The environmental flow aimed mainly at improving water quality and mid-bank vegetation in the Lower Goulburn River (Goulburn Weir to Murray) is under way with the river at Shepp currently around 4.5m and expected to peak in the next few days at around 6m.
Releases from Eildon are largely contributing to the flow.
Timing of the flow was planned to give the river higher the winter flows that would have occurred naturally in the past before storages (dams and weirs) were built to capture most of the streamflow from rainfall.
This year our planned winter environmental flow happened to coincide with the natural flow we would have expected from run-off and tributary inflows after the heavy rain (up to 100mm in areas) we had a couple of weeks ago. River operations (eg. requirements to notify GMW customers) also affected timing.
Read more about the reasons for the flow here. Check river heights daily on the GMW website.