Australian environmental water management report 2010
The Australian environmental water management report 2010 presents a comprehensive picture of Australia's current environmental water management arrangements. This report is an important first step in a three-year Raising National Water Standards Program project that is contributing to improved environmental water reporting in Australia.
The aim of this project is to assist governments in the delivery of the National Water Initiative's water resource accounting outcome: to ensure that adequate measurement, monitoring and reporting systems are in place in all jurisdictions, to support public and investor confidence in the amount of water being traded, extracted for consumptive use, and recovered and managed for environmental and other public benefit outcomes (NWI, paragraph 80).
At a time when environmental water management is in the spotlight, this report will help build better understanding of the often complex concepts and management mechanisms involved. By providing a baseline of our current jurisdictional arrangements, this report is intended to support more transparent and accountable environmental outcomes.
This report is an authoritative statement of the environmental water management arrangements around Australia at the end of the 2010 water year (30 June 2010).
This report is not intended to assess the arrangements in place or to make recommendations. However it reveals a number of key findings:
- Environmental water management is a complex task that has developed in response to vastly different water resources around the country and a range of historical demands on those resources.
- While the 'delivery' of water through water access entitlements for environmental purposes in the Murray-Darling Basin has received widespread public attention, environmental water management around Australia is primarily based on 'restrictions on extraction' from water resources, through water plans and conditions on water access entitlements.
- While the determination of environmental water requirements and the commitment of such water is improving, the detail, frequency and geographic coverage of monitoring, reporting and review of environmental water use and outcomes varies around Australia.
