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trust * D. & W. Murray Limited, an Australian who ...

Rivers * Cardwell Coast *

Hinchinbrook Island Hinchinbrook Island (or Pouandai to the Biyaygiri people) is an island in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It lies east of Cardwell and north of Lucinda, separated from the north-eastern coast of Queensland by the narrow H ...

Herbert River The Herbert River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The southernmost of Queensland's wet tropics river systems, it was named in 1864 by George Elphinstone Dalrymple explorer, after Robert George Wyndham Herbert, the fir ...

* Black River * Ross River *

Haughton River The Haughton River is a river located in North Queensland, Australia. Course and features The headwaters of the river rise in the Haughton Valley of the Leichhardt Range near Mingela and flow in a north easterly direction almost immediately ...

* Olive-Pascoe Rivers *

Burdekin River The Burdekin River is a river located in North and Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the northern slopes of Boulder Mountain at Valley of Lagoons, part of the western slope of the Seaview Range, and flows into the Coral Sea a ...

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

* Proserpine River *

Whitsunday Islands The Whitsunday Islands are 74 continental islands of various sizes off the central coast of Queensland, Australia, north of Brisbane. The northernmost of the islands are off the coast by the town of Bowen, while the southernmost islands are ...

O'Connell River The O'Connell River is a river in North Queensland, Australia. The headwaters of the river rise in a valley under Mount Millar in the Clarke Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, just north of the Eungella National Park. It flows in a nort ...

Pioneer River The Pioneer River is a river located in North Queensland, Australia. The long river flows through the city of . History Captain John Mackay and his party were the first Europeans to discover the river in 1860. Mackay named it Mackay River af ...

* Plane Creek * Styx River * Shoalwater Creek * Water Park Creek * Lockhart River * Fitzroy River (QLD) * Curtis Island *

Calliope River The Calliope River is a river located in Central Queensland, Australia. The river rises in the Calliope Range inland from the industrial port city of Gladstone, flows past the town of Calliope, before emptying into the Pacific Ocean just north o ...

* Boyne River * Baffle Creek * Kolan River * Burnett River * Burrum River * Mary River (QLD) * Fraser Island * Stewart River * Noosa River * Maroochy River * Pine River * Brisbane River * Stradbroke Island * Logan-Albert Rivers * South Coast * Normanby River * Jeannie River * Endeavour River * Daintree River * Mossman River

References

{{reflist

External links

Detailed drainage basins map

Interactive drainage basins map and dataset
* *

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

* Drainage basins

List of NCB Level 1 drainage basins

List of NCB Level 2 drainage basins

North East Coast

See also

References

External links