Our water quality monitoring program has shown the Tomaga River to have excellent water quality. Find out more about the estuary and its unique features.
Tomaga River is a barrier river estuary with an open entrance. It is located on the south coast of New South Wales, south of Batemans Bay.
The estuary hosts a range of habitats such as intertidal mudflats, mangrove forests, saltmarshes, swamp-oak woodlands and is a habitat protection zone as part of Batemans Marine Park.
As part of our water quality monitoring program we assess the water quality and ecosystem health of an estuary using a range of relevant indicators. We sample a subset of the estuaries between Wollongong and the Victorian border every 3 years. The most recent sampling in the Tomaga River was completed over the 2008–09 summer when 2 sites were sampled on a monthly basis.
This report card represents 2 water quality indicators that we routinely measure: the amount of algae present and water clarity. Low levels of these 2 indicators equate with good water quality.
The report card shows the condition of the estuary was excellent with:
Eurobodalla Shire Council have a long-term water quality monitoring program in the Tomaga River, based on the same sampling and reporting methods as our state-wide program. The results of the monitoring program, including a detailed water quality report card, are available on the Eurobodalla Shire Council website.
Find out more about our estuary report cards and what each grade means. Read our sampling, data analysis and reporting protocols and find out how we calculate these grades.
Estuary type: Barrier river
| Entrance location |
Latitude (ºS) | –35.84 |
|---|---|---|
| Longitude (ºE) | 150.19 | |
| Catchment area (km2) | 91.9 | |
| Estuary area (km2) | 1.8 | |
| Estuary volume (ML) | 1410.9 | |
| Average depth (m) | 1 | |
Tidal exchange volume or tidal prism data is available for this estuary.
| Tide state | Flow (106 m3) |
Local tidal range (m) |
Sydney Harbour
tidal range (m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ebb flow | 0.96 | 0.86 | 1.09 |
| Flood flow | 0.96 | 0.9 | 1.15 |
Bathymetric and coastal topography data for this estuary are available in our data portal.
The Tomago River catchment is moderately disturbed with almost 20% cleared for urban and rural residential areas and grazing at Tomakin, Mogo and Woodlands. About 80% of the catchment is forested.
Local councils manage estuaries within their area unless the estuary is attached to a marine park.
Eurobodalla Shire Council manage this estuary, which is located in Batemans Marine Park.
Threatened shorebird species, such as the pied oyster catcher and hooded plover, can be found along the river and feed in the lower estuary.
Read more about the biodiversity in our estuaries.