The Fly River and its tributaries, the Ok Tedi and Strickland rivers, are located in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. All three rivers have their source in the rugged central mountain range of the island and eventually flow, via the Fly River delta, into the Gulf of Papua to the north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. With a catchment area still largely covered by tropical rainforest and relatively few human inhabitants, this remote part of Papua New Guinea presents a rare opportunity to document and understand the dynamics of a large tropical river system largely unaffected by human activity.
In 1984 the Ok Tedi Mining Company Limited began mining copper and gold mineralisation from Mt. Fubilan, which is located at the headwaters of the Ok Tedi. In 1990, mining begin at the Porgera gold mine located at the headwaters of the Strickland River. Since that time both companies have intensely monitored the environment of the Fly River system in order to better understand the possible impact of mining.
This book is intended to assemble and summarise this vast amount of information, much of it contained in internal company reports, to better understand the environmental complexity and dynamics of this large and relatively undisturbed tropical river system.
The approach to be taken in achieving this outcome is to solicit contributions summarising each of the scientific disciplines to be covered from recognised experts with experience in the region.
* documents physical and biologic change in a large tropical river system brought about largely by mining in an otherwise pristine environment.
* this book brings together a broad rand of disciplines to provide acomprehensive overview of change in a complex and dynamical tropical river system based largely on previously unpublished company reports.
* the book provides examples of state-of-the-art strategies and methodologies for monitoring environmental impact in a large river system.

The Earth Science Series of the Circum-Pacific Funding for ship time was made available through Council for Energy and Mineral Resources (CPCEMR) the U. S. Agency for International Development, the is designed to convey the results of geologic research in USGS, the U. S. Office of Naval Research (for RIG's and around the Pacific Basin. Topics of interest include 1982 work), the Australian Development Assistance framework geology, petroleum geology, hard minerals, Bureau, the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources geothermal energy, environmental geology, volcanology, (BMR), the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, oceanography, tectonics, geophysics, geochemistry, and the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial applications of renewable energy. The CPCEMR sup Research (DSIR), the New Zealand Geological Survey, ports and publishes results of scientific research that will and the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute (NZOI). Coordination of the program was provided by the U. S. advance the knowledge of energy and mineral resource potential in the circum-Pacific region. The Earth Sci Department of State and the South Pacific Applied Geo ence Series is specifically designed to publish papers that science Commission (SOPAC, formerly the United include new data and new maps, report on CPCEMR Nations-sponsored Committee for the Coordination of sponsored symposia and workshops, and describe the Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific results of onshore and marine geological and geophysical Offshore Areas CCOP/SOPAC) in Fiji. Over 150 scien explorations."