Perth
Accountability Statement
1. This water accounting report has been prepared and presented in accordance with the Exposure Draft of Australian Water Accounting Standard 1, with the following exceptions:
- No Assurance Statement was prepared because the standard for, and practice of, assurance of water accounting reports have yet to be developed.
- The Accountability Statement does not present information that would assist users to understand and evaluate the accountability of water managers because of the impracticality of doing so in this report.
- Notes on the quantification approaches and levels of uncertainty are incomplete because the knowledge base is often inadequate.
- No information is disclosed about material events that occurred after 30 June 2011, such as extreme precipitation and significant water rights purchases. This information is publicly available elsewhere.
- Groundwater asset changes have been recognised in the Statement of changes in water assets and water liabilities, without a corresponding groundwater asset volume being recognised in the Statement of water assets and water liabilities. This is because groundwater flows and levels could be quantified, but storage volumes could not.
- Some groundwater-related flows and changes in the water accounting statements have been offset due to limitations in the available quantification approach.
- No information is disclosed on water for social and cultural benefit.
- The volumes of water assets and water liabilities that failed the recognition criteria are reported in the water accounting statements with dashes ('–'), in order to highlight data and knowledge gaps that may affect the water accounting statements balances.
2. The report has been compiled from the best data available, as detailed in the water accounting statement Notes, in the time available to compile it from a number of sources. Some data quality compromises have been made by the Bureau of Meteorology for the sake of a nationally-consistent approach to report preparation and presentation.
3. All significant and specific interpretations of the Exposure Draft of Australian Water Accounting Standard 1 for the purpose of the preparation of this report are explained in the water accounting policy Notes. The Bureau of Meteorology is responsible for these interpretations.
Grace Mitchell
Acting Assistant Director, Water Information Services
Bureau of Meteorology
26 July 2012