From source to mouth, the Georgina is joined by more than 35 tributaries including the Buckley, Templeton, Burke, Hamilton, Herbert, Ranken, and Sandover rivers; and flows through 26 billabongs.

This western part of the basin has sandy soils that are too infertile to provide nutritious fodder for cattle or sheep and a large proportion is an Aboriginal reserve.

The eastern part of the Georgina catchment near Boulia is very similar to the Diamantina and Cooper basins, being grassy plains with heavy cracking clay soils that are quite fertile and provide very good feed in wet years for livestock.

[12] The upper watershed in the Northern Territory were subjected to severe flooding in 1901 when Lake Nash Station experienced over 10 inches (254 mm) of rain in a single day, with the Georgina River running at almost record high levels.

Some wave built shingle terraces suggest that during the Medieval Warm Period Lake Eyre held permanent water.

[9] Large increases since the late 1960s in rainfall over the Northern Territory and pastoral areas of South and Western Australia that have not been duplicated over Queensland[17] do suggest an enhanced greenhouse effect in the Medieval Warm Period may have caused the Georgina to regularly fill Lake Eyre.

To alleviate these problems, the Georgina River Bridge was officially opened on 20 December 2002 by Senator Ron Boswell and Steve Breadhauer, Minister for Transport in the Queensland Government.

It replaced the previous bridge which was approximately 50 metres (160 ft) south, and is both higher and longer so traffic on the highway can continue to cross during floods.