The waterways of Barrambin are not gone; they have simply been rendered invisible. Strung out along the full extent of Barrambin’s original waterbed, hidden under concrete and drain covers, are a series of subterranean stormwater drains that together carry the currents which once flowed through the wetland.
Not all surface evidence of the waterways has disappeared, either: aboveground, there are both artificial stone channels and natural rivulets, where rainwater still navigates the natural gutters of the landscape.
These waterways, past and present, are a pencil impression of Brisbane’s topography. Barrambin and its waterways reveal the natural hilly contours of the land from Kelvin Grove to Bowen Hills, which have been left largely intact by the efforts of urbanisation since colonisation.
It is in the same natural, low furrow of the land which cradled the Barrambin swamplands that city-builders constructed the Sandgate Railway—now known as the Rail Corridor—and then the Inner City Bypass, which carried more than 108,000 vehicles every weekday in 2017 (Transurban, 2017). Where stormwaters once flowed, there now flow immense volumes of commerce and human traffic.
Even so, it is because Brisbane’s topography is largely unchanged that the shape of Barrambin still reemerges in overland flow patterns during heavy rain, when water pools where it always has—in the dips and basins of the land (Rutledge et al., 2022).
References
Brisbane City Council. (n.d.). Flood Awareness Map. Brisbane City Council. Retrieved August 19, 2022, from http://floodinformation.brisbane.qld.gov.au/fio/
Brisbane City Council. (2022, July 25). Stormwater—Pipe—Existing. Brisbane City Council – Open Spatial Data Portal. https://www.spatial-data.brisbane.qld.gov.au/maps/7dd8aea20e1e4319ac8904649686922f_0
Rutledge, K., McDaniel, M., Teng, S., Hall, H., & Ramroop, T. (2022, July 2). Swamp. National Geographic Society. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/swamp
Transurban. (2017). Inner City Bypass Upgrade (Sustainability Report 2017). Transurban. https://sr17.transurban.com/think-long-term/enhancing-our-networks/inner-city-bypass-upgrade