Website:http://www.centraldarling.nsw.gov.au (Website)
Description:Darling River, longest member of the Murray-Darling river system in Australia; it rises in several headstreams in the Great Dividing Range (Eastern Highlands), near the New South Wales-Queensland border, not far from the east coast, and flows generally southwest across New South Wales for 2,739 km (1,702 mi) to join the Murray at Wentworth (on the Victoria border), 240km from the Murray's mouth in South Australia. The main source of the Darling is usually considered to be the Severn, which becomes successively the Dumaresq, Macintyre, Barwon, and, finally, the Darling. Discharge of the lower tributaries (Culgoa, Warrego, Paroo, Gwydir, Namoi, Macquarie, and Bogan) of the main stream fluctuates as a result of droughts and floods. Because much of the Darling's course runs through extensive saltbush pastures, receiving an average of less than 250 mm (10 in.) of rain annually, the river often loses more water by evaporation than is gained from its tributaries, many of which sometimes fail to reach the main stream. There are instances in which distributaries leave the main stream and disappear in inland basins. Several, however, flow into salt flats and in wet years emerge to rejoin the parent stream. The Great Anabranch (which leaves below the Menindee Lakes to join the Murray) and the Talyawalka Creek (which leaves near Wilcannia to rejoin the Darling 128km downstream near Menindee) are examples of these anastomosing distributaries (i.e., streams that leave and link up again with the main river). The entire Darling system drains a 650,000-sq-km (250,000-sq-mi) basin with an average annual discharge of 102 cu m (3,600 cu ft) per second at Menindee. The river has an average gradient of 16mm. to the kilometre. Headwaters of the Darling were gradually colonized by pastoralists from 1815 onward. In 1828 the explorer Charles Sturt was dispatched by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling, to investigate the lower course of the Macquarie River. He chanced first upon the Bogan and then, early in 1829, the Darling main stream from the Barwon-Culgoa confluence. In the latter part of the 19th century, the river was of importance to navigation, but waterborne traffic has long been superseded by the railway." (ref 1999-2000 Britannica.com Inc.)
Jurisdictions::Broken Hill City Council, Central Darling Shire Council
