Warragamba Dam
Warragamba Dam is a heritage-listed dam in Warragamba, Wollondilly Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It is a concrete gravity dam, which creates Lake Burragorang, the primary reservoir for water supply for the Australian city of Sydney, New South Wales; the dam impounds the Coxs, Nattai, Wingecarribee and Warragamba rivers, within the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment. Constructed between 1948 and 1960, the dam created capacity for a reservoir of 2,031 gigalitres and is fed by a catchment area of 9,051 square kilometres; the surface area of the lake covers 75 square kilometres of the now flooded Burragorang Valley. Enhancements to the dam were completed in 2009, including the addition of an auxiliary spillway to manage extreme flood events. Known as the Warragamba Emergency Scheme, the heritage-listed dam is located in the outer south-western Sydney suburb of Warragamba in the Wollondilly Shire local government area New South Wales, Australia; the dam was built by the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board.
The property is owned by an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999. A small hydroelectric power station is incorporated into the design of the dam and may operate at times of peak discharge. In early March 2012, the dam spilled for the first time in fourteen years, as a result of heavy rainfall in the catchment during February 2012; this spill followed a period of prolonged drought which saw the dam fall to historic lows of below 33 percent in 2007. The Warragamba River flows through a gorge that varies in width from 300 to 600 metres, is 100 metres in depth; this gorge opens at its upper end into the Burragorang Valley. This river configuration allows for a short but high dam wall, in the gorge, to impound a vast quantity of water. In 1845, Paweł Strzelecki drew attention to the Warragamba River as a water supply catchment. Between 1867 and 1946, supporters proposed various schemes before the site and design of the current dam received approval.
In 1940, a weir and pumping station, known as the Warragamba Emergency Scheme, reached completion, just downstream of the main dam site. In 1943 the Metropolitan Water and Drainage Board invited the geologist William Browne to investigate a proposed site. Browne continued as geological adviser until completion; the site was reviewed and approved by Dr John Savage, considered the pre-eminent expert in this field, formally accepted by the Metropolitan Water and Drainage Board on 2 October 1946. The Board appointed Thomas Upton as the engineer. Dam construction began in 1948 and was completed in 1960; the resulting dam of the Warragamba River formed Lake Burragorang, one of the largest reservoirs for urban water supply in the world. The dam wall comprises 1,612,000 cubic yards of concrete, it was laid as interlocking blocks 17 metres on each side, which were grouted together to form a continuous, monolithic wall. It is so large that engineers had to use two techniques to prevent the temperature from becoming too hot as the concrete set.
One was to add ice to the first application of this technique in Australia. The other was to embed cooling pipes into the concrete and circulate chilled water through the pipes; as a result, the dam wall was cooled in a few months instead of the estimated 100 years it would have taken to cool naturally. The main spillway has five crest gates: A central drum gate with a 27 metres clear span with a pair of radial gates on each side; each radial gate has a 12 metres clear span. The drum gate is hinged along the upstream edge to the upstream crest and lowers into the dam wall to allow water to flow over it; when open, it forms a continuation of the crest profile. All gates open automatically as the dam can be manually opened; the auxiliary spillway is closed by a series of fuse plugs that are designed to be washed away in the event of an extreme flood event. As designed, the dam could safely withstand a peak inflow of 500,000 cubic feet per second, leading to a peak discharge of 354,000 cubic feet per second down the spillway.
Following a 1987 and 1989 re-evaluation of the potential rainfall and flood risks, the New South Wales Government authorised for the dam wall to be raised by 5 metres and constructed an auxiliary spillway on the east bank of the dam. In 2006, the Warragamba Deep Water Storage Recovery Project, part of the Metropolitan Water Plan, penetrated the base of the dam wall to allow the inaccessible lowest water in the reservoir to be available; this new outlet was below the minimum level required for gravity flow, which delivered water from the existing outlets. The project constructed a new pumping station downstream of the dam; the new pumping station is within the Emergency Scheme pumping station chamber. This project provided access to eight per cent more water or six months of extra supply. On 15 April 2006, the project reached a major milestone when it increased the available storage from 1,857 gigalitres to 2,027 gigalitres. Other recent major work includes a complete upgrade of the three passenger lifts within the dam wall, an upgrade of the traveling crest crane and a complete upgrade of the four water supply outlets in the valve house, w
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area, selected by the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization as having cultural, scientific or other form of significance, is protected by international treaties. The sites are judged important to the collective interests of humanity. To be selected, a World Heritage Site must be an classified landmark, unique in some respect as a geographically and identifiable place having special cultural or physical significance, it may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humanity, serve as evidence of our intellectual history on the planet. The sites are intended for practical conservation for posterity, which otherwise would be subject to risk from human or animal trespassing, unmonitored/uncontrolled/unrestricted access, or threat from local administrative negligence. Sites are demarcated by UNESCO as protected zones; the list is maintained by the international World Heritage Program administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 "states parties" that are elected by their General Assembly.
