Murray–Darling Basin

The volumetric value for the line item at the end of 2009–10 is 847 ML. The following table provides a breakdown of the volumes.

– = no data available; 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.

These volumes do not contain the allocation remaining for major and local water urban utility class, because those are of a specific water access entitlement (WAE) class. See Line item 8.1.4 Allocation/claim on regulated flows remaining – urban WAE/arrangement.

Although some New South Wales water sharing plans remain suspended, there has been provision to carryover high-security class allocation remaining water in the Murray River region.

Murray – New South Wales volume represents:

• high-security community and education (45 ML in 2008–09 and 47 ML in 2009–10)
• high-security research (800 ML in 2008–09 and 800 ML in 2009–10).

South Australia allocation remaining for urban class is forfeited at the end of the year and therefore this volume will be zero for Murray – South Australia.

No information specific to the entitlement class available for Victoria. See Line item 8.1.9.7 Allocation on regulated flows remaining – 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, or the 2010 Account). In most cases, what the ROPs classify as high priority actually corresponds to urban purpose. The water audit monitoring (WAM) data, however, only distinguish between ‘supplemented’ and ‘unsupplemented’ entitlements, distinguishing for ‘supplemented’ only, urban purpose from all other purposes. For this reason, the 2010 Account reports all ‘supplemented’ entitlements in Queensland under ‘other lumped WAE’ class. The 2010 Account further splits Queensland ‘supplemented’ entitlements between urban purpose, reported under ‘urban holder’ (Line item 8.1.9.4), and all other purposes, reported under ‘individual irrigator holder’ (Line item 8.1.9.2) and ‘other lumped holders’ (Line item 8.1.9.7).

Data source

Australian Capital Territory: Water Audit Monitoring Report 2009–10 (30 November 2010).

New South Wales: NSW 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: WAM data are stored in the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) HYDRO database.

Data provider

MDBA.

Method

Water sharing plans, water resource plans and the water legislation of each state specify:

• the classes of licences that are permitted to carry forward any unused volumes
• rules attached to the volume that may be carried forward.

Allocation remaining (carryover) is calculated by the states and provided to the MDBA.

South Australia allocation remaining is not available for the entitlement category and therefore all allocation remaining at the end of the year is shown as zero.

Uncertainty

The uncertainty estimate for the values provided in the line item is +/–10%.

Approximations, assumptions, caveats/limitations

• The Victoria and Queensland WAM data received by MDBA did not allow separation into high and general/low-security classes; therefore, this item contains only New South Wales and South Australia data.