The Lachlan and Willandra Creek floodplains around Hillston are regarded as prime agricultural land and support a successful irrigation and dryland farming industry. The floodplains also have significant ecological values including extensive areas of wetlands and a diversity of native flora and fauna that benefit from periodic flooding. The expansion of irrigated cropping in recent times has led to concerns about the impacts of associated works, such as channels and levees, on flood behaviour. A number of these concerns were evident in the 1990 flood. Changes in floodwater distribution can increase flood risk to floodplain occupiers and cause environmental problems by isolating flood dependent ecosystems, such as wetlands, from flooding. This report has the following strategic objectives:

• to reduce the impact of flooding and flood liability on individual owners and occupiers of flood prone property, and to reduce private and public losses resulting from floods, utilising ecologically positive methods wherever possible (NSW Flood Prone Land Policy objective);
• to coordinate floodplain development in order to minimise adverse changes to flood flow patterns;
• to increase the sustainable social, economic and ecological benefits of using the floodplain;
• to improve and maintain the diversity and well-being of riverine and floodplain ecosystems that depend on flood inundation; and,
• to take into account the cumulative impact on flooding behaviour of individual developments.