The programme catalogues and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture and heritage of humanity. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund; the program began with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World's Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. Since 193 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most recognized international agreements and the world's most popular cultural program; as of July 2018, a total of 1,092 World Heritage Sites exist across 167 countries. Italy, with 54 sites, has the most of any country, followed by China, France, Germany and Mexico. In 1954, the government of Egypt decided to build the new Aswan High Dam, whose resulting future reservoir would inundate a large stretch of the Nile valley containing cultural treasures of ancient Egypt and ancient Nubia. In 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites.
In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the member states for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. This appeal resulted in the excavation and recording of hundreds of sites, the recovery of thousands of objects, as well as the salvage and relocation to higher ground of a number of important temples, the most famous of which are the temple complexes of Abu Simbel and Philae; the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. As tokens of its gratitude to countries which contributed to the campaign's success, Egypt donated four temples: the Temple of Dendur was moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Temple of Debod was moved to the Parque del Oeste in Madrid, the Temple of Taffeh was moved to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands, the Temple of Ellesyia to Museo Egizio in Turin; the project cost $80 million, about $40 million of, collected from 50 countries. The project's success led to other safeguarding campaigns: saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia.
UNESCO initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a draft convention to protect the common cultural heritage of humanity. The United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation; the White House conference in 1965 called for a "World Heritage Trust" to preserve "the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the entire world citizenry". The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, they were presented in 1972 to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Under the World Heritage Committee, signatory countries are required to produce and submit periodic data reporting providing the World Heritage Committee with an overview of each participating nation's implementation of the World Heritage Convention and a "snapshot" of current conditions at World Heritage properties. A single text was agreed on by all parties, the "Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage" was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972.
The Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of May 2017, it has been ratified by 193 states parties, including 189 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. Only four UN member states have not ratified the Convention: Liechtenstein, Nauru and Tuvalu. A country must first list its significant natural sites. A country may not nominate sites. Next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File; the Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the World Conservation Union. These bodies make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee; the Committee meets once per year to determine whether or not to inscribe each nominated property on the World Heritage List and sometimes defers or refers the decision to request more information from the country which nominated the site. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list
State park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational potential. There are state parks under the administration of the government of each U. S. state, some of the Mexican states, in Brazil. The term is used in the Australian state of Victoria; the equivalent term used in Canada, South Africa and Belgium, is provincial park. Similar systems of local government maintained parks exist in other countries, but the terminology varies. State parks are thus similar under state rather than federal administration. Local government entities below state level may maintain parks, e.g. regional parks or county parks. In general, state parks are smaller than national parks, with a few exceptions such as the Adirondack Park in New York and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California; as of 2014, there were 10,234 state park units in the United States, according to the National Association of State Park Directors.
There are some 739 million annual visits to the country's state parks. The NASPD further counts over 43,000 miles of trail, 217,367 campsites, 8,277 cabins and lodges across U. S. state parks. The largest state park system in the United States is Alaska State Parks, with over 100 sites encompassing 3.3 million acres. Many states include designations beyond "state park" in their state parks systems. Other designations might be state recreation areas, state beaches, state nature reserves; some state park systems include historic sites. The title of oldest state park in the United States is claimed by Niagara Falls State Park in New York, established in 1885; however several public parks or maintained at the state level pre-date it. Indian Springs State Park has been operated continuously by the state of Georgia as a public park since 1825, although it did not gain the title "State Park" until 1931. In 1864 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove were ceded by the federal government to California until Yosemite National Park was proclaimed in 1890.
