Birch’s Creek is a tributary of the Loddon River rising on the northern slopes of the Great Dividing Range and drains a catchment area of 707km2 (North Central CMA 2014b). The Newlyn Reservoir is the upper limit of the environmental flows management area, and Creswick Creek, which joins Birch’s Creek approximately 3km north of Clunes, marks the downstream limit. Distance from Newlyn Reservoir to Creswick Creek is approximately 40 km.
Downstream of the Creswick Creek confluence the creek becomes Tullaroop Creek, which flows into Tullaroop Reservoir near Carisbrook. A separate EWMP has been developed for Tullaroop Creek as part of the Loddon River system EWMP.
Birch’s Creek receives major tributary inputs from Rocky Lead, Langdons, Lawrence and Tourello Creeks (Figure 2).
Two storages built in the 1870s regulate stream flow for irrigation and urban supply. Newlyn Reservoir (total capacity = 3030 ML) is located on Birch’s Creek upstream of the township of Newlyn, while Hepburn Lagoon (total capacity = 3,080 ML) is an off-stream storage located on Langdons Creek and connected to Birch’s Creek via the Hepburn Race. As outlined in Section , environmental water can only be delivered from Newlyn Reservoir.
Downstream of the storages, the catchment is extensively cleared and the creek meanders through a generally incised basaltic valley with a mostly confined floodplain. The dominant land-uses are broadacre agriculture, dairying and mixed enterprise including cropping. Potatoes are a major crop in the catchment.
Figure 2: Birch’s Creek location map showing flow reaches and major features is the background image. See Related Web Page for all references to notes on this cache page.