If the city had no river, it would mean 5.4 million more car trips, bus rides and train journeys for Brisbane commuters, pushing the city’s transport infrastructure to the limit.

The analysis undertaken by Brisbane Times shows the vital role Brisbane’s greatest natural asset plays in the economic success of the city and the state.

Through the transport of passengers, movement of freight, and even the wellbeing of the city's residents, the river's contribution to the economy and our society, is on the rise.

River transport

Data from Brisbane City Council shows 5.4 million Brisbane residents each year commute by CityCat and ferry.

These commuters directly support the 250 workers who operate the city’s river-based public transport.

Brisbane’s lord mayor Graham Quirk said the city’s enviable weather and lifestyle provided many opportunities to use the river for recreation and transport.

“Residents and tourists are able to make the most of the Brisbane River year round,” Cr Quirk said.

“More than $1 billion has been invested into new infrastructure, which is providing more to see and do on the river.

“One of the biggest challenges to date has been a lack of public over-water infrastructure, which is why we are investing in moorings, tour-boat stops, fishing platforms, over-water bikeways and the ferry network. The first hub in the River Access Network ... will provide inner-city locations to kayaks, canoes, jet skis and boats which before now, have not been readily available.”

River-based leisure and tourism

River-based leisure and tourism is a major economic driver for the state, with South Bank the premier destination for some of the city’s biggest cultural, arts and foodie events.

On October 18, the council opened the city’s first river hub in West End, giving inner-city residents direct access to kayaking, canoeing, jet skiing or paddle boarding.

The 25-metre-long pontoon along Riverside Drive can accommodate 10 vessels at a time and could become a drop-off and pick-up point for a new water-taxi service in the coming months.

Each year, about 14,000 annual visitors are happy to pay for views of the brown snake from the Story Bridge Adventure Climb, and many more visit Riverlife to kayak along the inner reaches of Brisbane’s shoreline.

Meanwhile, data from the Department of Transport and Main Roads shows Brisbanites enjoy playing on the river, almost as much as they like living beside it.

The city now has about 4400 registered jet ski owners and 26,000 registered boat owners.

Boaties are well serviced by riverside infrastructure, with access to 19 boat ramps, seven pontoons, four jetties and eight floating walkways.

Cruise ship visitors arriving by the Brisbane River have also doubled in the last decade.

The city played host to 180 cruise ships last year - the biggest was the Royal Caribbean’s 348-metre long Ovation of the Seas, which sailed into the city in October 2017.

The Brisbane International Cruise Terminal (BICT) at Luggage Point will be operating by mid-2020 and is expected to generate almost $5 billion in economic value for the Queensland economy alone within 15 years.

The city’s economic development body, Brisbane Marketing, believes the river has the potential to generate a further $1.1 billion in visitor expenditure by 2031.

The river’s amenity value

The river’s feelgood amenity value is also high, with 80,000 people each year regularly opting for pedal power to get to work, using the river’s 19 bridges, bikeways and cycle paths.

Figures show 30,142 bike rides are taken each working day along key corridors, while 49,890 people include a riverside walk in their daily exercise regime.

The two most popular routes for cyclists are the Bicentennial Bikeway near William Jolly Bridge, closely followed by the Kangaroo Point Bikeway upgrade near South Bank.

The most well-trodden corridors for walkers and joggers is the Victoria Bridge with 16,740 pedestrians each day, followed by the Goodwill Bridge with 10,221 people.

Kangaroo Point Bikeway upgrade and Eleanor Schonell Bridge are distant thirds, with nearly 3000 walkers and joggers a piece.

River freight and ship movements

In the last year, more than 2200 freight ships visited the Port of Brisbane at the mouth of the river, importing about 18.5 million tonnes of cargo and exporting 14.7 million tonnes of cargo.

The longest cargo ship was the 347-metre-long Susan Maersk, which visited the city in March this year.

A further 297 passenger ships visited the Port last year with 176 of those berthing on the river.

The Port itself is the engine-room of the Queensland economy, handling about $50 billion in international trade annually.

It is also the country’s largest capital city port with a footprint of 1860 hectares - and has more than 70 businesses located within its precinct, supporting thousands of jobs.

Riverfront living

Despite the memory of the floods in 2011, demand for riverfront property has never been higher according to the real estate industry.

House prices in Brisbane's riverfront areas have soared as young professionals and families, keen for a swift commute to work or proximity to private schools, have propelled suburbs such as New Farm and Hawthorne into two of the most expensive enclaves in the city.

Urban economist Marcus Brown said a true riverfront property was worth at least 50 per cent more than the same property 500 metres back.

Meanwhile, an estimated 600 people love the river so much, rather than live beside the water they have chosen to live on the water – in house boats.

According to figures from Johnston Dixon Quality Property, there are now only 850 true riverfront properties left in Brisbane.

And data from Corelogic shows southside riverfront suburb Kangaroo Point is now Queensland’s most densely populated area with 6822 people per square kilometre.

It ranks 15th overall in the national rankings, with 9152 people crammed into just 1.3 square kilometres, and a median unit price of $493,358.

Its northside rival, the upscale riverside suburb of Teneriffe, is currently Brisbane’s most expensive suburb, with a median house price tag of $1.8 million.

Looking for cheap, entry-level riverfront living? Unfortunately, there’s no such thing.

Expect to pay about $2 million for a small 400-square-metre lot between East Brisbane and Bulimba, according to realtor Sarah Hackett from Place.

The river’s famous residents

Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart owns a 4545-square-metre waterfront home in Hawthorne with magnificent views to New Farm and its own private pontoon. It has an estimated price tag of $18.5 million.

