South East Queensland
17.12 Entitled diversion of allocated surface water to urban water system

The volumetric value for the line item at the end of the 2012–13 year was 221,063 ML.

This line item consists of diversions from surface water based on unsupplemented entitlements held by urban utilities and the Seqwater. These diversions may be to water treatment plants (WTPs) that supply the South East Queensland (SEQ) water grid or off-grid.

A breakdown of diversions by water supply scheme (WSS) and WTP/intake point can be seen in the table below .

Table Notes:

1. Line item 17.21 Other surface water decrease and line item 13.2 Adjustment and forfeiture of surface water allocation – urban water system include the information of the diversions from the Cressbrook Creek WSS that was transferred out of the region to Toowoomba. This line item only includes the diversion component that was not transferred out of the region.

2. There would not have been any flow from Toowoomba Regional Council to the SEQ region because the pipeline pumps in the opposite direction, that is, from Wivenhoe (within the SEQ region) to Toowoomba, to supplement its storages during times of need.

3. –  = data not available

South East Queensland's urban water system comprises three sub-components: 

• urban water supply system
• wastewater system
• recycled water system.

There are four main sources of water for SEQ's urban water supply system:

• surface water (11.2 and 11.12 )
• groundwater (11.3)
• desalinated water (11.6)
• imported water (11.5). 

The water intake to the urban water supply system (251,897 ML) is from four sources: surface water (224,420 ML), groundwater (158 ML), desalinated water (2,805 ML), and imported water (24,514 ML).

During the 2012–13 year, the volume of water delivered to urban users (potable and non-potable water supplied amounting to 219,392 ML) was the major outflow from the urban water supply system. This supply for urban consumption represented about 87% of the total outflow. Approximately 11% of the outflow was leakage (19.3 Urban water system leakage to groundwater) and 2% was remaining losses.

Schematic diagram of water inflows and outflows during the 2012–13 year for South East Queensland's urban water supply system; line item numbers are provided in brackets

The following table shows the urban surface water allocation reconciliation (line item 3.7 Urban claim on surface water is equivalent to line item 5.2 Surface water allocation remaining – urban water system). Allocation diversion was higher in 2013 than in the previous year and combined with the 100% allocation announcements; this has resulted in slightly lower forfeiture of urban surface water allocation (approximately 50% of announcement) than that reported for the 2012 Account.

Urban surface water entitlements have a component included within them to allow for some future population growth. A component of the forfeiture may be attributed to this reason.  

¹The draw from Cressbrook and Perseverance dams (6,508 ML) is the actual diversion from the surface water allocation for Cressbrook (10,000 ML) of which the Crow's Nest's diversion (172 ML) stays within the SEQ water supply region. This draw does not include Yarraman take (88 ML) from Cooyar Creek.

There is no carryover in the SEQ region, and urban surface water allocation remaining (line item 5.2) will be always zero.

For the purpose of the 2013 Account, the urban claim on surface water only includes the Seqwater and Toowoomba Regional Council entitlement allocations, as they have been identified as the urban holders of entitlements in the resource operations plans (ROPs).

Other organisations may hold supplemented entitlements for some form of urban use. As urban use is not identified on entitlements these could not readily be identified. For this reason, a small number of entitlements that may fall into this category are included in line item 21.1 Surface water allocation announcements.

In Queensland, entitlements and allocations do not have intended use as an attribute, and metered abstractions do not have entitlement priority or use as attributes. Urban holders of entitlements were individually determined by obtaining all entitlement volumes from the Gold Coast, Logan Basin, and Moreton ROPs (Department of Natural Resources and Mines 2013b, 2013c, 2013d) schedule of water allocations listed for the Seqwater and Toowoomba Regional Council.

Metered volume of water intake:

Seqwater; Toowoomba Regional Council.

Seqwater; Toowoomba Regional Council.

The total volume derived from the metered volume of water intake at the relevant water treatment plants included in the table 'Allocation diversion of surface water to urban water system', were reported by Seqwater and Toowoomba Regional Council.

None.

The uncertainty estimate was not quantified.