In 1878 Wisconsin set aside a vast swath of its northern forests as "The State Park" but, needing money, sold most of it to lumber companies within 20 years. The first state park with the designation of "state park" was Mackinac Island State Park in 1895, first a national park before being transferred to the state of Michigan. Many state park systems date to the 1930s, when around 800 state parks across the country were developed with assistance from federal job creation programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration. List of U. S. state parks Wilderness preservation systems in Carol. "The Civilian Conservation Corps and Wisconsin State Park Development." Wisconsin Magazine of History: 184-204. In JSTOR Landrum, Ney C; the State Park Movement in America: A Critical Review excerpt and text search Larson, Zeb. "Silver Falls State Park and the Early Environmental Movement." Oregon Historical Quarterly 112#1 pp: 34-57 in JSTOR Newton, Norman T. "The State Park Movement: 1864-1933.
"When Forests Trumped Parks: The Maryland Experience, 1906-1950." Maryland Historical Magazine 101#2 pp: 203-224
Cocoparra National Park
The Cocoparra National Park is a protected national park, located in the Riverina region of New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The 8,357-hectare national park is situated 457 kilometres southwest of Sydney and 25 kilometres northeast of Griffith; the park includes a prominent range of hills such as Bingar Mountain, 455 metres above sea level and Brogden Mountain, 390 metres above sea level, in an otherwise flat landscape. Adjoining the national park to the north is the Cocoparra Nature Reserve; the national park was gazetted in December 1969. The nature reserve was dedicated in 1963 with an area of 4,647 hectares; the Binya-Cocoparra area is classified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area because of its large population of the near threatened painted honeyeater, as well as the diamond firetail. The climate is semi arid; the vegetation communities reflect this, with wattle, orchids and blue-tinged cypress pines. The geology comprises Upper Devonian sandstones and conglomerates.
There are a number of a campground at Woolshed Flat. Protected areas of New South Wales List of national parks of Australia NSW Parks and Wildlife Service Cocoparra National Park website Online version of Cocoparra National Park Management Plan
Hill Top, New South Wales
Hill Top is a Northern Village of the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, in Wingecarribee Shire. Previous names of the village include Jellore, it is a 17 km drive around 10 km drive to the Hume Highway via Colo Vale. It is 6–8 km to Yerrinbool as the crow flies. At the 2016 census, Hill Top had a population of 2,674, it was on the Main Southern Railway, until that line was deviated in 1919 to a less steep alignment with easier grades. The original line became the Picton Loop line, which closed in 1978; the remains of Hill Top station platform can still be seen. Hill Top has commercial facilities such as a bakery, general store, liquor store, real estate agent, fast food outlet and GP's surgery. Community facilities include a post office, tennis courts, sporting fields, day-care centre, primary school, fire station and community hall, it is home to the Southern Highlands Rifle Club's shooting range. In 2007, controversially, it was proposed that this range be extended 10 square kilometres on Crown Land near Hill Top into the Southern Highlands Regional Shooting Complex upon the government-proposed closure of the large ANZAC Rifle Range at Malabar Heads.
However, it was met by strong opposition by local residents and councillors who were concerned about the noise and environmental effects it might have on the area due to the proposed complex being in close proximity to the residential area and water catchment area of Hill Top. The Southern Highlands News interviewed National Parks Association Chairman, Tony Hill who said that the range would create'a toxic legacy that will go on for hundreds of years.'Hill Top has a soccer team known as the Hill Top Kookaburras, founded in 1981. The team plays in the Highlands Competition. Hill Top has a cricket club known as Hill Top Northern Villages Cricket Club; the club was founded in 1947 to 1952 reformed from 1979 to 1986 and reformed again in 1987. Hill Top Images Bayley, W. A. 1973 Picton-Mittagong Loop-Line Railway. Pp. 26–27 Bulli: Austrail. ISBN 0-909597-14-6 Bayley, W. A. 1975. Picton-Mittagong Main Line Railway. P. 17–18 Bulli: Austrail. ISBN 0-909597-15-4
Riverina
The Riverina is an agricultural region of South-Western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation; this combination has allowed the Riverina to develop into one of the most productive and agriculturally diverse areas of Australia. Bordered on the south by the state of Victoria and on the east by the Great Dividing Range, the Riverina covers those areas of New South Wales in the Murray and Murrumbidgee drainage zones to their confluence in the west. Home to Aboriginal groups for over 40,000 years, the Riverina was colonised by Europeans in the mid-19th century as a pastoral region providing beef and wool to markets in Australia and beyond. In the 20th century, the development of major irrigation areas in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys has led to the introduction of crops such as rice and wine grapes; the Riverina has strong cultural ties to Victoria, the region was the source of much of the impetus behind the federation of Australian colonies.
