The acquisition of private land for public use provides an opportunity to reconsider land use to prioritise the needs of the community. This project proposes that in 2070, following public acquisition of a tract of private agricultural land, the Birrarung Bio-zone is established as a protected ecological habitat spanning 1500 hectares of the upper Birrarung floodplain.

Within the zone, the Birrarung’s seasonal water-flow cycles are reinstated, and the removal of agricultural infrastructure accelerates landscape regeneration. Seasonal water flows spread freely across the floodplain and downstream, dispersing native seeds along the catchment and accelerating regeneration. This movement of water helps to restore the river’s resilience and protects it against the evolving pressures of urbanisation.

The Birrarung Bio-zone is defined by a gradient of access thresholds. These zones include core conservation zones, which provide ecological and publicly inaccessible breeding grounds to protect numerous threatened species.

With the implementation of the zone, a renewed sense of ecological and human health and wellbeing is possible; the Birrarung would be safe to swim downstream, enriching its cultural and social value and extending to the heart the city.

Birrarung Bio-zone Aerial View:

Illustrating the extensive regeneration of the Birrarung Bio-zone across the flood plain, what was previously private farmland for grazing the area now forms a biodiversity hotspot within Greater Melbourne and is a popular destination within the community. 

Birrarung Bio-zone Perspective View:

This image presents a LiDAR view from within Visitation to the zone’s visitor access areas and guided tours of the inner zones provide a valued, locally rare immersive experience of a thriving ecosystem, hosting a spectacle of diverse local species and fauna throughout the seasons.

Landscape Site Analysis:

Illustrating the historical flows and the manipulation of the floodplain, this LiDAR imaging of the existing site forms an X-ray-like view of the floodplain; providing insight into the current conditions of the landscape and river system to guide decisions in the zone’s restoration. The image depicts how built landforms such as levees (flood berms) have restricted water flows and constrained the river’s movement.

Landscape Plan Birrarung Bio-zone:

The Birrarung Bio-zone spans 1500 hectares along a vast flood plain channel within the river’s upper catchment. The plan illustrates a simulation of the Birrarung’s meander flows within the zone providing an impression of the future paths of the Birrarung overtime. The plan was developed to advocate allocation of the zone – a movement defined in response to advocacy for the river’s health by local community environmental groups and Traditional Custodians, and in context of evolving land-use pressures, transitioning agricultural practices and the federal and state government 2090 climate policy. 

Environmental watering and restoration of riparian ecosystems is an expanding field within catchment management and policy, supported by advanced predictive modelling systems. 

As seasonal water flows are returned to the zone, the seedbank is dispersed and activated downstream – inoculating the Birrarung and renewing its immunity against evolving pressures of land use and urbanisation through regeneration of the land.

Birrarung Bio-zone Guide Uniform:

Public access to core protected sites within the zone is hosted by guides to the zone - local caretakers of the community, working in partnership with Traditional Custodians and governing organisations. 

Guides and the community group ‘Friends of Birrarung Bio-zone’ include volunteers, landscape restoration teams, scientists, students and restoration ecologists, working tirelessly to support the regeneration of local ecological communities and facilitating public engagement. The group hosts diverse community programming, including health and well-being activities and popular citizen science events.

Guide uniforms - created by Dr Alice Lewis - enable safe traversing of the zone’s riparian swamp lands and are designed to support an immersive and sensory experience of wading through shallow wetland water bodies, while monitoring and evaluating the site’s water quality, vegetation and fauna. All clothing is designed and treated to prevent transmission of biohazards into the zone.

Public access to core protected sites within the zone is guided by the local caretakers of the community, working in partnership with Traditional Custodians and state government. The Friends of Birrarung Bio-zone group group facilitate community programs including health and well-being activities and citizen science events.

Birrarung Blockaid Archive

This archival collection illustrates the vital role of the local community in advocacy for the Birrarung and the regeneration of the river system, created by Bonnie Gordon. Early within the movement, it was recognised that the community faced a paradox problem: our ecological losses are driven by our cultural practices, the less connection and engagement we have with landscape and other species the less we can comprehend and care. Advocates explored how to define measures of protection to species and life forms at risk, while promoting human engagement with the environment, and recognising the intrinsic role of humans as part of the landscape. This became an important step in communications, highlighting the role of healthy ecosystems in human wellbeing and advocating dialogue with the river as an ecosystem and living entity.

Birrarung Bio-zone Flood Simulation:

Forming an approach of communication with the Birrarung, data analysis and visualisation can illustrate the dynamics of the river system. This simulation of inundation sequences provides an impression of how seasonal flooding unfolds in the Birrarung floodplain. 

A detailed topographic digital model of the site (produced from LiDAR data) forms the base for a shallow water solver simulation to visually approximate how flood water inundates the zone. Distinct and subtle patterns of water flow are revealed. The simulation illustrates graphically the extent of seasonal flooding and demonstrates the role of the floodplain as an intrinsic part of the river, existing beyond the extents of lines represented on a map.

Birrarung Bio-zone Meander Simulation:

Illustrating the movement of the river over time, these generated sequences show the complex dynamics at play in meandering river systems, providing an impression of how systems like the Birrarung evolve over millennia producing riparian forms such as billabongs. These dynamic riparian conditions form ecological communities that host a multitude of lifeforms.

The clip demonstrates how the Birrarung needs to be understood as a system that extends far beyond its identifiable main water channel. As a living entity, the Birrarung requires space to move and function as a dynamic system.

Birrarung Meander Model:

Making the movement of a river over time visible, this model is a 3D printed representation of the meandering Birrarung within the zone. Time is represented in the vertical dimension, revealing how the river course may evolve over many thousands of years while the x and y dimensions describe the spatial arrangement of the system at a point in time. Billabongs emerge as offshoots from the main water course as it winds its way through the landscape towards the bay.

Generated using a simple kinematic model of meandering, the resultant form was based on computing channel migration rates as the weighted sum of upstream curvatures, calibrated to approximate the characteristics of the Birrarung morphology. This modelling of the Birrarung meander simulation was developed by Dr Zoltan Sylvester (Meanderpy) in collaboration with the studio.