Corunna Lake

Our water quality monitoring program has shown Corunna Lake to have good water quality. Find out more about the estuary and its unique features.

Corunna Lake is a small lagoon on the south coast of New South Wales. It has an intermittently open entrance and the entrance flows into the ocean after heavy rainfall.

Estuary health and features

Water quality

As part of our water quality monitoring program we assess the water quality and ecosystem health of an estuary using a range of relevant indicators. We sample a subset of the estuaries between Wollongong and the Victorian border every 3 years. The most recent sampling in Corunna Lake was completed over the 2020–21 summer when 2 sites were sampled on a monthly basis.

Corunna Lake water quality report card for algae and water clarity showing colour-coded ratings (red, orange, yellow, light green and dark green, which represent very poor, poor, fair, good and excellent, respectively). Algae is rated 'fair' and water clarity is rated 'excellent' giving an overall rating of 'good' or 'B'.

This report card represents 2 water quality indicators that we routinely measure: the amount of algae present and water clarity. Low levels of these 2 indicators equate with good water quality.

The report card shows the condition of the estuary was good with:

  • algae abundance graded poor (D)
  • water clarity graded excellent (A)
  • overall estuary health graded fair (C).

Find out more about our estuary report cards and what each grade means. Read our sampling, data analysis and reporting protocols and find out how we calculate these grades.

We have monitored water quality in the Corunna Lake since 2007. This table shows the water quality grades for this estuary over that time.

Corunna Lake historic water quality grades from 2007-08 for algae and water clarity. Colour-coded ratings (red, orange, yellow, light green and dark green represent very poor (E), poor (D), fair (C), good (B) and excellent (A), respectively).

Grades for algae, water clarity and overall are represented as:

  • A – excellent
  • B – good
  • C – fair
  • D – poor
  • E – very poor.

Physical characteristics

Estuary type: Lagoon

Entrance
location
Latitude (ºS) –36.29
Longitude (ºE) 150.13
Catchment area (km2) 29.7
Estuary area (km2) 2.1
Estuary volume (ML) 2299.6
Average depth (m) 1.1
Notes: km2 = square kilometres; m = metres; ML = megalitres.  

Water depth and survey data

Bathymetric and coastal topography data for this estuary are available in our data portal.

Land use

The catchment of Corunna Lake is moderately disturbed due to almost half the catchment being cleared for urban or grazing land use at the townships of Corunna and Central Tilba. About half of the catchment is forested, some of which is managed by Forestry Corporation.

National and marine parks

Citizen science projects

  • iNaturalist’s Plants of Eurobodalla is a citizen science project that monitors plants found in the Eurobodalla region. 

Community involvement

Corunna Lake