Grant helps Dawson flood warning

PREPARING for future flood events in the Dawson River catchment and warning residents of the potential dangers will be a little easier, thanks to a $500,000 government grant.

Banana Shire Council received the money to install six new river height stations in the Dawson catchment and 20 new rainfall gauges.

Banana Shire disaster management co-ordinator Andrew Bicknell said the funding, which came from the State and Federal governments, was part of the shire's disaster mitigation program.

"Basically, what council found in the last flood was that it had problems getting accurate data about the volume of flood water coming down the river system, particularly from major streams feeding into the Dawson River," Mr Bicknell said.

"So, we identified from that, we probably need to get more gauges that automatically feed into the Bureau of Meteorology system.

"We are looking at six river height gauges and 20 rainfall gauges.

"This was done in consultation with the Bureau of Meteorology."

Some of the existing manual stations in the catchment will be replaced with automatic stations during the program.

Mr Bicknell said the new gauges would provide the council with more detailed and accurate information and would contribute to the warnings BOM put out to the public.