Water market reforms
New data standards and systems for Murray–Darling Basin water markets.
New standards and systems from 1 July 2026
New data standards and systems, following changes to the Water Act 2007, include:
- water markets data standards – improving the transparency and availability of data provided to the Bureau
- water data hub – a digital platform for national water data management
- water markets website – allowing access to near real-time water market updates.
These changes are part of the Australian Government's water market reforms. For more about the reforms, see Reforms, standards and systems on this page.
Latest updates
Stakeholder feedback report available
We engaged with organisations that may need to provide water markets information to us under the water markets data standards.
You can read a summary of their feedback in the Overview of stakeholder engagement and feedback – October 2024 (3.8MB).
Engagement
We are working closely with:
- Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
- Inspector General of Water Compliance.
We have also completed 2 rounds of engagement with stakeholders affected by the new water markets data reporting requirements in the Murray–Darling Basin.
Water market participant engagement – March to July 2024
We met with 42 organisations in face-to-face workshops across the Murray–Darling Basin. This included:
- Basin state water market authorities
- irrigation infrastructure operators
- water market intermediaries.
You can read a summary of their feedback in the Water Market Data Standards - Overview of stakeholder engagement and feedback – October 2024 (3.8MB).
We will continue our engagement with data providers to finalise the water markets data standards by 1 July 2026.
Water market participant engagement – March to June 2023
We spoke with 15 representative stakeholder organisations who hold and provide water markets data across the Murray–Darling Basin.
You can read a summary of stakeholder feedback from the first round of consultation in the Water Markets Data Standards Consultation Summary of Findings July 2023 - PDF document (3.5MB).
Reforms, standards and systems
About the water market reforms
The Australian Government enacted the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Act 2023 on 7 December 2023. It makes changes to the Water Act 2007.
The changes aim to deliver the conduct, integrity, and transparency recommendations from the Water market reform: final roadmap. This document and further information about the water market reforms are available on the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water website.
The legislation also expands the Bureau's water information role to include water markets information in the Murray–Darling Basin.
We will have new functions and powers as custodian of water markets information. These powers will allow us to collect water markets information and share it with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Inspector General of Water Compliance for compliance purposes.
The reforms include requirements for water market authorities and intermediaries to report water markets information to us. Our Director of Meteorology will have powers to issue water markets data standards to define the data and how it is to be reported.
Water markets data standards
As Australia's lead agency for water information, we are responsible for developing a data and systems framework to underpin the water market reforms. This includes developing and implementing new water markets data standards.
The purpose of the water markets data standards is to improve the availability and consistency of water trade information in the Murray–Darling Basin. This will support community understanding and the collection, sharing and comparison of this information.
New regulations and standards will mandate requirements to collect, generate, record, or provide Murray–Darling Basin water markets data to us. This will include comprehensive pre-trade and post-trade data. The standards may include details of:
- metadata requirements, including definitions of terms used and the relationships between metadata elements
- who is required to collect, generate, record or provide information
- the way in which data is to be collected, generated, recorded and provided.
Water data systems
We are:
- developing systems to support data providers to comply with the new standards
- working with a range of data providers to build and test the functionality and security of the end-to-end data systems.
Water data hub
This is a new digital platform for national water management. The water data hub will enable:
- data providers to securely report their data
- the Bureau to share their data with market regulators.
They will be able to send data through:
- an application programming interface (API)
- a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP)
- a data provider portal for organisations with simple data management systems.
Water markets website
Water markets data will be shared publicly in near real-time on a water markets website. This data will be de-identified to protect privacy.
