Expanding the 7-day streamflow forecast service
Forest stream (Alison Pouliot)
After thorough testing with registered users, we added 20 new catchments to the Bureau’s 7-day streamflow forecast service in early December.
This service provides streamflow forecasts with a lead time of up to seven days, to help river managers and users with decision-making.
With this expansion, the public service will deliver forecasts for 88 catchments and 168 forecast locations across the country. Another 12 catchments and 41 forecast locations will remain available to registered users only.
The new catchments are located in Victoria (3), New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory (9), Queensland (6), Northern Territory (1) and Western Australia (1).
We work closely with stakeholders to select forecast sites that provide greatest benefit to local water management and the community. We also continue to work with stakeholders once those forecast locations are in-service.
In August, we delivered a workshop for Goulburn-Murray Water staff, with roles as varied as dam operators, modellers, water information and resource officers. We discussed how the forecasts work, assumptions in the models, forecast accuracy, the impact of ungauged tributary inflows, and more.
Together with Goulburn-Murray Water and the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, we've also developed a case study showing how the 7-day streamflow forecasts can help with environmental flow planning in Victoria's Goulburn Broken Catchment.
Please provide any feedback to the team via email at water_sdf@bom.gov.au. Your valuable input will help guide the ongoing development of this service.