Victoria: The Gippsland Lakes

Introduction

The Gippsland Lakes are a large and complex group of coastal lagoons, separated from the sea by broad sandy barriers. They include Lake Wellington (138 sq km; shoreline length 60 km), Lake Victoria (110 sq km; shoreline length just over 100 km), Lake King (92 sq km; shoreline length 160 km), and a number of smaller lagoons associated with extensive swamps on a low-lying depositional coastal plain (Bird 1978).

These lakes are fed by five main rivers, the Latrobe and the Avon flowing into Lake Wellington, the Mitchell, Nicholson, and Tambo into Lake King; and together these drain a catchment of about 20,600 sq km, extending into the Eastern Highlands of Victoria (Fig. 21.6.9.1 ). Much of the catchment above the 150 m contour is still forested, but the lower country is mainly grazed or cultivated (irrigated) farmland, with some residual patches of bush and heathland. Here the river valleys are incised into a coastal plateau which borders the southern slopes of the Eastern...