News Latest News New report details scale of intercepted water
New report details scale of intercepted water
The National Water Commission has released Australia's first ever nation-wide baseline assessment of water interception activities, calling for all Australian governments to take action on this critical issue. The Surface and/or groundwater interception activities: initial estimates report shows that the total volume of water unaccounted for as a result of land use activities outside our current water entitlement regimes and planning frameworks equates to almost one quarter of all the entitled water on issue in Australia.
A combined annual volume of 5,600 gigalitres is intercepted, broken down across the following categories:
- forestry plantations using approximately 2000 gigalitres a year (GL/yr),
- farm dams 1600 GL/yr,
- stock and domestic activities 1100 GL/yr, and
- overland flows (floodplain harvesting) on average 900 GL/yr.
According to National Water Commission CEO Ken Matthews:
These are clearly significant uses of water which need to be brought within the water planning and management fold, both to manage current activities and guide future growth.
These important findings underscore the urgency of the Commission's recommendations in Australian Water Reform 2009 that water interception activities be immediately identified and quantified, and a process for addressing them clarified within the next six months.
In agreeing to the National Water Initiative (NWI), all Australian Governments recognised that interception activities present an immediate risk to the security of water access entitlements and the achievement of environmental water objectives. Under the NWI, governments committed to apply appropriate planning, management and regulatory measures to account for interception water use by 2011.
One major step in addressing interception is to quantify its impact on water systems. This report assists governments to understand the extent of unaccounted water use, and to identify the regions where water interception activities are of greatest concern in their respective jurisdictions.
