This report covers the Border Rivers, Moonie and Lower Balonne catchments in the Queensland

Murray Darling Committee, Inc. , (QMDC) management area with the focus of determining priority

groundwater projects. There are three major alluvial groundwater management issues in the QMDC

management area. In the east the Dumaresq River is highly connected to the alluvial aquifers which

are used for groundwater extraction by the irrigation sector. The groundwater model that covers

these alluvial aquifors, and which was used as part of informing the water allocations between NSW

and QLD, needs to be updated. There is new information in the form of longer hydrograph records,

better understanding of river aquifer interactions, longer river flow records and new approaches to

catchment water balance modelling that can all be integrated to give a better catchment water

balance model for input into groundwater management decisions. The main issue for the

cotton/irrigation industry is that over use of goundwater from the Dumaresq River alluvia may

influence river flows, including water released for downstream users.

Given the recent extensive work in the west of the catchment from Goondiwindito Mungindi and the Lower Balonne, it is suggested that the focus should shift to other regions and similar scales of investigation to that done in the Lower Balonne be undertaken in

order to generate similar quality baseline hydrogeological data.