Regional water resources assessments - Surface Water Management Area Murray River

Regional Water Resource Assessment – SWMA

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Murray River

Murray River Surface Water Management Area is within Victoria and is 20,378 km2

Results of the National Water Commission’s Framework for Assessment of River and Wetland Health for Murray River SWMA

This page provides a summary of the results of the National Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) for Murray River water management area.

Table 1 Results of the National Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) for Murray River water management area

Component	Score	Notes
Biota	0.77	The Biota Index provides a measure of the biological health of rivers using data on aquatic macroinvertebrates as assessed by the Index of Stream Condition.
Catchment Disturbance	0.96	The Catchment Disturbance Index provides a measure of human land-use changes that impact the river and wetland condition and the biota. The catchment disturbance for Victoria were generated using the methods developed in the National Land and Water Resources Audit 2001.
Hydrology Disturbance	0.95	The Hydrological Disturbance Index assesses the flow regimes change that result from river regulation and/or substantial flow diversion or extraction. For Victoria the Hydrology condition of rivers is based on Flow, Stress, Ranking (FSR).
Physical Form	0.59	Physical Form was assessed for Victorian water management areas based on the Index of Stream Condition methods and includes stream bank and bed condition, presence of, and access to, physical habitat.
Water Quality		Insufficient water quality data were available to report on for this water management area.
Fringing Zone	0.52	The Fringing Zone Index uses the Streamside Zone data from the Victorian Index of Stream Condition including quantity and quality of streamside vegetation, and condition of billabongs.
Overall Score	0.68	The Overall Index for a Surface Water Management area is a combination of the individual indices (Biota, Fringing Zone, Hydrological Disturbance, Physical Form and Water Quality) to assess the overall health of the river. For Victoria the indices are integrated at reaches using inverse ranking and weighted by reach length, then aggregated to give the overall score for the Surface Water Management Area.

Figure 1 Results of the National Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) for Murray River water management area

Note: The ranges associated with the graph are described below.

Score	Condition
0.0-0.2	severely modified
0.2-0.4	substantially modified
0.4-0.6	moderately modified
0.6-0.8	slightly modified
0.8-1.0	largely unmodified

See the National Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) report on the Publications page for details on the assessment method.

This page provides high level performance indicators of water management for the Murray River surface water management area (SWMA) based on information provided by the government of Victoria. It provides answers to a range of questions of relevance to the National Water Initiative (NWI), specifically in relation to:

Surface water management framework
Water resources caps
Surface water / groundwater interaction
Surface water sustainable yield
Environmental water requirements
Surface water diversions
Surface water entitlements
Protected terrestrial areas

Please note that a dash means that either the data was not available, not provided or that the question was not relevant for a particular area.

Surface water management area	Murray River
Project ID	VIC_SW_401
Size of surface water management area	20,378 km²
NWC drainage division code	409.VIC
Drainage Division	Murray-Darling
State	Victoria

Surface water management framework

What is the status of the water management plan for this surface water management area?	Final - full coverage of water management area
If a final or draft plan has been written, what year was it completed?	2004
If a final or draft plan has been written, does it consider groundwater explicitly?	No
If yes, how is groundwater considered?
Technical assessment	-
Management decisions	-
What percentage of the surface water management area is covered by the water management plan(s)?	100
Does your water plan specify water quality objectives to meet environmental and other public benefit outcomes?	No
Other items included in the management framework are:
Metering program for this area	Included
Effluent recycling	Included
Climate change	Included
Aquifer storage and recovery	Included
Household rainwater tanks	Included
Efficient irrigation systems	Included
Other	Stormwater included
Management plan available at:

Water resource caps

Has a cap been placed on surface water usage / abstraction in this surface water management area?	Yes
Is the cap an absolute limit to allocation or provisional limit?	Absolute
If there is a cap, what year was it implemented?	2004
If there is a cap, is it considered to represent the sustainable surface water yield?	Yes
The following water usage types are included/not included under the cap:
Irrigation	-
Urban supply	-
Commercial / Industrial	-
Minor catchment storages	-
Minor on-stream storages	-
Minor extracted water storages	-
Stock and domestic	-
Mining / Oil and gas	-
Forestry	Not included
Floodplain harvesting	-
Drought supply	-
Greywater use	Not included
Effluent recycling	Not included
Aquifer storage and recovery	-
Does auditing of compliance with the cap occur?	Yes
Compliance report available at:	Compliance report

Surface water / groundwater interaction

Are surface water and groundwater managed as an integrated water resource in this surface water management area?	No
Reason or method:	Integration has not been assessed
Integrated management plan available at:

Surface water sustainable yield

The sustainable yield within this surface water management area for 2004/05 was:	1975881 ML
The method used to determine the sustainable yield was:	-
Was the sustainable yield determined for the combined (i.e. surface water and groundwater) water?	No
Is the cap considered to be at or below the sustainable yield of surface water?	At
What is the level of entitlements relative to the sustainable yield?	High level of development

Environmental water requirements

Have environmental water requirements been determined for this surface water management area?	Yes - complete coverage of water management area
If yes, what year were they completed?	2004
For regulated areas, how much of the mean annual flow is not available for allocation and provided for the environment? (percentage of mean annual flow at locality of river regulation)	39%
Are there formal environmental water provisions for regulated rivers?	Yes
If so, what method was used to determine environmental water provisions for regulated rivers?	Flows to mimic natural flows of the system (ie including minimum flows, pulse flows & flood flows at different times of the year)
For what percentage of the rivers are provisions made?	100%
Maps illustrating which rivers have provisions available at:
Do the environmental water provisions consider groundwater?	No
If yes, how?	-
Completed Environmental Flows Reports available at:

Surface water diversions

The total surface water diversion in the surface water management area for 2004/05 was:	<%DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "SSDVOLML_C", " {0} ML") %>
What percentage of surface water diversion is determined from metered data?	100 %
What is the level of diversions relative to the sustainable yield?	High level of diversions (70 - 100%)
For surface water diversion that is NOT metered, how was the surface water diversion determined for 2004/05?
Estimated from irrigated areas	Yes
Estimated from licence volume	Yes
Estimated from power usage for pumps	-
Estimated from models	Yes
Other	Yes - Statewide SDL estimates of small catchment dam use

Surface water entitlements

Entitlements for surface water are required/not required for the following usage types:
Irrigation	-
Urban supply	-
Commercial / Industrial	-
Minor catchment storages	-
Minor on-stream storages	-
Minor extracted water storages	-
Stock and domestic	-
Mining / Oil and gas	-
Forestry	Not required
Floodplain harvesting	-
Drought supply	-
Greywater use	Not required
Effluent recycling	Not required
Aquifer storage and recovery	-
Other	-

Protected terrestrial areas

Each of the following protection types cover a percentage of the surface water management area as detailed:
Habitat/species management area	0.09
Managed resource protected areas	1.14
National park	12.56
Natural monument	0.35
Protected landscape/seascape	-
Strict nature reserve	0.93
Wilderness area	0.95
Total	16.02

National Water Commission