The first time we saw the Loddon River, we stood on a hill, upstream from Glenlyon. That was in November 2000.

The river was flowing so swiftly, it had severely cut into the banks, turning them into small cliffs. A local told us its course had changed slightly, as it so often did during flooding.

Earlier this week, we had a stroll near that spot. We came across a puddle, left after recent rain, but mostly we walked along the dry river bed.

‘The Loddon River flows 392km from its headwaters in the Great Dividing Range near Daylesford, through Castlemaine to Swan Hill where it meets the Murray River.’ (Environment Victoria)

These days the river doesn’t flow. Sometimes, after rain, it puddles and on occasion trickles.

The Loddon was – and still is – a victim of the 1850s gold rush when dredging and mining transformed it. Thousands of River Red Gums were removed from its banks.

Our largest freshwater fish the Murray Cod, survives in rivers wherever there are deep holes. The cod likes to be hidden by fallen trees and overhanging native vegetation. However, this type of habitat has been severely compromised over decades as more land has been cleared for pasture.

Cattle that graze along rivers severely degrade the banks in their efforts to drink from the stream. This, too, contributes to loss of habitat of not just the Murray Cod, but also that of the platypus.

To compound the damage, in the late 1950s willows were planted along the Loddon to stablise its banks. Willows, with their fibrous root systems, trap stones and pebbles. They don’t sustain life in our rivers in the same way that other riparian vegetation does.

Willows are greedy consumers. They can suck a small river dry. In Autumn they dump masses of leaves into the river, wiping out aquatic invertebrates that provide food for native fish. The leaf fall from native vegetation, on the other hand, supplies the type of food on which native fish feed.

Poplars, with their rapidly spreading suckers, have also choked the Loddon.

Over the last few years, the hard-working Guildford/Upper Loddon Landcare Group has been working to remove nearly 300 willows and poplars along the river, replacing them with wattles and eucalypts.

The Cairn Curran Reservoir, west of Maldon, was constructed in 1956 ‘to supply water for irrigation and domestic and stock use to customers along the Loddon River’. A visit there in Autumn revealed an expanse of dry, dusty, sterile land where the reservoir used to be.

There’s little we can do about drought. But there’s much we can do to optimise conditions in and along our rivers for when the rain finally does arrive.