National inventory of water stressed systems
Project details
| Objective: | To establish a national inventory of water stressed catchments and aquifers. |
| Funding: | $1.5 million plus applicable GST |
| Jurisdiction: | National |
| Commencing: | April 2009 |
| Completion: | June 2011 |
About the project
One of the key aims of improved water planning and management under the National Water Initiative (NWI) is to avoid overallocation and overuse of surface and groundwater systems, and to return already overallocated and/or overused systems to sustainable levels of extraction.
A major difficulty in addressing overallocation and overuse issues is the absence of a nationally agreed method for determining the sustainable levels of extraction within a water system. As a consequence the extent of overallocation is unknown at a national level. However in the absence of an agreed procedure, the Commission believes it is possible to identify where 'water stress' may be occurring due to the overallocation or overuse of water. This project proposes to develop an Australia-wide picture of possible overallocation or overuse using a systematic and transparent approach that is informed, as much as possible, by existing processes and indicators.
This project seeks to provide a national picture or inventory of water stressed catchments and aquifers based on hydrologic, ecologic and institutional measures, sourced from publically available data where possible.
The Inventory is being developed through the following components:
- Understanding existing approaches to identifying overallocated or overused catchments and aquifers, eg approaches used by jurisdictions
- Identifying levels of hydrological alteration due to overallocation and/or overuse
- Identifying where hydrological alteration has been related to changes in ecology
- Identifying where institutional activities such as water plans, water buybacks, and self assessments indicate overuse or overallocation
- Integrating and packaging all the above components to produce a national inventory of water stressed catchments and aquifers, and supporting documents.
The final product will be a publicly accessible inventory of water stressed catchments and aquifers, characterised according to their level of stress.
Project benefits
The inventory is intended for national use. The inventory will assist the National Water Commission in:
- undertaking periodic national assessments such as Biennial Assessments
- achieving aspects of the National Water Initiative relevant to its charter
- informing the programs and policies of the NWC and other organisations
- building public understanding of water overallocation and overuse