Coffs Harbour City Council in conjunction with the Public Works Department of N.S.W. (PWD) is investigating various options to augment its water supply. One option is to construct a dam on the Bobo River.

The Bobo River dam site is located west of Coffs Harbour in the Brooklana, Cascade area (Figure 1). The preferred site is along a northerly flowing section o f the Bobo River with most of the storage area within the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest. The catchment area is 98 square kilometres, with a mainstream length of 28 km and an average stream slope of 0.042 m/m.

The PWD hydrological data capture, storage and distribution network satisfies a wide variety of program and client requirements. The PWD through its Manly Hydraulics Laboratory (MHL) and the Coastal Regional Offices have been developing, field testing and deploying, solid state logging and sensing systems in the coastal areas and creeks of NSW. Two versions of the solid state logger have been deployed in the Bobo Catchment.

This paper presents the early results of a data capture program, (including instrumentation assessments) undertaken to assess the suitability of the Bobo River site in hydrological and water quality terms.