Some of these GAB artesian springs feature in Aboriginal myths and hold significant spiritual and cultural values for indigenous communities.

Artesian springs were, and still are, a valuable resource for the support of wildlife, and were a vital source of fresh water in an arid environment.

Unpredictable rainfall and high evaporation meant that early dams and earth tanks built to service the growing population and pastoral industry were unreliable.

[1][2] Europeans first discovered the artesian groundwater of the GAB in 1878 when a shallow bore sunk near Bourke in New South Wales produced flowing water.

The assurance of a reliable water supply for settlers and their stock meant the development of a valuable sheep and cattle industry.

Thousands of kilometres of bore drains were excavated to distribute water around properties, thus allowing sheep and cattle to be raised on the vast Mitchell grass, mulga and spinifex plains.

Sound management of this important natural resource by the present users will ensure that future generations may also benefit from this reliable water source.

The mounds and surrounding outflows and seepages are well vegetated with sedges and a range of other species including large areas of the spring endemic Eriocaulon carsonii subsp.

[1] GAB artesian springs are a significant refuge in arid and semi-arid Australia, providing one of the few sources of natural permanent water.

[1] Ecologically GAB artesian springs are considered an evolutionary refuge as they allow wetland dependent (specialised habitat) species to persist as their original geographic range becomes uninhabitable due to drying over an extended period of time because of climatic change.

The presence of endemic species, and large peat mounds, indicates that some GAB springs have been active for a very long time.

Hydrobiid snails are the most diverse of all freshwater gastropods and frequently have small distribution ranges, resulting in high levels of endemism.

[7] This makes them excellent candidates for evolutionary studies on endemism and speciation and for use as potential indicators (surrogates) of the importance of environments such as GAB artesian springs for other, less well-studied freshwater taxa.

[7][8] Hydrobiid snails are particularly well represented in GAB artesian springs with well over 23 taxa and five genera,[7] although each mound complex or aggregation is separated by hundreds of kilometres.

It has been hypothesised that this is a result of ancestral Gondwanan hydrobiids being stranded by the increasing aridity of inland Australia and being isolated in the permanent waters of GAB artesian springs.

[3][1] Surveys over the last twenty years have shown that most of the remaining active GAB artesian springs in Queensland are suffering damage from draw-down or stock.

However, since fencing after 2004 the overall condition of the Elizabeth Springs has vastly improved reducing the previous impacts on the intact relictual biota.

[1] Lastly, the spread of the introduced mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) is a threat to the freshwater endemics of all the GAB artesian springs.

The artesian springs have been the primary natural source of permanent water in most of the Australian arid zone over the last 1.8 Million years (the Pleistocene and Holocene periods).

[1] As these artesian springs are some distance from each other in the Australian inland, and individually each one covers a relatively tiny area, their isolation has allowed the freshwater animal lineages to evolve into distinct species, which include fish, aquatic invertebrates (crustacean and freshwater snail species) and wetland plants.

[1] Criterion A: Events, Processes Elizabeth Springs is one of a suite of important artesian discharge springs in the Great Artesian Basin for endemic fish, invertebrates (including hydrobiid gastropod molluscs) and plants,[12] and has also been ranked by CSIRO as a nationally "significant" semi-arid and arid refugia in Australia for regional endemics of aquatic invertebrates (isopods, ostracods, and hydrobiid molluscs) and fish.

[3][1] Criterion B: Rarity Extant artesian springs in the GAB are a geographically rare phenomenon, each one covering a tiny area within the basin.

[30][31][32] As the primary natural source of permanent fresh water in most of the arid zone, GAB artesian springs represent vital habitat for more widespread terrestrial vertebrates, and invertebrates with aquatic larvae.

[39][3][11][8][40][24][1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Great Artesian Basin Springs: Elizabeth, entry number 105821 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 11 October 2018.