Definitions - Terms in the Regulations

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What is water information?
'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)'.
What is the Grace Period?
The Grace Period is three months long. It starts when the Bureau adds an organisation to certain categories of the regulations. The categories are Person Category A, B, C, D, E, F, G and L.
Organisations do not have to give any water information to the Bureau in the Grace Period. During this time, an organisation can work out what data they will need to give to the Bureau. These data include historical information and ongoing information.
Note that the Grace Period does not apply to water information in Category 5 or 7. In any case, organisations required to give this information will always have longer than three months between being added to a person category and when they need to start giving data.
It also does not apply to a subcategory of information that the organisation was required to give previously due to being named in another category immediately prior. In this way, the Grace Period applies only once for each type of information.
Organisations start giving data after the Grace Period expires. The actual start date depends on whether the data is daily, weekly, monthly or yearly data. For example, if the grace period ends after the start of a week, the requirement to give information doesn’t apply until the end of the next week. Water Regulations Online will show you the timeframe.
Who or what are persons?
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 eleven categories: Categories A to H and K to M. The categories are based on functions. Persons may be in more than just one category as they may perform more than one function.
Historical information and new or ongoing information
The regulations separate water information into two types:
– information a person holds before the end of the grace period
– information that comes into a person's possession after the grace period has expired.
We think of these two types as historical information and new or ongoing information.
Regulation 7.04 lists certain subcategories of water information and person categories. An organisation listed in these person categories and holding these data during the grace period gives them as historical information. You give historical information within a fortnight after the end of the grace period.
New information is the information that comes into your possession after the grace period. You give new information at various specified timeframes on an ongoing/continuing basis.

Water Information Definitions

Web Services
A standardised way of integrating web-based applications employing widely used computer languages such as XML. It allows organisations to communicate without intimate knowledge of each other's IT systems behind the firewall.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as over the Internet.
See also File Transfer Protocol (FTP) details and data file content and naming conventions.
Time Series Data
A series of values of a variable at successive times. An example is a series of values of stream height data recorded over a time period from a particular site.
See also File Transfer Protocol (FTP) details and data file content and naming conventions.
XML
Short for Extensible Markup Language, XML is a computer language designed especially for Web documents. It allows designers to define, transmit, and interpret on-line data between organisations.
See also File Transfer Protocol (FTP) details and data file content and naming conventions.
Metadata and contextual information
Data and contextual information that assists the Bureau to understand or interpret the primary data listed in Categories 1 to 9 and 11. It may be metadata or documents such as protocols that describe how information is collected and stored by a particular data owner. See Metadata and Contextual Information Requirements for details of metadata which named organisations are required to give to the Bureau when they give their water information.

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