Friday 25 June 2010

Waterlines Report June 2010: how much water does Australia use?

Australian Government Waterlines report 30 - June 2010:

This report documents:

  • the location of significant intercepting activities that fall outside the current entitlement framework
  • the potential rate of expansion of each activity over various time periods
  • estimates of water usage of each activity in water management areas used in the Australian Water Resources 2005 report.

The report includes a definition and description of activities that intercept surface water and groundwater and identified the following activities for further analysis:

  • overland flows
  • farm dams
  • stock and domestic bores
  • plantations
  • peri-urban development

The 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.

Or to put it another way - a combined volume of at least 5,600 gigalitres of fresh water is intercepted annually across the country. Which is around 10 Sydney Harbours worth of water according to my calculations and, much is apparently being siphoned off outside of current government-endorsed management plans.

Download No_30_June_2010_Surface_and_or_groundwater_interception_activities.pdf Surface and/or groundwater interception activities: initial estimates (7.26MB)

Download Surface_and_or_groundwater_interception_activities_Exec_summary.pdf Executive summary (141KB)

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