In far western NSW, these banks, 50 centimetres high, graded across the landscape slope, are being constructed to slow the flow of water and encourage the rehydration of this ancient and, in some cases, drought-affected country.
Broken Hill district grazier Dave Langford is turning to the grader to re-hydrate some of his property K-tank, which is still feeling some of the impact of the 2019-20 drought.
Mr Langford runs South Australian-blood Merinos and harvests bush goats on 32,400 hectares of the country about 35 kilometres east of Broken Hill and has employed a contractor to grade 50cm high berms (similar to contour banks) to slow the flow of water across some of his paddocks on one of his properties, K-tank.
In April this year, several banks were graded into a bare, pebbled piece of land, and just a couple of nights after the job was completed, about 70mm of rain fell and was caught by the banks.
The way the land has responded has been tremendous," Mr Langford said.
"It slows water flow across the country, which has been good for getting the grass going again.
Mr Langford said he'd heard some landholders had reintroduced pasture seed into the country they installed the banks on.
"We've got a fairly big sort of seed base left in this country, and when it rained, we had no dramas with the grasses coming back," he said.
Far West Rangeland Rehydration Alliance spokesperson and Western Landcare executive officer Louise Turner was an organiser of a field day on using banks in rehydrating the landscape at White Cliffs midway through 2022.
She said the introduction of the banks was making significant changes to the landscape and said they would offer landholders a great deal of value and give them plenty to consider about their farming operations.
"As we've seen first-hand in the White Cliffs area and the western region more broadly, there are a lot of opportunities with rangeland rehabilitation and soil carbon, so getting the latest updates on these topics can only be a good thing," Ms Turner said.
"Over several years now, a growing number of landholders in the White Cliffs area have become more focused on the landscape and what we can do to make improvements to them so they are at their full capacity from a producer's perspective and environmental standpoint."
"After a number of tough years with the drought, we have seen some great results over the last couple of years which is giving us the drive to continue down this path," she said.
Local Land Service's senior officer in rangelands rehabilitation is Paul Theakston, who said Mr Langford's work at K-tank was turning the tables on erosion issues emerging after the run of wet seasons.
The principles behind the banks and ponds were to simulate an absorbent landscape, like in past decades when there were growing vegetation levels, Mr Theakston said.
He said Mr Langford and the contractor Murray Cramp, had invested in about 150 erosion controls across tracks on the property, preventing runoff water from building enough pace to begin gully erosion.
"Dave Langford would have to win the prize in the Western Division for this work; I don't know of anyone who has invested this much effort into these controls," Mr Theakston said.
"Track erosion can be a massive problem, and because rainfall events are separated by lengthy periods in normal years, the wet seasons in the past two or so years have highlighted the problem," he said.
Mr Theakston said he and his LLS colleague, Craig Anderson spent numerous hours surveying with GPS equipment on K-tank to ensure the roll-over banks across tanks had the integrity to slow the water flow constructively.
He said once the banks and ponds had sufficient vegetation, their structures would eventually slump or silt up.
"In these wet years, you can see how erodible this country is."