Water Information Research and Development Alliance

Transforming Australia's water resources information

Water scarcity is a major challenge facing Australia. The need to accurately monitor, assess and forecast the availability, condition and use of water resources is now more vital than ever.

Water resources information is currently collected and held by hundreds of organisations across Australia, making it difficult to monitor the status and use of Australia's water resources and to accurately forecast water availability.

The Bureau of Meteorology's role has expanded to include transforming Australia's water resources information by improving its accessibility, integration and use. These improvements will be achieved through substantial innovation and will yield huge benefits through more informed policy and infrastructure decisions.

A water information alliance

The Alliance is a strategic investment of $50m over five years that will deliver most of the innovation required by the Bureau to fulfil its national water information mandate. It brings together CSIRO's nation-leading expertise in water and information sciences with the Bureau's new operational responsibilities in water information. Around 40 leading CSIRO researchers will focus on topics including data interoperability, hydrologic modelling, water accounting and water resource assessment.

A major research and development program

Through the Alliance, the Bureau and CSIRO will improve the management of Australia's water resources by delivering value-added water information products, based on a comprehensive and robust nationwide water information system. The Alliance builds on the achievements of CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship. The Flagship has recently undertaken an urgently needed assessment of water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin through the Sustainable Yields Project, now being extended to the other States of Australia. It has also been an innovator in water information through the Water Resources Observation Network (WRON) project.

Building on insights from those projects, CSIRO will deliver new science and technology that will enable the Bureau to undertake real-time interactive analysis of water information and begin using advanced methods for forecasting of water availability and floods across Australia.

• Alliance Implementation Strategy 2009 (PDF)

Alliance projects

Alliance projects cover four broad categories: Water information systems, Foundation data products, Water accounting and assessment and Water forecasting and prediction. Each of these categories contains programs focussing on key stages of the water information development process. More information on each of the projects and programs is available from the Bureau's Water Information Research and Development Alliance information sheet.

Research projects for 2009/10:

• 1.2 Hydrologists workbench
• 1.4 Water data transfer standards
• 1.5 Sustainable water information models
• 2.1 One-second Continental DEM
• 2.2 Precipitation and actual evapotranspiration products for water resources applications
• 3.1 Water resources assessment and accounting
• 4.1 Water forecasting and prediction - short term
• 4.2 Water forecasting and prediction - seasonal to long term
• 2009/10 Project descriptions (PDF)

The outcome

Through the Alliance, the Bureau will adopt CSIRO's leading science and technology, resulting in vastly improved water data integration, water resources assessments, National Water Accounts and flood and water availability forecasts.

Bridging projects

• Web-based Visualisation of Water Information: an overview (PDF)

Publications

• Water Information Research and Development Alliance information sheet (PDF)
• Media Release - $50 million for new water research alliance (PDF)
• Alliance Science Plan 2008 (PDF)
• Annual report 2008-09 (PDF)

Links

• View the CSIRO website

A water information R&D initiative between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country Flagship