Mining magnate and former MP Clive Palmer owns the 12,000-square-metre ‘Rivergum Retreat’ mansion in Fig Tree Pocket, which has 132 metres of river frontage and boasts seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

He reportedly picked it up for a bargain $7.5 million, significantly less than the $11.9 million it was originally listed for.

Price tag of the river’s coastal wetlands 'real estate'

Each hectare of the Brisbane River’s coastal system is worth between $25,000 and $30,000 annually, according to Mr Brown.

But that figure dramatically spikes when it comes to coastal wetland habitat areas such as mangroves, which have an ecosystem value of between $250,000 and $300,000 per hectare per annum.

That might explain why Seqwater is investing about $20 million over the next two decades, including $12 million in projects to stabilise river banks to prevent further erosion and minimise sediment impacting on water quality.

According to bulk water authority and water grid manager Seqwater, the Brisbane River is a direct source of raw water supply for the city’s largest and most important water treatment plants at Mt Crosby.

Combined, the Mt Crosby east and west treatment plants currently provide up to 50 per cent of south-east Queensland’s drinking water supply each day.

And by 2033, the state government anticipates Mt Crosby will be supplying around 60 per cent of our entire drinking water supply.

Would a blue river increase economic value?

One man has made it his life’s work to turn the Brisbane River from muddy brown to a shimmering crystal blue.

PhD candidate and coastal engineer Jesper Nielsen, from the University of Queensland, is set to publish his proposed method of transforming the river’s colour early next year.

While realtors rub their hands at the prospect of a Sydney Harbour-like spike in waterfront property values if his idea comes to fruition, Mr Nielsen says most people, wrongly, associate blue water with health.

“When more light enters a waterway, generally more life can be supported,” Mr Nielsen said.

“But mud is not unhealthy. In fact mud generally supports more life than clean sand.

“The Brisbane River will always have plenty of mud, but this does not mean the river need always appear brown, as the mud can be stored in the 60-plus kilometres of existing mud banks which [are] highly productive ecosystems.”

But according to realtors, if Mr Nielsen can achieve the colour transformation, Brisbane residents can expect to pay sky-high prices for riverfront property.

Sarah Hackett from Place, who lives in a riverfront property on Brisbane’s southside, said the outlook to the river would be magnificent if it turned blue.

“It would be great if it was all blue and sandy with little beaches,” she said.

“But then, our property price point would get to around $18 million or $25 million – all these ridiculous prices. It would make it unaffordable.”

She was backed by the chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, Antonia Mercorella.

“Riverside properties have always been a very popular option,” Ms Mercorella said.

“It probably would be helpful if [Brisbane River] was a blue water river.

“Currently, there is only one blue water river in Queensland - the Pioneer River in Mackay.

“The Brisbane River would need to be a sand-based river, which it isn’t, in order to be clearer.”

But Brisbane Marketing chief executive Brett Fraser believes the colour of the river is not its main selling point.

“The fact the Brisbane River is a tidal river, and therefore is brown, is not a detriment to us,” he said.

“We are a river city, and we promote ourselves as that.

“Our ambition is to capitalise on the natural landscape we have in Brisbane, and the river is a really big part of that.”

Mr Fraser said the river is the focal point for many money-spinning visitor and tourism opportunities and most people don’t pay attention to its colour.

“Visitors want to get involved in nature, they come to visit South Bank Parklands, to climb Kangaroo Point Cliffs or to take river cruises or even ferry rides,” Mr Fraser said.

“I don’t think the colour of the river is holding us back, I don’t think it would change anything.

“The river is already heavily activated. If you look back 20 years ago, we weren’t utilising the river as well as we are today.”

Calculating the river’s true economic value

Mr Brown, who sits on the government advisory body the Queensland Urban Design and Places Panel, says calculating the real economic value of the Brisbane River is difficult, but not impossible.

The river, he explains, can be split into use-related values, and intrinsic values.

The CityCat, ferries and riverside development activity are use-related values.

The habitat that’s created by the river, such as filtration and flushing or carbon sequestration, are intrinsic values.

Conservative estimates that wetland habitat areas such as mangroves have a price tag of between $250,000 and $300,000 per hectare, compared with $25,000 to $30,000 per hectare for coastal tidal areas.

“The more we engage with a place such as the river, the more the value goes up,” he said.

“Forty years ago, Brisbane pretty much turned its back on the river.

“It was seen as more of an impediment to the city than a cohesive part of the city.

“People didn’t necessarily see great value in riverfront property.

“One of the reasons for that was the river was dredged heavily for many years which meant a lot of turbidity and a lot of silting of the banks which made it unattractive.”

Mr Brown says Expo '88 was a turning point in Brisbane River’s evolution.

“That was the first time the city had an event that tried to celebrate the river,” he said.

“Projects like the development of South Bank Parklands on the old site drove values.”

Squeezing more economic value from the river is a difficult balancing act, he explains, because of the need to clear habitat to make way for facilities and infrastructure.

“It’s not a case of any development is good development,” Mr Brown said.

“It’s a case of sustainable development in places [to] bring more people in.

“For example, some mangrove habitat had to be disturbed to put in the boardwalk at Gardens Point, but the value of it outweighs concerns over the loss of habitat.

“Howard Smith Wharves is going to bring more people to the river.

“The City Reach project will bring more public space on the riverfront between Customs House and the Botanic Gardens.

“Hamilton Northshore has a development scheme underpinned by a masterplan to give better public access to the riverfront.

“And there’s been attempts to bring more people down to the river at the Ken Fletcher Park in Tennyson where there is pedestrian access.

“These sorts of projects enhance the value of the river because more people engage with it over time.”