In the arid outback of the Australian state of New South Wales, the most famous waterway is the Darling River, highlighted in dark blue in this PROBA-V image from November 2016. It flows from the northeast towards the southwest, where it will join the Murray River and head further towards the Great Australian Bight, near Adelaide. In lighter blue, a series of freshwater lakes connect to the Paroo River that joins the Darling in the southwest of the image, near the historical village of Wilcannia. The area of the confluence of both rivers, along with Lakes Peery and Poloko, are part of the Paroo-Darling national park. On the beds of the lakes, mound springs bring up fresh water from a vast acquifer that underlies almost 25% of the Australian continent, the Great Artesian Basin. This was an important water source for the indigenous Aboriginals and wildlife, but has more recently come under stress from competing uses, such as groundwater pumping for irrigation or mining.