Investigations of the potential for irrigated agriculture on the Bonaparte Plains: bore completion report, 2nd edition

Authors

D L. BennettFollow

Publication Date

2-2019

Series Number

414

Abstract

Drilling programs were undertaken in 2013 and 2016 by the former Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia and in 2017 by DPIRD, at 10 sites in the Bonaparte Plains area, north of Kununurra in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia (WA).

These drilling programs were a component of resource availability and risk investigations conducted to determine the potential for developing irrigated agriculture on 30 000 hectares of Cockatoo Sands — free-draining loamy soils that have the potential to support crops in the wet and dry seasons. There was limited hydrogeological information available at a suitable scale for the area. The drilling programs provided hydrogeological information for the underlying aquifer and included installing monitoring and test-pumping bores to help determine the potential for groundwater supply and development risks in the area.

This report provides bore completion details of the drilling programs undertaken in 2013, 2016 and 2017 on the Bonaparte Plains in the context of local and regional geology and hydrogeology. The results of subsequent water level monitoring, geochemical and isotopic sampling, test pumping and numerical water balance modelling undertaken within the Bonaparte Plains area are in separate reports.

The second edition also contains the results of palynology analysis on select drill cutting samples undertaken by John Backhouse (Backhouse Biostrat Pty Ltd) for the Geological Survey of Western Australia in January 2019. Based on this study, the geological formation nomenclature in the first edition has been revised.

Number of Pages

99

Keywords

Bonaparte Plains, East Kimberley, hydrogeology, geology, drilling, bore completion diagrams

Disciplines

Agriculture | Geology | Hydrology

Comments

This publication is the second edition of Resource Management Technical Report 409, of the same title.

Recommended Citation

Bennett, D 2018, ‘Investigations of the potential for irrigated agriculture on the Bonaparte Plains: bore completion report’, 2nd edtion, Resource management technical report 414, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Perth.

Previous Versions

Aug 16 2018 (withdrawn)
Aug 14 2018 (withdrawn)