Land-Water-Sky Continuum Research Project Bungonia Farm Comprehensive Historical Analysis (2015-2025)

The Bungonia Farm Comprehensive Historical Analysis (2015–2025) is the flagship farm‑scale case study in the Land–Water–Sky Continuum Research Program, tracking a decade of Natural Sequence Farming–led rehydration on a 60‑hectare property in NSW.

The report reconstructs how contour‑based water harvesting, wetland and floodplain reconnection, and succession‑aware grazing converted a hot, leaky, erosion‑prone landscape into a cool, tight‑looped system with much higher infiltration, evapotranspiration and biodiversity, and reduced temperature extremes. Using Two‑Eyed Seeing, it aligns Aboriginal TCK indicators (Songlines, seasonal cues) with BoM rainfall, on‑farm monitoring and satellite metrics, and demonstrates that improvements in soil moisture, vegetation health and small‑water‑cycle function can be quantitatively linked to changes in all seven landscape processors. (See Seven-on-Seven Framework at the end of the Quantum Biology page)

Results: Field-Validated Restoration Outcomes:

Primary Evidence: Field Measurement Results:

Bungonia Farm's exceptional restoration outcomes are documented through systematic field monitoring, providing the definitive evidence base for water-pulse landscape restoration.

Key Field Observations:

• Water-pulse timing at 15-25% field capacity consistently yielded >90% success rate for infiltration improvement

• Groundwater response documented across 80% of monitored locations

• Field-measured soil moisture retention increased dramatically following contour channel installation

Laboratory Validation:

• Soil cores analysed by accredited laboratories show consistent carbon accrual

• EPS assays demonstrate enhanced microbial activity following water-pulse interventions

• Nutrient cycling efficiency improvements documented through annual testing

Vegetation Index Trends (Sentinel-2)

• NDVI Recovery: 0.55 → 0.72 (31% improvement)

• Reliability: HIGH for paddock-scale vegetation monitoring

• Validation: Supported by field vegetation surveys, confirming ground-truthed vegetation cover and species diversity increases.

Systems-Level Feedback Analysis:

Introduction:

Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) implementation at Bungonia Farm (60ha) created a cohesive set of self-reinforcing feedback loops across hydrology, soil–microbe interactions, plant succession, and atmospheric coupling. These feedbacks and causal links are substantiated through a combination of continuous remote sensing (Sentinel-2 NDVI, MODIS/VIIRS ET, ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis), periodic field assessments (infiltration checks, soil sampling, groundwater measurements), site observations by TALS and Paul Anderson, and overlays with Traditional Cultural Knowledge (TCK).

This systems-level analysis demonstrates how NSF creates emergent properties—establishing a self-organising, climate-regulating landscape that functions as an integrated biological system.

Data Transparency Note: All feedback patterns are reconstructed from seasonal fieldwork, remote-sensing time series, and regional modelling—not from full-time, automated sensor networks. Patterns represent robust trends observed via systematic monitoring.

Water Pulse and the Land Heartbeat:

Elder John W.

"The land has a pulse, just like you and me. When the rains come, the earth doesn’t just get wet; it drinks in a specific, rhythmic pulse. The water moves through the underground tracks, following the songlines of the ancestors. If we incision the soil with deep drains or hard roads, we break that heart rhythm. The water speeds up, it gets angry, and it cuts into the earth instead of healing it. Quantum sensors now show us this resonance—a low-frequency vibration that occurs when a landscape is properly hydrated. We always knew this as the "Singing of the Country." When the water flows slowly and settles in the chains of ponds, the whole landscape breathes together in harmony."

CASE STUDY: PETER ANDREWS' BUNGONIA FARM
BUNGONIA, NSW, AUSTRALIA00

Scientific Assessment of Bungonia Farm - Paul Anderson BSc MSc Grad Dip

​Before and after Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) contour implementation Top Paddock at Bungonia Farm: Orchard at Bungonia Farm:

1: Dig contour (on level) in compacted lifeless soils

Step 2: Pump water into the contour to prime the landscape

Result: Vegetation starts growing around the water body

Scientific Assessment of Tarwyn Park and Bungonia Farm
by Paul Anderson BSc MSc Grad Dip

"Bylong Valley and Bungonia: two different geographical locations, two totally different starting conditions. Peter Andrews has implemented Natural Sequence Farming and proper water management, and I’ve seen the exactly same result in both locations in less than a year - the evolution of plants, the automatic transitioning from woody pioneering weeds to beautiful grass and clover.

