The Arrowsmith River in the Mid West region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

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The first European to discover the river was the explorer George Grey

George Grey

George Grey may refer to:*Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet , British politician*George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent *Sir George Grey , Governor of Cape Colony, South Australia and New Zealand...

 in 1839 who named it after the distinguished English geographer

Geographer

A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...

 John Arrowsmith

John Arrowsmith (cartographer)

John Arrowsmith was an English geographer and member of the Arrowsmith family of geographers. He was born at Winston, County Durham....

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The river commences just South of Arrino

Arrino, Western Australia

Arrino is a small town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The town is located between Mingenew and Three Springs on the Midlands Road....

 and North West of Three Springs

Three Springs, Western Australia

Three Springs is located 313 km north of Perth, Western Australia on the Midlands Road. Wheat farming is the main industry.The first Europeans to pass through the Three Springs area were Lieutenant George Grey and his party in 1839. The next exploration of the area in 1846 was undertaken by...

 near the Midlands Road and flows in a westerly direction for a length of 85 kilometres (53 mi) to the coast and terminates in a swamp

Swamp

A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...

y area about 5 kilometres (3 mi) from Cliff Head.

The river drops a total of 219 metres (719 ft) in elevation over the course of its length.

The salinity

Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

 levels in the river are often higher than 1000 mg/L due to recharge of brackish run-off water but the potential bore yields of the catchment are quite high.