Sydney
Administration

With the commencement of water sharing plans, water management in the Sydney region is governed by the Water Management Act 2000 (New South Wales).

There are three further legislative acts directly relevant to water management activities in the Sydney region:

1. Sydney Water Catchment Management Act (New South Wales) 1998 that governs the roles and responsibilities of the Sydney Catchment Authority
2. Sydney Water Act (New South Wales) 1994 that governs the roles and responsibilities of Sydney Water
3. Energy and Utilities Administration Act (New South Wales) 1987 that governs water savings action plan initiatives.

The New South Wales Office of Water is responsible for managing water access in the region and issues and administers water access licences. See the NSW Office of Water for more information on water access licences and their categories.

The water sharing plans implemented under the Water Management Act provides clearly defined entitlements, categories of water access licences and management rules for sharing the water between environmental needs and the needs of the user over a period of ten years. It also sets rules for the trading of water licences and annual water allocations. After ten years the water sharing plans are reviewed, revised and reinstated.

Water sharing plans that are applicable in the Sydney region include the Water Sharing Plan for the Greater Metropolitan Region Unregulated River Water Sources 2011 which commenced on 1 July 2011, and the Water Sharing Plan for the Kangaroo River Water Source 2003 which commenced on 1 July 2004.

The Water Sharing Plan for the Greater Metropolitan Region Groundwater Sources 2011 defines the rules for managing the groundwater resource in the Sydney region. This plan was commenced on 1 July 2011.

The Water Management Act guides the management of all water resources in the Sydney region and makes provisions for the environmental health of the Sydney regions rivers and groundwater systems through two main systems, planned environmental water and adaptive environmental water.

Planned environmental water is prescribed under the rules of a water sharing plan. Adaptive environmental water allows water to be taken and used for the environment under conditions set out in specific water access licences.

Licences are issued by NSW Office of Water and the regulating authority overseeing environmental flow management in the Sydney region is the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage.

Environmental water is protected under water sharing plans by either protecting a proportion of water for the purpose of fundamental ecosystem health and/or specific environmental rules (planned environmental water) or by allowing licensed water to be committed for environmental purposes (adaptive environmental water). The specifics of these adaptive environmental provisions are diverse and dependent upon where a licence is located. Specific flow rules are specified in the water licences issued to water utilities or to water management authorities that release water for environmental purposes.

• require a visible flow at licensed pump sites or other locations before water users can extract water; this is a minimum level of environmental protection that applies to all plans;
• introduce a 'cease to pump' condition when river flows drop below a specified level for licensed users;
• set daily limits on extraction for different flows (low, medium and high flows) – where there are a high number of extractors or there is a high level of environmental protection required; and
• recognise that some alluvial aquifers are highly connected to their parent streams, and in these circumstances the goal of water sharing rules is to manage the surface water and highly connected groundwater as one resource.

Water sharing rules to protect ecosystems that depend on groundwater include an overall annual limit on extractions.

The groundwater plans provide rules that:

• reserve the storage component of the aquifer
• protect a proportion of the natural recharge (i.e. the volume of rainfall or streamflow that naturally infiltrates into a groundwater system)
• refine recharge estimates and, if necessary, reduce entitlements in those systems that are over-allocated
• set distance limits between any new bores and groundwater dependent ecosystems.

More details about the status of current environmental water management arrangements covering the Sydney region can be found in The Australian Environmental Water Management Report 2012 or on the New South Wales Office of Water website

Specific environmental flows in the region can be found under Environmental benefit in Water access and use.

Table A1 presents information on organisations responsible for water management activities within the Sydney region.