Proportion of areas covered by surface water management plans
Some dryland farming areas of a catchment are not covered by water management plans
Image by Arthur Mostead, sourced from the MDBC
Surface water management plans vary enormously across the country. Some cover
less than five per cent of the catchment area of a defined water management
area—they look at part of a river reach and intensively manage the resource
on a micro scale. Other plans are whole-of-catchment approaches that consider
the overall catchment health and sustainability. In many cases, there are multi-tiered
approaches: starting with the overarching statewide policy that applies to
all areas, overlaid by a catchment management approach for the catchment, with
subcatchment and sub-reach management regimes for smaller areas. This tiered
approach means that it is difficult to respond to questions about the management
regime with a simple yes or no response for many parts of Australia.
Water resource plans for Queensland surface water management areas cover 100
per cent of the relevant management areas because water resource plan boundaries
have been used for reporting. Similarly, Victorian surface water management
plans cover 100 per cent of the relevant management area. In Tasmania, surface
water management plans cover between 50 and 100 per cent of four surface water
management areas. South Australia considers all prescribed areas as the primary
unit, and each has a management plan that is specific to that surface water
management area (that is, 100 per cent coverage). All other unincorporated
and non-prescribed areas in South Australia have only state policy or regional
plans. The surface water management plan for Harvey River surface water management
area in Western Australia covers 75 per cent of the surface water management
area. New South Wales water sharing plans might cover only a small area of
the surface water management area, but they do cover the rivers from which
80 per cent of the state's water is used. The macro sharing plans will cover
a much greater proportion of each area when they are finalised.
Further information on the extent of this coverage is presented in the table
below.
Proportion of surface water management areas covered by water management plans
|
|
|
1 |
10 |
0 |
16 |
4 |
4 |
27 |
1 |
63 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
|
1 |
9
|
0 |
16 |
4 |
2 |
27 |
0 |
59 |
|
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
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