Water metering and measurement
The development of accurate and nationally consistent water metering will ensure that purchasers and sellers can be confident about the amount of water being traded.
Measurement and metering addresses flow in pipes, open channels-including off-takes and returns-and surface water and groundwater extractions.
Although there are national standards for meters for potable water supplies, there are no national standards for non-urban water meters. This is an issue because the quality of data obtained from water meters often depends upon the type, installation and operation of the meters themselves.
Implementing national metering standards will ensure the compatibility of metering information and provide confidence in the accuracy of the information that is collected.
Metering and the National Water Initiative
The National Water Initiative (NWI) requires that metering should be undertaken on a consistent basis and that adequate measurement, monitoring and reporting systems are in place.
Ideally all water use should be metered to ensure that our water resources are managed in a sustainable manner. However it is not always practical to measure all water use in all circumstances.
This is recognised in the NWI, where jurisdictions have agreed that, as a minimum, water metering will take place where:
- for certain categories of water entitlements, metering is deemed necessary in the relevant water plan
- water markets are operating
- there are disputes over the sharing of available water
- new entitlements are issued, and/or
- there is community demand.
Working on the premise that the information available from metering needs to be practical, credible and reliable, Australian jurisdictions have agreed to develop and implement metering specifications and associated installation standards.
Progress
The 2007 Biennial Assessment reported that although there is still no Australian standard for water meters or ancillary data collection systems, states have been implementing their own metering and measuring policies to meet the requirements of the NWI, and good progress has been made on the development of national standards for meters through the National Measurement Institute. (See also 2009 Biennial Assessment.)