The Commission has set AWR 2005 a set of key questions (refer to table below).
The answers are a key deliverable that will effectively define the baseline
condition upon which the success of the National Water initiative (NWI) will
be measured.
Objective (iii) statutory provision for environmental
and other public benefit outcomes, and improved environmental management
practices |
- How can we measure the delivery
of environmental and other public benefit outcomes, and the successful
protection of high conservation systems?
- What baseline do we need?
- What are the high conservation systems (rivers, reaches
and groundwater areas), and environmental assets and any other
public benefit outcomes identified?
- What is the health of high conservation systems, environmental
assets and progressing in achieving environmental and other public
benefit outcomes?
- Have these been identified and protected through statutory
provisions?
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AWR 2005 has assessed the current status of river and wetland health
assessment frameworks and will be developing a nationwide assessment
framework that builds upon existing state-based approaches |
Objective (iv) complete the return of all
currently overallocated or overused systems to environmentally-sustainable
levels of extraction |
- What water resource information
is relevant to the consideration of issues of overallocation and
overuse?
Key deliverables for the baseline:
- What are the flow requirements (e.g. quantity, quality,
timing, rate) for the environmental assets and relevant ecosystem
functions (consider how these requirements are determined in different
jurisdictions)?
- What are the flow requirements for productive base
of the resource?
- What are the current flows?
- What is the available water?
- What quantity of water is allocated in the system?
- What quantity of water is used in the system?
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Objective (vii) water accounting which is
able to meet the information needs of different water systems in respect
to planning, monitoring, trading, environmental management and on-farm
management |
- What water resource information
identified for the purposes of the baseline, including gaps, will
inform the water accounting reforms and future water accounting processes?
- The Baseline will utilise existing water measurement
processes to report on the state of the water resource including:
- water quantity
- quality and use
- identify gaps in knowledge about these measures.
- Identification of knowledge gaps, and inconsistencies
and incompatibilities in water data collection and management can
inform the improvement of water accounting systems.
- The application of standards for improved accounting
and metering developed through the NWI Committee will help improve
the quality of water resource assessments and therefore need to be
considered for the repeatability of the assessment.
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- Knowledge gaps have been identified
in a number of areas of the assessment. These include inconsistency
in definition of sustainable yield (refer to Resource sustainability),
lack of data covering key aspects of the water balance, and a lack of
integration of data covering surface water resources, groundwater resources
(refer to
Surface water and groundwater
interaction) and environmental conditions of catchments (refer
to River and wetland health)
- Current state and territory knowledge of water availability,
entitlements, sustainable yield, diversions and extractions is
presented in the section on water availability
- Information on current flows (for the period 200405) and contextual
data is provided for priority geographic areas in the
Regional water resources assessments section
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Objective VIII) policy settings which facilitate
water use efficiency and innovation un rural and urban areas |
- How can we measure an increase
in efficiency of Australia 's water use?
Key questions/deliverables for the Baseline
- How do we measure the efficiency of water use?
- What information will assist future comparisons of
water resource use in agriculture?
- How is water being used now in Australia ?
- How much water is lost in water storage and delivery
systems?
- How much water do households use now?
- How much water is recycled or reused?
- Note: It is not the purpose of the BWRA to make determinations
on most efficient methods of agricultural or other water use because
of the reasons noted by the Productivity Commission. However through
the use of a water balance analysis, issues relating to efficiency
of water storage and distribution systems can be analysed.
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- Water use information has been
compiled for AWR 2005 through the use of the ABS Water Account (refer
to Water use ), data modelled for priority
geographic areas, information compiled as part of the Level 2 water balances
and agricultural water use information.
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Objective X)
Recognition of the connectivity between surface and groundwater resources
and connected systems managed as a single resource |
- What is the current knowledge
of connectivity of surface and groundwater resources? Are they being
managed as a single resource?
- Connectivity of resources will not change through NWI
reforms, but our understanding and management of them will.
Key questions/deliverables for the Baseline
- To what extent are developed surface water resources
connected to ground water resources? (consider how connectivity
is measured in different jurisdictions)
- To what extent are other water resources connected
to each other?
- To what extent are these connections currently understood?
- How are these connections managed?
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- Assessment of the extent to
which resources are managed in an integrated manner is shown in the
surface water and groundwater interaction section.
- Indication of systems where connectivity is understood
and is taken into account when developing management arrangements
for water systems (surface or groundwater) or through management as a
single resource is shown in the
water management section.
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