Today's Hunter River floodplains are nothing like what they once were.
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Early European incursion saw the removal of the majestic cedars, rosewoods and gums, important to building in Sydney.
This also required the stripping of the casuarinas from the along the riverbanks to allow access to the cedars, rosewoods and gums.
Then came clear-felling of the remaining thick 'brush' to establish farms, first by the convict settlers at Patersons Plains and Wallis Plains, and then on a much larger scale when the large rural estates appeared from the early 1820s.
Farming also saw the draining of large lagoons including Lake Paterson (between today's Woodville and Wallalong, then called Butterwick) and Lake Lachlan (in the Louth Park-Bishops Bridge area).
The changes wrought were utterly transformative.
The water storage capacity of the floodplain was significantly reduced, with runoff finding its way to the river more quickly.
Stream banks, denuded of soil-holding vegetation, collapsed, widening stream channels and beginning a change from clear water in the channels outside flood times to water of greater turbidity (muddiness).
Much later, when European carp entered the Hunter and grazed on the banks and in the channels, further increasing the turbidity. This meant the ecological health of the river was reduced even more.
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The Hunter and its tributaries rose more quickly after heavy rain, enhancing bank erosion.
The northern side of Horseshoe Bend was badly affected, a large promontory shaved off by the river between 1857 and 1870.
An island in the stream was swept away, as were roads and dwellings in the Bend.
Eventually, meanders were cut off at their 'necks'.
The first to go was the Pig Run meander (whose remains can still be seen along Glenarvon Rd) during a flood in 1879.
Now steepened, the channel saw faster flowing, more energetic flood flows. Before long, in 1890, the King Island-Largs meander was severed too.
Next was the Horseshoe Bend meander, in 1893.
In this case the severing was sought, a contractor hired by the West Maitland Council to dig a 240-yard channel eastward from Lorn to Pitnacree.
The intention was to speed flood flows past Horseshoe Bend and eastern High Street.
The 1893 flood finished the contractor's task.
Further meanders were cut off during the flood-rich 1950s.
Two Pitnacree meanders went in 1950 and 1951, leaving the Pitnacree Bridge stranded over an abandoned, sand-filled channel.
Narrowgut was severed in 1952.
There were lesser cutoffs in 1955, 1956 and 1964, the last of them aided by flood mitigation work.
In 1952 Taggarts Point, opposite Morpeth, was shaved off as the channel moved eastward by a few tens of metres.
Sediment build-up as floods receded meant that channel carrying capacity was reduced.
This, in turn, meant overflows onto the floodplain occurred in lesser floods.
Hundreds of hectares of land were lost to bank erosion, rich alluvium built up over millenia being deposited in Newcastle Harbour.
Costly dredging was required to maintain the depths needed for ships there, especially after 1950.
Against this, faster drainage after floods facilitated the return of farmland to production.
Over nearly a century the river distance from Maitland to Morpeth was reduced, from 26 kilometres to nine, and the sinuosity of the channel declined.
The river's health declined too.