The Sippy Downs campus consists of a 100 hectare property with an irregular boundary measuring approximately one and a half kilometres in the east-west direction and varying from seven to eight hundred metres in the north-south direction. It is bordered by Sippy Downs Drive to the north and Claymore Road to the east. The site is also close to the regional Sunshine Motorway, which enables ready vehicular access to Brisbane.
The topography of the campus is generally flat, with the exception of a small area of high land to the north-west, offering a limited visual aspect across the campus to the south and south-east.
The fall of land is at its maximum of four percent in the north-west corner of the boundary, falling to a grade of approximately one to two percent over the rest of the site. The grade is virtually imperceptible over the lower half of the site.
Cane farming occupied most of the property prior to the establishment of the University in the mid-1990s, requiring drainage modifications to allow for cultivation.
These furrows, or ‘swales’, have generally followed the natural low contour profiles, channelling ground water to the south-eastern corner of the campus.
Investigations into the flood effects of the Mooloolah River at the time of the University’s inception indicated the campus would not be directly affected by a 100 year average recurrence / interval rainfall event. To date the campus has not experienced any major flood events.
