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Find answers to commonly asked questions about the Regulations:
'Water information' is defined in s125 of the Water Act 2007 to mean ‘any raw data and metadata, or any value added information product, that relates to: (a) the availability, distribution, quantity, quality, use, trading or cost of water; or (b) water access rights, water delivery rights or irrigation rights; and includes contextual information relating to water (such as land use information, geological information and ecological information).
The amendments that came into effect on 2 December 2008 ease the requirements for reporting certain information and update Schedules of named persons and commercially sensitive sites. The amendments have a range of impacts on organisations depending on how they are categorised under the Regulations. Some organisations will experience no changes to their requirements and others have been completely removed from the Regulations.
For more detail of the changes, see See Information Bulletin, Issue 3, 2 December 2008.
The term 'persons' is used in the Regulations to refer to both private and public entities. It includes individuals as well as trusts, organisations, companies, corporations and agencies of State, Territory or Commonwealth Governments that are required to give water information to the Bureau.
Persons named in the Regulations are grouped into eight categories; Categories A to H. The categories are based on functions. Persons may be in more than just one category as they may perform more than one function.
The Regulations specify which persons are required to give information and the kinds of information they are required to give. This website features a tool to enable you to search using your organisation name and to generate a report of any requirements placed on your organisation by the Regulations.
Yes. For example, a data collector could be included in one category because they divert surface water and in a second category because they manage a major water storage.
Under the Water Regulations 2008, persons are required to give specified electronic water information that is in their possession, custody or control. The Bureau will determine information as being in a person's possession, custody or control once it is in a person's data managment system. Therefore information that is in a field based data logger is not for the purposes of these Water Regulations regarded as being in a person's possession, custody or control. The timeframes in the Water Regulations only apply from the moment that specified water information is in a person's data management system.
We advised all named persons as to their possible obligations under the Water Act to ensure that every named person was aware of those obligations well ahead of time. In a progressive roll-out, we are sending emails alerting you to an online Data Survey that asks you questions about the availability of water information in your possession. Once filled in by you, it serves as a statement as to which information you have / or do not have in your possession. If necessary, we will be in further contact to verify your statement.
If, after completing the Data Survey, you find that you do not have any of the requested information in your possession, we will ask you to complete a signed declaration attesting to that belief. Once we receive the declaration from you, we will ensure that you do not receive the routine communications that periodically we send to persons named in the regulations. We will also assess the information in your declaration and may ask you to redo the data survey every three years in case your circumstances change in the future.
The Regulations detail an 'interim period' within which categories of persons are required to commence giving specified information. Depending on the categories of persons and the types of information, this 'interim period' can be three, seven, nine or twelve months from the commencement of the Regulations. The Regulations commenced on 30th June 2008.
No. The Water Act 2007 states that you are only required to give information that is in your possession, custody or control.
No, you are only required to give specified information which you possess if it is in an electronic format. If you have it in a paper format only, you are not be required to give it.
Electronic format means a format that is machine readable, but does not include scanned documents.
The Bureau wishes to avoid information being provided twice. The Regulations state that if a person reasonably believes that certain information is already in the Bureau's possession, the person will not be required to give that information again to the Bureau. Thus, if you know that another organisation is already providing the same water information to the Bureau in the same timeframe as set in the regulations, then you can elect not to provide it. However, you must inform the Bureau in writing of your decision and the reasons why you believe the Bureau already has the specified information in its possession. You may want to use the Bureau's sample pro forma document for this declaration.
We advise you to contact your Strategic Water Information Coordinator (SWIC) in the first instance to check that your belief is reasonable. Contact details for the SWICs can be found here
Once you send us a signed declaration we will not expect to receive from you the water information to which it refers. Later, if we are unable to confirm that the information is in the Bureau's possession, we will contact you again.
No. The Regulations do not require you to undertake new water information collection activities.
No. You are still required to give the information once it is in your possession, custody or control. So, for daily information which must be transferred at least once per day and before 1200 hours on the following day, you are required to give it before 1200 hours on the working day following that day on which it comes into your data management system.
Provided the new information that you collect is information that the category of persons in which you are grouped is required to give, then you must give it to the Bureau once it is in your possession, custody or control.
