There are seven telemetered flow gauges throughout the Gilbert River catchment. Data is available at the Queensland Government’s Water Monitoring Information Portal.
Gilbert River at Rockfields gauge
The Gilbert River at Rockfields gauge would be used by interested parties to apply for the current surface water release in the GRAP, making it liable for extra study.
To describe a river system, especially at a gauged station, is by plotting a rating curve. A rating curve graphs discharge (i.e., flow rate of water) vs. stage (i.e., water level). Once a rating curve has been developed for a point along a watercourse it is possible to transform stage measurements to discharge and vice versa. This means that only one of the two measurements must be taken.
At the Rockfields gauge both stage and discharge are measured and telemetred, meaning that the data collected at the gauge is transmitted to the relevant organisation, here the Queensland Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water.
The Rockfields gauge takes measurements at one side of the Gilbert River. There are some drawbacks of gauging a wide system with a bed sands aquifer using such a gauge. One is the possibility of underflow under the gauge in the bed sands that could be missed. Underflow occurs when water is flowing though the bed sands but not in the river itself. Underflow water could be sourced from bed sand water flowing from upstream or connectivity between the bed sands and the underlying aquifer. Flows in the Gilbert River frequently occur on parts of the surface area of the Gilbert River and therefore could be missed by the gauge.
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