Hutt Lagoon

Hutt Lagoon is a salt lake located near the coast just north of the mouth of the Hutt River, in the Mid West region of Western Australia.

Geography

Hutt Lagoon is an elongate lake that sits in a dune swale adjacent to the coast. The town of Gregory is located between the ocean and the lake's southern shores. The road between Northampton and Kalbarri, George Grey Drive, runs along its Eastern edge.

The lake is about 14 kilometres (9 mi) in length along its northwest-southeast axis, parallel with the coast. It is around 2.3 kilometres (1.4 mi) wide.

The Hutt Lagoon comprises most of the Hutt Lagoon System, a DIWA-listed wetland system that also takes in a number of adjacent small lakes, such as Utcha Swamp.

Hydrology

The lagoon, or marginal-marine salina, is an elongate depression about 70 square kilometres (27 sq mi) in area, with most of it lying a few metres below sea level. It is separated from the Indian Ocean by a beach barrier ridge and barrier dune system. Similar to Lake MacLeod, 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the north of Carnarvon, Hutt Lagoon is fed by marine waters through the barrier ridge and by meteoric waters through springs.

Due to the salina’s sub-sealevel position, seepage of seawater into the salina is continuous year round. During the winter wet season, the amount of water coming into the salina is substantially increased by the influx of meteoric groundwater. Hutt Lagoon has a Mediterranean climate; high evaporation rates (2,150–2,400 millimetres (85–94 in)) are characteristic of the summer. There is moderate rainfall in the winter. These factors combine to form a setting within which salt is deposited seasonally and the rates and style of precipitation follow a balance between influx of water and removal by evaporation. During the summer about 95% of the salina surface is a dry salt flat.

History

Hutt Lagoon was named by the explorer George Grey who camped on its eastern edge on 4 April 1839, while on his second disastrous expedition along the Western Australian coast. He mistook the wet season lagoon for a large...