Low flows
Twenty pools were assessed in the Flaxman Valley and Barossa Valley area for estimated volume. Pools in the Flaxman Valley ranged from approximately 0.7 ML to 3.2 ML with a mean value of 1.2ML. Pools in the Barossa Valley ranged from approximately 1.1 ML to 7.8 ML with a mean value of 4.8ML. The larger pools were towards the end of the valley in both cases as expected. Based on these volumes, flow rates of 0.2 ML per day and 1 ML per day were established for the end of the Flaxman Valley and Barossa Valley respectively. These values represented the approximate complete turn over of an average pool near the end of the valley in approximately five days. Flow rates for the remaining management areas are described in Table 3.
These values were also compared to the flow duration curves calculated from the observed flow data from the Penrice gauge (Flaxman Valley) and the Yaldara gauge (Barossa Valley). In both instances the flow values identified were close to the lower inflection point of the curves suggesting that the values were a good reflection of flows at the low end of the curve (Figure 1).