Objectives of AWR 2005
In accordance with Paragraph 105 (i) of the Intergovernmental Agreement on
a National Water Initiative (NWI) the Commission is required to:
undertake a baseline assessment of the water resource and governance arrangements,
based on existing work by the Parties and undertaking further work only where
required.
The primary objective of AWR 2005 is to report on the baseline condition of
the water resources for Australia. A companion Commission project, the Water
Governance Assessment is
reporting on the governance arrangements.
Clause 23 of the Intergovernmental Agreement lists the objectives of the NWI.
Those objectives most relevant to AWR 2005 include:
- Objective (iii)statutory provision for environmental and
other public benefit outcomes and improved environmental management practices
- Objective (iv)complete the return of all currently overallocated
or overused systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction.
Identification of overallocated and overused systems
- Objective (vii) water accounting that is able to meet the
information needs of different water systems with respect to planning, monitoring,
trading, environmental management and on-farm management
- Objective (viii)policy settings that facilitate water use
efficiency and innovation in urban and rural areas
- Objective (x)recognition of the connectivity between
surface and groundwater resources and that connected systems
should be managed as a single resource
In accordance with the overarching objectives of the NWI, the key objectives
of AWR 2005 include:
- providing a comprehensive and up-to-date baseline snapshot
of Australia's water resource conditions over the period July 2004 to June
2005 in the context of longer-term patterns of water availability and use
- conforming with established national data standards of the
Executive Steering Committee for Australian Water Resource Information, and
relevant methodologies and protocols as established for the Australian Water Resource
Assessment 2000
- structured to provide a repeatable framework
- to be based on existing data sources to the maximum extent
possible
- identify gaps and potential new work that could be needed to
develop an interactive, interoperable, real-time water resource information
asset for the future management of Australia's water resources including
informing, and being informed by the major water accounting project under
development as part of the NWI
AWR 2005 Level 1 assessment High level management indicators of water availability
and river and wetland health
In Australia, water is managed to meet the needs of many competing interests,
including: domestic use within urban and rural areas, use in industry, water
for stock animals, production of electricity, crop production through irrigation,
as well as environmental and cultural needs. The NWI promotes management of
water resources that finds a sustainable balance between these competing needs.
The NWI identifies a range of measures for improving water resource management
at the local, regional, state / territory and national levels. The Level 1
assessment presented in this report seeks to identify information about some
key areas of water resource management information that directly affect Australia's
water resources in relation to water availability, and to river and wetland
health.
A more comprehensive assessment of governance arrangements will be delivered
through the Commission's Water Governance Assessment later in 2006.
AWR 2005 Level 2 assessment water availability, water use, and river and
wetland health
Issues in water availability are examined through the
presentation of water balances for 51 priority geographic areas across
Australia, that incorporate information on inflows and outflows to water
management areas, capital cities, or other priority areas. They also consider
issues of use and extraction within the area. Water balances are designed to
provide an integrated picture of water resource availability and use within an
area.
Water use information is presented through the Water Account
Australia 2004-05, prepared by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Additionally, regional water use information is estimated for selected areas to
bring further context to this information. Water entitlement, allocation and
trading information for 2004-05
is also collated and presented.
For river and wetland health the Discovery Phase (the project
development stage) identified that an assessment at a national scale could not
be undertaken because there was no suitable framework that incorporated many of
the advances in assessment methods of the last five years. Therefore, a key
product of the river and wetland health assessment has been the development of a
national framework for assessment of river and wetland health.
Beyond AWR 2005—the Australian Water Resources Information System
A key objective of AWR 2005 is to establish a repeatable, enduring system for
undertaking water resource assessments: the Australian Water Resources
Information System (AWRIS). In the AWR 2005 the Commission considered the scope
of AWRIS, who its users are, what their requirements are, and how to develop it.
Consideration was also given to the breadth of systems, networks, products and
programmes in Australia's water resource management sector.
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