South East Queensland
14.1 Adjustment and forfeiture of groundwater allocation

This line item represents the adjustment and forfeiture of groundwater allocation of 7,567 ML in the Benefitted Area of the Central Lockyer water supply scheme (WSS).

In the Lockyer Valley GMA, within the Central Lockyer WSS there is an area known as Benefitted Area for which groundwater licences are available. Benefited Areas are the equivalent of a regulated surface water resource. The Benefitted Area uses managed aquifer recharge via discharge of water from water storages to watercourses to recharge the groundwater. Of the Central Lockyer WSS's metered, licensed groundwater extractions, 1,773 ML was extracted from the Benefitted Area during the 2011–12 year. This was included as line item 18.11 Entitled extraction of allocated groundwater to users.

The volume extracted from Non–Benefitted Area during the 2011–12 year was included as line item 18.8 Entitled extraction of non–allocated groundwater to users.

Currently, interim groundwater entitlements exist within the Central Lockyer WSS. These do not have volumetric limits, and therefore announced allocations cannot be made for individual entitlement holders; however, there is a nominal groundwater entitlement for the entire Central Lockyer WSS. Under the interim resource operations licence (IROL), the water-sharing rules provide for extraction up to the Central Lockyer WSS groundwater limit, with a provision that when individual allocations are set, groundwater allocation announcement rules should be used.

Given the intent for groundwater allocation announcement rules, for the purpose of the 2012 Account, the Central Lockyer WSS has been considered to have a system with groundwater allocation announcements, extractions and forfeiture.

Although there are more groundwater management areas (GMAs) within the SEQ region, only information for the Lockyer Valley GMA Benefitted Area has been included within the line items listed below:

• line item 6.1 Groundwater allocation remaining
• line item 14.1 Adjustment and forfeiture of groundwater allocation
• line item 18.11 Entitled extraction of allocated groundwater to users
• line item 22.1 Groundwater allocation announcements

For the purpose of the 2012 Account, other GMAs are not included to have this entitlement system at present. As groundwater entitlements evolve in the SEQ region and the announcement, extractions and forfeiture model is implemented, other GMAs may also be included within these line items. In the 2012 Account, any extractions from other GMAs (where volumes are available) was included in line item 18.8 Entitled extraction of non–allocated groundwater to users.

The following table shows the ground water allocation reconciliation. Due to the very wet year, irrigation demand was significantly lower than in previous years resulted in a higher than usual forfeiture of groundwater allocation.

Seqwater WaterHub database, this information was previously provided by DERM but commencing with the 2012 Account, it has since been provided by Seqwater.

Seqwater.

The adjustment and forfeiture of groundwater allocation was derived using the calculation shown in the previous reconciliation table. Please refer to the specific line item components used in the calculation for the individual methodology.

The inclusion of only the Benefitted Area of the Lockyer Valley GMA in the estimate of allocation announcements, allocation extractions and forfeiture results in a significant underestimation of the groundwater resource usage within the SEQ region. In future years, reporting metered groundwater use within current GMAs (where metered licensed use exists) may result in a better representation of groundwater use.

Derived from measured data.