| Desert Uplands Queensland | |||||||||||||||
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 The interim Australian bioregions, with Desert Uplands in red | |||||||||||||||
| Area | 69,410.95 km2 (26,799.7 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
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The Desert Uplands is an interim Australian bioregion located in north and central western Queensland which straddles the Great Dividing Range between Blackall and Pentland. [1]
The bioregion contains Lake Galilee, Lake Dunn and Lake Buchanan. The climate is semi-arid with highly variable rainfall. Much of the area is used for cattle grazing and is part of the Great Artesian Basin, lying within both the Galilee and Eromanga Basins. The Brigalow Belt North and Brigalow Belt South are to the east of the bioregion, and the Einasleigh Uplands are located to the north. [2]
The main rivers in the bioregion are Belyando, Cape, Campaspe, Barcoo and Alice River and Aramac and Torrens Creeks. [1] Wetlands at shallow salt lakes Lake Galilee and Lake Buchanan are listed on the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia.
The Desert Uplands bioregion has four subregions: [3]
Spinifex grass is common. More than 80 weeds have been identified in the bioregion. [4]
In 2003, it was estimated that 13 million trees per year were being destroyed in the Desert Uplands. [5] This placed the percentage of land cleared at 6.8%, the third highest for any Queensland bioregion.
The two main settlements in the area are at Barcaldine and Aramac.
Protected areas in the Desert Uplands bioregion include: [6]
Nuga Nuga is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 515 km NW of Brisbane. It lies adjacent to Lake Nuga Nuga in the Comet River water catchment area of the Brigalow Belt bioregion.
The Thomson River is a perennial river that forms part of the Lake Eyre Basin, situated in the central west and western regions of Queensland, Australia. Much of the course of the river comprises a series of narrow channels synonymous with the Channel Country and the Galilee subregion.
The Staaten River is a river in northern Queensland, Australia, rising in the Great Dividing Range and flowing northwest into the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of 9,517,104 hectares. It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion.
Lake Buchanan is a flat salt lake at Pentland in North Queensland, Australia. It is approximately 28 km long and 8 km wide at its widest point, with a surface area of about 117 km2. It is part of the Thomson River catchment and part of the Desert Uplands bioregion.
Lake Galilee is a semi-arid salt lake in the locality of Galilee, Barcaldine Region, within the Desert Uplands area of Central West Queensland, Australia. The lake is about 36 kilometres long, up to 12.5 kilometres wide and covers approximately 25,700 hectares.
The Brigalow Belt is a wide band of acacia-wooded grassland that runs between tropical rainforest of the coast and the semi-arid interior of Queensland and northern New South Wales, Australia. The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides the Brigalow Belt into two IBRA regions, or bioregions, Brigalow Belt North (BBN) and Brigalow Belt South (BBS). The North and South Brigalow Belt are two of the 85 bioregions across Australia and the 15 bioregions in Queensland. Together they form most of the Brigalow tropical savanna ecoregion.
The Einasleigh Uplands is an interim Australian bioregion, with vegetation consisting of savanna and woodland located on a large plateau in inland Queensland, Australia. It corresponds to the Einasleigh Uplands savanna ecoregion, as identified by the World Wildlife Fund.
The Mulga Lands are an interim Australian bioregion of eastern Australia consisting of dry sandy plains with low mulga woodlands and shrublands that are dominated by Acacia aneura (mulga). The Eastern Australia mulga shrublands ecoregion is coterminous with the Mulga Lands bioregion.
Central West Queensland is a remote region in the Australian state of Queensland which covers 396,650.2 km2. The region lies to the north of South West Queensland and south of the Gulf Country. It has a population of approximately 12,387 people. As of 2018, it is one of 16 Aged Care Planning Regions (ACPR) in Queensland.
The Galilee Basin is a large inland geological basin in the western Queensland region of Australia. The Galilee Basin is part of a larger Carboniferous to Mid-Triassic basin system that contains the Cooper Basin, situated towards the south-west of the Galilee Basin, and the Bowen Basin to the east. The Galilee Basin covers a total area of approximately 247,000 square kilometres (95,000 sq mi). The basin is underlain by the Carboniferous Drummond Basin and overlain by the Cretaceous – Jurassic Eromanga Basin. The Triassic and younger sediments of the Galilee Basin form the basal sequence of the Great Artesian Basin drainage basin.
Yapunyah Waterhole lies in the Mulga Lands bioregion of western Queensland. The waterhole is about two kilometres long and covers approximately 22 hectares when full. It is defined as a permanent waterhole in a region where permanent waterholes are extremely rare and therefore provide important refuges for aquatic plants and animals. These rare waterholes were also vital for Aboriginal people and provided both spiritual and physical nourishment.
The Gulf Fall and Uplands, an interim Australian bioregion, is located in the Northern Territory and Queensland, comprising 11,847,909 hectares.
Galilee is a former rural locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Galilee had a population of 20 people.
Upland is a former rural locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Upland had a population of 12 people.
Gawler is an interim Australian bioregion located in South Australia. It has an area of 12,002,883 hectares. Gawler bioregion is part of the Tirari–Sturt stony desert ecoregion.
South Eastern Queensland is an interim Australian bioregion located in south-eastern Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales. It has an area of 7,804,921 hectares. It is one of the most biodiverse bioregions in Australia. The bioregion is home to eucalypt forests and woodlands, with rainforests on mountain slopes and in stream valleys and wallum heaths near the coast. South Eastern Queensland bioregion is the northernmost part of the Eastern Australian temperate forests ecoregion.
