Environmental water management
Effective environmental water management is essential for maintaining the health of our rivers and water resources, and the ecosystems and industries that depend on them.
To provide adequate water for the environment we need to understand how groundwater, rivers, wetlands, catchments and floodplains interact. We also need to determine the best timing, quantity and duration of environmental flows. Water quality is also important.
This information will allow managers to develop and implement water management plans and practices that ensure the ongoing health of our waterways as well as allowing adequate resources for consumptive use.
Environmental water management and water reform
The National Water Initiative (NWI) requires the identification of specific environmental outcomes for water systems in each jurisdiction. It also calls for the implementation of management practices and institutional arrangements that will achieve those outcomes. These practices and arrangements include:
- establishing environmental water managers and giving them the necessary authority and resources to provide sufficient water at the right times and places
- allowing environmental water managers to trade water
- ensuring that environmental water management is cost-effective and that the new environmental water managers are fully accountable for their work
- managing environmental aspects of interconnected groundwater and surface water systems jointly where necessary
- delivering environmental water across state boundaries where required
- making special arrangements for high conservation value rivers, reaches and groundwater areas
- conducting periodic independent audits of environmental achievements and publicly reporting the results.
Progress
In the 2007 Biennial Assessment of progress against the NWI, the National Water Commission reported that the outcomes for integrated management of water for the environment were not yet being achieved. (See also 2009 Biennial Assessment)
There were also concerns about the slowness with which environmental water managers had been established with the authority and the financial and technical means to enable them to perform the role envisaged for them under the NWI.
Most states did not have an independent audit of environmental outcomes. These audits are important to build public confidence in the delivery of environmental outcomes, and are a requirement of the NWI.