Major population and service centres in the Riverina include the cities of Wagga Wagga and Griffith. Wagga Wagga is home to a campus of Charles Sturt University, the only local provider of higher education for the region. Wagga Wagga is home to two major Australian Defence Force establishments; the delineation of the Riverina region by government agencies and other bodies varies, but in common usage it comprises the agricultural and pastoral areas of New South Wales, west of the Great Dividing Range and in the drainage basin of the snow-fed Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. The northern boundary beyond the Riverina is determined by the Lachlan River catchment area and is referred to as the Central West. Along the Murray to the south, the Riverina borders the state of Victoria. West of the confluence of the Murray and Murrumbidgee is the beginning of the more arid Far West region. In general, the Riverina is an alluvial plain formed by deposition carried from the Great Dividing Range by streams between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago.
The terrain includes rolling hills to the east but becomes flatter to the west with most of that plain reaching less than 200 metres above sea level. The western Riverina consists of featureless saltbush plain; the geology of the Riverina comprises sedimentary basins. The western Riverina is presumed to be a continuation of the Ballarat and Bendigo geological zone while eastern sections are underlain by western portions of the Lachlan Fold Belt. There is potential for the Riverina to host several mineral deposit types including coal, coal seam methane, orogenic gold, Cobar style polymetallic systems, heavy mineral sands and diamonds in these fold belt rocks and basins. Riverina soils are sandy along the river channels, with more saline grey and brown clays found on flooded areas on the perimeter of the floodplain; as the Murrumbidgee passes downstream, the water and soil become more saline. The Riverina is drained by the large Murray-Darling Basin. Rivers and streams in the Riverina flow east to west.
As well as the Murray and Lachlan, other streams include Billabong Creek and the Edward River, an anabranch of the Murray. Much of the water carried by these streams is diverted. In 2001–2002, 52% of the Murray and Murrumbidgee water runoff was diverted, 77% of, used for irrigation.https://drive.google.com/open?id=16zHR6KKmMf-Tqz7cc67nvksEs_HZBL1S The Bureau of Meteorology classify the Riverina in the Hot Dry Zone climatic zone. Places in this zone can be hot in the summer months while in the winter, nights can be cold with cool to mild days. Mean daily maximum temperatures in the Riverina range from 31.0 °C in January and 12.4 °C in July in Wagga Wagga to 33.2 °C in January and 14.8 °C in July in Hillston. Rainfall levels in the Riverina are low with the median annual rainfall over most of the region between 250–500 millimetres, rising to between 500–800 mm on the eastern fringe. Rain falls in the winter in the southern Riverina and around Hay while in the north rainfall patterns are consistent throughout the year.
Corowa, in the south eastern Riverina has an average rainfall of 539.4 millimetres per year while mean annual rainfall at Hay is 367.2 millimetres. Drought in 2006 has seen the lowest recorded rainfall in towns such as Lockhart and Narrandera. One method of classification of boundaries for the Riverina is the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia that defines the bioregion as an area comprising 9,704,469 hectares, with biogeographic subregions covering each of the Lachlan, Murray Fans, Victorian Riverina, Robinvale Plains, Murray Scroll Belt; the New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service has divided New South Wales into 17 distinct bioregions. Bioregions are quite large areas of land that capture a geophysical pattern, linked to fauna and flora ecosystems; the Riverina bioregion is an area of land that comprises part of the larger Riverina area but extends into Victoria. It has been defined by the New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service as extending from Ivanhoe in the Murray Darling Depression Bioregion south to Bendigo, from Narrandera in the east to Balranald in the west.
74.03 % of the bioregion is in the remainder in Victoria. In another mapping the World Wildlife Fund has made this area part of the larger Southeast Australia temperate savanna ecoregion that covers the western plains of New South Wales. River channels in the region support River Red Gum (Eucalyp
Southern Highlands (New South Wales)
The Southern Highlands locally referred to as the Highlands, is a geographical region and district in New South Wales, Australia and is 110 km south-west of Sydney. The entire region is under the local government area of the Wingecarribee Shire; the region is considered a wine region. The region is the area centred on the commercial towns of Mittagong, Moss Vale and Robertson as well as the historic town of Berrima. Smaller villages like Burradoo, Sutton Forest, Colo Vale, Yerrinbool, Exeter and many more that make up the Wingecarribee Shire are spread in between and around these main centres and serve as residential areas; the Highlands geographically sits between 900m above sea level on the Great Dividing Range. Like other regions along this plateau such as the Blue Mountains to the north and the Australian Alps to the south, the Southern Highlands is known for its cool temperate climate; the Southern Highlands as a region is part of the larger Capital Country Region with the Highlands forming the northern part of the region and the Southern Tablelands forming the southern part of the region.
