Murray–Darling Basin

The volumetric value for the line item is 90,192 ML.

n/a = not applicable

New South Wales volumes include the licence classes of:

• high-security town water supply
• high-security community and education
• high-security Aboriginal cultural
• high-security research.
  

New South Wales volumes do not include the allocation adjustment and forfeiture for the licence category local water utility, because those are of a specific Water Access Entitlement (WAE) class. See Line item 26.1.4 Adjustment and forfeiture of allocation/claim on regulated flows – urban water access entitlement/arrangement.

In South Australia unused allocation is not available for carryover into the next year. The allocation adjustment and forfeiture is calculated as the difference between the allocation announced and the allocation diverted. See the following table for further details. Despite this, provision is made under the Murray–Darling Basin Agreement to store and support delivery of South Australian’s critical human water needs for the forthcoming year (as a share of the South Australian’s entitlement to River Murray water).

No information specific to this entitlement class available for Victoria. See Line item 26.1.9.7 Adjustment and forfeiture of allocation on regulated flows – other lumped holders for data on all classes lumped together.

In Queensland, the resource operation plans (ROPs) distinguish between ‘high and medium priority of supplemented water allocation’ (names used in Queensland, corresponding to high and general/low security classes of Water Access Entitlements, respectively, in the National Water Account 2010). In most cases, what the ROPs classify as high priority actually corresponds to urban purpose. The Water Audit Monitoring (WAM) report data, however, only split between ‘supplemented’ and ‘unsupplemented’ entitlements, distinguishing for ‘supplemented’ only, urban purpose from all other purposes. For this reason, the National Water Account 2010 reports all ‘supplemented’ entitlements in Queensland under ‘other lumped WAE’ class. The National Water Account 2010 further splits Queensland ‘supplemented’ entitlements between urban purpose, reported under ‘urban holder’ (Line item 26.1.9.4), and all other purposes, reported under ‘individual irrigator holder’ (Line item 26.1.9.2) and ‘other lumped holders’ (Line item 26.1.9.7).

Data source

Australian Capital Territory: Water Audit Monitoring Report 2009–10 (30 November 2010).
New South Wales: New South Wales Office of Water’s Water Accounting section.
Queensland: Water Audit Monitoring Report 2009–10 (31 January 2011).
South Australia: Water Audit Monitoring Report 2009–10 (22 February 2011).
Victoria: Water Audit Monitoring Report 2009–10 (19 January 2011).

Note: Water audit monitoring (WAM) report data are stored in the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) HYDRO database.

Data provider

MDBA.

Method

New South Wales Office of Water supplied data are prepared on a water balance approach. It implies that the movement of values during the year will balance the opening and closing balances. The forfeitures and adjustments have been checked to ensure that the closing balance reconciles.
South Australian allocation remaining is not available in the regulated systems for this class and therefore all allocation remaining at the end of the year is forfeited. Allocation adjustment and forfeiture is the balance after deducting the allocation diversion from the allocation announcement.

Uncertainty

The uncertainty value for the New South Wales data provided in the line item is +/–10%. Uncertainty estimate for South Australian data are not available.

Assumptions, approximations, caveats/limitations

• This item contains only New South Wales and South Australian data.
• Victorian and Queensland WAM data received by MDBA did not allow separation into high and general/low-security classes.