Adelaide
38.1 Trade of groundwater entitlement within region

Groundwater entitlement trade within prescribed areas in the Adelaide region made the greatest contribution to overall groundwater market activity with a total of 86 trades and an equivalent volume of 1,179 ML. The higher levels of groundwater market entitlement trade in the Northern Adelaide Plains Prescribed Wells Area (PWA) and McLaren Vale PWA compared to the Barossa Prescribed Water Resources Area (PWRA) are a reflection of the demand on the groundwater resources within these areas.

Groundwater entitlement trade within the Adelaide region during the 2010–11 year

Description	Barossa PWRA		McLaren Vale PWA		Northern Adelaide Plains PWA		Total
	Volume (ML)	No. of trades	Volume (ML)	No. of trades	Volume (ML)	No. of trades	Volume (ML)	No. of trades
Entire bundled water licence	15	1	32	9	250	15	297	25
Change of entitlement holder	104	7	200	19	578	35	882	61
Total	119	8	232	28	829	50	1,179	86

 

South Australian Department for Water: Water Information and Licence Management Administration (WILMA) database.

South Australian Department for Water.

Trade and lease details were obtained from a WILMA database extract designed to supply the Water Regulations 2008 category 6a (permanent water access entitlement trades) and 6b (temporary water allocation trades and leases) information.

Water access entitlements associated with the Adelaide region's prescribed water resources are bundled, whereby the value of the entitlement is equivalent to the annual volumetric allocation. Trade duration and permanency were used to differentiate between entitlement and allocation trades according to the following below.

Categorisation of entitlement and allocation trade

Duration	Entitlement or allocation	Permanency	Trade or lease	Scope of trade
Greater than 1 year	Water access entitlement:      An ongoing water right specifying a share of the prescribed water resource	Not permanent	Lease	Not specified
		Permanent	Trade	All authorisation endorsed on the water licence
				Change of entitlement holder
Less than 1 year	Water allocation:  An authorisation to take a specific volume within the financial year	Not permanent	Trade	Not specified

Area-based allocations for the Barossa PWRA were converted to volumes using the guidelines on p35 of the Barossa PWRA Water Allocation Plan. Change of entitlement holder refers to when the bundled water licence is modified to reflect a change in the entitlement holder name. The point of take and other authorisations endorsed on the licence are unchanged.

For more information on bundled water licences refer to the Water allocations section of the Contextual information.

The information reported here is different from the Water Trading in South Australia website. This difference is due to:

• The Water Trading in South Australia website only displays bundled water licence trades and excludes trades where the entitlement holder is changed.
• Early return of a previous trade is recorded as negative trades on the Water Trading in South Australia website, that offsets the summary values. In this extract the negative trade values are converted to an absolute value and that adds to the summary value.  

The method assumed that irrigation crop area conversion rates stated in Table 15 of the Barossa PWRA Water Allocation Plan represent an equivalent volumetric allocation. Some irrigators can negotiate different conversion rates based on individual circumstances.

The uncertainty estimate was not quantified.