Elizabeth River flows into

Darwin Harbour Darwin Harbour is the body of water close to Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. It opens to the north at a line from Charles Point in the west to Lee Point in the east into the Beagle Gulf and connects via the Clarence Strait wi ...

close to Darwin in the

Northern Territory of Australia The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

.N Smit, R Billyard and L Ferns:
Beagle Gulf Benthic Survey: Characterisation of soft substrates.
'' Technical Report No. 66 (2000), Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.

Course

The headwaters of the river rise south of Noonamah and flow in a north westerly direction and cross the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australia, Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; a distance of . Its northern and sou ...

south of Humpty Doo. It continues through an estuarine area and discharges into the East Arm of

then

Beagle Gulf Beagle Gulf is a gulf in the Northern Territory of Australia which opens on its west side to the Timor Sea. The gulf is bounded to the south by the mainland and to the north by Bathurst and Melville Islands. It is connected to Van Diemen Gulf ...

and eventually into the

Timor Sea The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs, ...

. The river shares a catchment area with the Finniss and Howard Rivers, the combined watershed occupies an area of .

Climate

The climate of the Elizabeth River region is monsoon tropical with two distinct seasons: the Dry and the Wet. The Dry lasts for 6 months between April and September with an average rainfall of 24 mm, whereas the Wet lasts between October and March with an average monthly rainfall of 254 mm/month (according to the Bureau of Meteorology, 1999). The majority of the rain falls between December and April. Runoff varies between 250–1000 mm. Peak flow for the Elizabeth River occurs in February with 389Ml/day, after which it slowly decreases until July when there is no freshwater input into Darwin Harbour until the onset of the following wet season (Padovan 1997).

Cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

frequency is low to moderate. The Finniss, Elzabeth and Howard Rivers have a mean annual outflow of ,

Water quality

The water quality at the upper estuary monitoring sites of the Northern Territory Government was 2011 in excellent condition. Water quality at the freshwater monitoring sites was in very good condition in 2011.Elizabeth River and Estuary
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Geology

The underlying lithology is dominated by Permian siltstones and sandstones.

References

{{Rivers of the Northern Territory , state=collapsed Rivers of the Northern Territory

Course

Climate

Water quality

Geology

See also

References