Modelled data is not specifically requested under these Regulations. However, where modelled values are used to infill gaps in sequences of observed data, these modelled values will be required to be included with the routine provision of the observed data. Metadata will enable the origin of the data values to be identified. Data values resulting from the application of conversion algorithms (such as rating relationships or storage relationships) are not considered to be modelled data. The Director may also, under a separate section (s127) of the Water Act 2007, make particular requests for water information including modelled data. For example, modelled data could be specifically requested when it provides value added information relevant to a particular analysis or study being undertaken by the Bureau.
Specified water information from projects with an expected duration from 12 to 48 months is only required to be given at the end of each financial year. Water information from projects with an expected duration of no more than twelve months is only required from persons in categories A and B.
Information collected from a single site for a period of no more than 12 continuous weeks does not need to be provided to the Bureau.
As a person named in the Water Regulations 2008 you are required to give specified water information.
You are, however, not required to give specified information that:
If you are collecting specified water information solely for the purposes of a project you expect to last no more 48 months you need only provide that information within 3 months of the end of the financial year in which the information was collected.
Water information is collected and reported using a variety of methods and standards across Australia. The Bureau recognises that the development of national standards is a major task and that the implementation of those standards will entail a significant change process for many water data collectors and managers. The Bureau will develop these new national standards in consultation with lead water agencies over the coming years. It is not envisaged that any standards will be issued before 2009. As a first step, the Bureau is setting up panels of water experts to tackle the development of particular standards.
Category 10 information is information that assists in the understanding or interpretation of the primary data listed in Categories 1 - 9. It may be metadata or documents such as protocols that describe how information is collected and stored by a particular data owner. In all cases persons must also give category 10 information that relates to information in categories 1 - 9 and that is in their possession, custody or control.
The Water Regulations define a data managment system as "the software and hardware used to manage the storage of and access to information held in a set of related files". In some cases a data management system could refer to a dedicated system solely employed to manage hydrometric data. For many organisations, however, water information may be managed using more generic systems and applications and may only occupy a small fraction of those systems. In general the Bureau views the system/s where you store your operational data and/or your quality controlled data as your data managment system/s and acknowledges that in some cases this may be simply a series of spreadsheets or document files stored on a computer.
This category is made up of named persons who already provide information for flood forecasting and warning to the Bureau. The Regulations do not require Persons who are solely in Category H, to give flood warning and forecasting information other than that which they are already giving.
Persons who are in category H and who are also in another category(ies) will have to give the specified information as required under the other category(ies) to the Bureau.
Category H persons must give three subcategories of water data hourly, namely: 1a Surface water height, 1b Surface water flow and 4a Precipitation. Where persons are also required to give the same sub-categories of information because they are listed in another category, the requirement to give the information hourly only applies to the flood information that is already being provided under category H. Thus a person who is in both category A and category H will be required to continue providing 1a, 1b and 4a hourly for flood warning purposes, as currently given to the Bureau. Other 1a, 1b and 4a information need only be transferred daily.
No. The Water Act 2007 limits the ability of the Bureau to publish the identity of water users. The Bureau cannot publish water information in a way that expressly identifies a person's water use, unless that water information is already published or is otherwise publicly available in a way that expressly identifies the person's water use.
The Bureau's objective is to make as much as possible of the water information publicly available on the Internet. There may, however, be cases where the Director of Meteorology may decide that publication would not be in the public interest. The Bureau is also discussing with water agencies, which in most cases would have additional water planning and management functions, the provision of on-line domains which will not be publicly accessible and where those agencies can store and analyse information that is not yet in a form useful to the public.
No.
No. Compared to previous National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA) and National Water Commission (NWC) sponsored national water resource assessments, the Bureau will undertake a more rigorous and detailed assessment requiring the use of much more extensive data sets than have been used hitherto.
No. Unlike in previous NLWRA- and NWC-sponsored national water resource assessments, the Bureau will perform most of the assessment tasks itself. The Bureau will also assist information providers in setting up information transfer arrangements.
Yes. Through the Jurisdictional Reference Group on Water Information (JRGWI) and various Expert Panels, State water information specialists will be invited to contribute to the development of new national water resource assessment and water accounting methodologies. In the latter case (water accounting) the Bureau will rely heavily on the recommendations of the Water Accounting Standards Board (WASB).
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