Relevant Conclusions from Metaanalyses of Data and Studies over 40 Years:

1. There is a substantial potential for subsurface water storage in the unconfined aquifers associated with floodplain function. This allows several benefits to be realized.

• 1. Water loss through evaporation is minimised

• - Irrigation is minimised

• - Landscape becomes more resilient to drought conditions

• - Temperature extremes managed through evapotranspiration

• - Soil profile maintains sufficient saturation maintain cover crop

• 
  

• 2. Erosion control and rehabilitation.

• - Surficial water can be managed through natural interceptions and contouring, encouraging sedimentation and remediation of the effects of gully erosion and topsoil loss.

• - Landscape becomes more resilient to flood conditions.

• - Landscape becomes substantially more productive."

• 
  ~ Paul Anderson, Hydrogeomorphologist, 20 Oct 2020

Photo Gallery

Water-Pulse Landscape Restoration Projects:

Reviving ecosystem function and the small water cycle, the heart beat of the land, by weaving Traditional Cultural Knowledge with Australian Landscape Science. Below are a serries of photos recording the timeline evolution of Two major Water-Pulse Restoration programs implemented in urban environments on the Central Coast of Australia. At the time, Ian Sutton was working as a programs co-ordinator and field supervisor for Equilibrium Future Solutions, a not-for-profit organisation based in Avoca Beach.

"This was the period of ground implementation and observation that cemented my understanding of water-pulse dynamics and the development of the Cooperative Succession framework. I would like to mention five people in particular, for whom, without their efforts and input, I would not have been able to complete these demonstration sites. Thank you Andrea Singi, you saw something in me early and trusted my unusual methods, allowing me to safely develope both my social programs and land management approach. Thank you Alison Duffy, you single-handedly kept Equilibrium Future Solutions running as I ran to keep up with the opportunities you created. Thank you, Mark Robinson, your assistance in the field made managing large, difficult social programs not only possible, you directly helped make large projects like Bautau Bay Community Park truly successful. I would also like to thank Phil Bligh; your guidance and support made my navigation and participation with the local Aboriginal communities a true holistic experience that grounded me in Traditional Cultural thinking. Last but not least, I would like to thank Peter Andrews for your wealth of observational knowledge and field experience, which grounded my focus on Water-Pulse dynamics and ecological succession".

Below is a timeline of the Kariong Storm Water Catchment and Filtration System, retrofitted into an existing storm water channel. The program was run at the Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre, with Aboriginal boys participating not only in the constructing of the ponds and welands, they also completing a Certificate 2 in Conservation and Land Management at the same time. The idea of this site was to demonstrate water-pulse restoration can be utilised as part of urban stormwater management systems, allowing us to reduce urban flooding and increase green corridors with little expense or infrastructure.

From 2009 to 2014, Ian was involved in helping to manage the site and during this period, community members began taking an interest in the project and from 2014 to the present time the site has been managed by the local community, who have planted a wonderfully diverse ecosystem that has established into a wonderland native corridor in less than 10 years.

Kariong Storm Water Catchment and Filtration System

Bateau Bay Community Park

Below is a timeline series of photos capturing the construction and the before and afters for the Bateau Bay Community Park. This site was an abandoned quarry adjacent to an urban housing estate, and my reason for picking this site was that I needed to demonstrate Water-Pulse restoration success even in the most degraded Urban Environments.

The upper water catchment was the quarry, profiled first in the timeline Photo series, and was the origin of flood water that inundated back yards in adjacent lower areas, dirty brown runoff straight from the claystone quarry. As part of the program, the upper section was transformed into a hanging swamp that slowed and spread the stormwater flow and filtered the water. This set up the hydrology pattern that allowed us to feed the lower main park with an in ground irrigation system mimicking how natural systems function through water pulse dynamics and in-ground trickle feed from the high ground to the low ground.

The park had many issues after completion, including vandalism and theft of many plants, however the lack of any structured management over the years proved to be its bigest asset for demonstrating the success of Water-Pulse restoration and natural regeneration..

Hanging Swamp

Community Park

These last 4 images show the full length of the quarry and demonstrate how our water-pulse restoration intervention on the highest point on the slope has had emergent efects down hill and a much larger regeneration footprint has occurred, well beyond our rehydration site.