The Southern Highland's council, Wingecarribee Shire, is home to about 44,379 residents and is growing at a rate of 2.1% per annum. The majority of the residents are Australian-born with the minority of the population being born overseas Europe; the population density of the Highlands is 42.069 persons/km2. Berrima is a village located 10 kilometres west of Bowral and 14 kilometres south west of Mittagong that once served as the main town of the Highlands. Notably, the region of Bowral and Berrima and various villages including the Northern Villages used to be known as the Berrima District. Berrima contains many historic buildings including the historical Berrima Gaol and Courthouse, in use today and many other historical buildings. Bowral is considered the commercial centre of the Highlands and may be the most well-known towns of the Highlands. Bowral is well known for its boutiques, gourmet restaurants, Corbett Gardens and renowned Springetts Arcade; the town is home to the Sir Donald Bradman or Bradman Museum.
The Bradman Museum is a tribute museum to Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman who grew up in and spent his early life in Bowral until his fame. The museum contains artifacts of Bradman's life and serves as a museum of cricket and contains historical cricket memorabilia; the museum is located adjacent to Bradman Oval where the Australian Cricket Team play a friendly game annually. Fitzroy Falls is a waterfall found in the Morton National Park near the Highlands' village of the same name, Fitzroy Falls, located near Kangaroo Valley; the Fitroy Falls reserve offers lookouts of the waterfall and of panoramic views of the Morton National Park. The waterfall and village is located near the lake Fitzroy Reservoir; the waterfall's and lake's reserve includes bushwalking trails and picnic areas. The Illawarra Fly Tree Top Walk known as Illawarra Fly is a canopy walkway located south-east of Robertson in the area known as Knights Hill; the facility is a 500m long and 25m high walk facility that opened in mid-2008.
The project is similar to the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk in Australia. The project consists of a 1500m walk. Moreover, 500m of the 1500m walk is 25m high among the Blackwoods and many other trees of the temperate rainforest of the Budderoo National Park and Illawarra Escarpment. In addition, the project has a 45m high lookout along with the walk that offers panoramic views far south to Bass Point and as far as north to Bundeena, part of south of the Sutherland Shire. Other views include Wollongong, Lake Illawarra, Tasman Sea, Shellharbour and other localities of the South Coast, as well as various localities of the Southern Highlands, the Illawarra Escarpment and Budderoo National Park. Joadja is a historic abandoned ghost town about 32 km west of Mittagong; the town was established in the 1870s by the Australian Kerosene Oil and Mineral Company as Joadja valley's walls contained a vast reserve of shale. Notably, the town back in its time was one of the most populous towns in the Highlands. However, at the turn of the century when the shale ran out, the town's population began to dwindle and the town would be abandoned by the early 1900s.
Joadja at its height had a post office, general store, school of arts, railway line, miner's cottages and many other buildings. Notably, it was one of the first rural towns in New South Wales to be connected to the telephone. Joadja's legacy still remains with many of the historical buildings remaining in ruin such as some of the miner's cottages, a school house, church and refinery devices such as shale ovens; these ovens are on a World Heritage listing. Today, the Joadja Distillery produces Single Malt Whisky in honour of the Scottish mining families who worked the rich coal and shale seams in the late 1800s; the Southern Highlands has a reputation of being an upscale area due to its upscale-style accommodation which include reputable resorts such as Craigieburn, Berida Manor House and Peppers Manor House. Each of these places have a historic significance to the local area. Home of the Big Potato and Fountaindale Grand Manor'AKA' Ranelagh House. Fountaindale Grand Manor built in 1924 and opened as Hotel Robertson, has had an interesting history.
The Hotel boasted a nine-hole golf course, two tennis courts, lawn bowls, fishing, horseback riding, an onsite mechanic who looked after guest's cars during their stay. The hotel won the'Most luxurious hotel in the Commonwealth' award in 1925, was the first hotel in Australia
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
