Fitzroy River (Queensland)
Fitzroy Bridge, Rockhampton in flood of 1918
The Fitzroy River is a river in the east of the Australian state of Queensland.
Geography
River
The river is formed about 12 km northeast of the small town on the Capricorn Highway Duaringa at the confluence of the Mackenzie River and the Dawson River. From there it meanders gently descending, first briefly to the east, then along the Boomer Range, east of the Goodedulla National Park to the north and then in an arc along the Bruce Highway, to the southeast. In Rockhampton it flows into the Keppel Bay and thus in the Coral Sea.
The data for length vary from 335 kilometers to 480 kilometers. The catchment area of the Fitzroy River, with over 140,000 km ² according to the Murray - Darling Basin, the second largest river system in Australia.
The most important city on the Fitzroy River is Rockhampton about 40 km above the mouth.
Tributaries with muzzle heights
- Mackenzie River - 58 m
- Dawson River - 58 m
- Slatey Creek - 52 m
- Gogango Creek - 45 m
- Melaleuca Creek - 42 m
- Emu Creek - 41 m
- Mosquito Creek - 41 m
- Moah Creek - 40 m
- Scrub Creek - 39 m
- Green Creek - 38 m
- Back Creek - 31 m
- Nine Mile Creek - 31 m
- Seventeen Mile Creek - 29 m
- Ten Mile Creek - 28 m
- Templeton Creek - 26 m
- Glenroy Creek - 23 m
- Muldoon Creek - 20 m
- Camp Creek - 19 m
- Six Mile Creek - 18 m
- Marlborough Creek - 17 m
- Boggy Creek - 17 m
- Princhester Creek - 17 m
- Two Mile Creek - 15 m
- Canoona Creek - 14 m
- Alligator Creek - 13 m
- Planted Creek - 12 m
- Junction Creek - 11 m
- Stony Creek - 10 m
- Lagoon Creek - 8 m
- Limestone Creek - 8 m
- Sutherland Creek - 7 m
- Etna Creek - 7 m
- Limestone Creek - 7 m
- Gavial Creek - 2 m
- Black Creek - 1 m
- Back Creek - 0 m
Origin of the name
Economy
In the 19th and early 20th centuries Rockhampton was an important port, but rock barrier in the river prevented that could be upriver cruise ships with the Fitzroy River from there. When the ships were generally larger, the lower reaches of the river was less important for the commercial shipping traffic and today one finds only private boats and small fishing boats there. The piers that once lined the river bank in Rockhampton, expire rapidly or have already been demolished.
The main industries in the catchment area of the Fitzroy River are coal mining, ranching and cotton farming.
Today, there are also a number of dams and reservoirs in the catchment area of the Fitzroy River. The Fitzroy Reservoir in Rockhampton has a storage capacity of 61 million cubic meters and supplies the city and its surroundings with drinking water. The Fairbairn Dam on NogoA River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River, and several weirs on the Mackenzie River itself provide for the irrigation of the fields where cotton, peanuts, chickpeas, corn, citrus fruits, wine and melons are grown. They also offer water for the coal mines and drinking water for the city of Emerald.
Fauna
In the lower reaches of the Fitzroy River live saltwater crocodiles; 2003 began reacting a 4 m long sample. In the catchment area of the river you will find most freshwater fish species in Queensland. The Barramundi breeds in the river, as well as the Rußtigerfisch (Hephaestus fuliginosus ) and a special type of cod perch.
987 km ² of the floodplain and the Delta were classified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA ). There you will find regularly about 1 % of the global occurrence of sharp-tailed beach runners and breeding sites of rare mangrove honeyeater ( Lichenostomus fasciogularis ).
At the estuary, researchers found a special kind of Australian Stupsfinnendelfinen, of which there are only 70 animals. WWF -Australia is concerned that the proposed Xstrata coal port on Balaclava Iceland could exterminate the local Stupsfinnendelfinpopulation.