Two Groundwater Management Projects Launched

The Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, has announced $876,000 in funding to improve management of groundwater quality in highly-developed aquifers in New South Wales. The project is co-funded by in-kind support from the New South Wales Department of Water and Energy, and the National Water Commission’s $82 million National Groundwater Action Plan, which undertakes projects to address groundwater knowledge gaps and progress the groundwater reforms agreed to under the National Water Initiative.

The importance of groundwater supplies due to the impacts of drought and climate change, both in terms of quantity and quality, is recognised as critical. Australia's groundwater supplies comprise some 17% of Australia's currently accessible water resources and accounts for over 30% of our total water consumption.

Declining surface-water resources means that there is increasing demands for supplements from the groundwater supply, although the impacts of this increasing extraction are not well understood. Improving understanding, planning and management of groundwater is essential to the security of the resource and its long-term viability. The project announced by the Minister will investigate seven sites in developed groundwater aquifers where there is risk of a decline in the quality of groundwater.

The results of these investigations and the suite of water quality assessment techniques used in the research will seek to improve our understanding and ability of to predict the impacts of increased groundwater pumping on water quality. Research outcomes will be communicated to government decision makers to enable better integrated water resource management throughout NSW and Australia generally.

This project will be complemented by the development of a comprehensive national atlas of groundwater dependent ecosystems across Australia, which will provide information about ecological requirements of major groundwater systems as a means of ensuring their protection through evidence-based management decisions.