Shirley Balla Swamp Reserve, September 2020 06

The Jandakot Mound, or Jandakot Groundwater Mound, is an unconfined

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

in south-western

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It is the smaller of the two main shallow aquifers near

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

(the other being the

Gnangara Mound The Gnangara Mound is an area north of Perth, Western Australia where a large mound of sandy soil reaches an elevation of about . It stores about of fresh water, about one hundred times Perth's current annual water usage. It is currently the si ...

, north of the Swan River) that together supply about 40% of Perth's drinking water. Its highest point lies about south of Perth's central business district. It stretches from the Swan River in the north to the Serpentine River in the south, and from 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 t ...

in the west to the

Darling Scarp The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to t ...

and Southern River in the east, covering an area of about . The Jandakot Mound is a sand aquifer with a saturated thickness of up to . It contains an estimated of fresh water, and the annual recharge can reach . It contributes annually to Perth's municipal supply of drinking water and is also heavily used for private supplies. Where it is close to the surface, it supports extensive wetland systems, the most important of which are

Beeliar Wetlands The Beeliar Wetlands is a wetland located in the southwest portion of Western Australia. It is made up of two chains of lakes and wetlands that run parallel to the west coast of Australia. They are situated on the Swan Coastal Plain between t ...

, Forrestdale and

Thomsons Lake Thomsons Lake Nature Reserve is a lake nature reserve around Thomsons Lake (Noongar: ''Jilbup'') in the City of Cockburn, Western Australia, approximately south of the central business district of Perth, the state capital, and on the southern ...

s. It also recharges the deeper confined aquifers in the area, the Leederville and Yarragadee Aquifers.

References

* Aquifers in Australia Swan Coastal Plain Water supply and sanitation in Western Australia {{Australia-geology-stub