Promoting sustainable water management

The five-yearly assessment linked this action to Water for Victoria action 8.2, which is in progress with a revised time frame.

DEECA has commenced a desktop review of the merits of converting licences into water shares and other products.

When Water for Victoria Action 8.2 is reported as completed, the SWS reporting should update the action status incorporating Water for Victoria (WfV) findings.

Action status (5-yearly assessment 2018): Being progressed through Water for Victoria or the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Delivery period: NA

This action was to improve knowledge of farm dams to enhance understanding of overall water harvesting within a catchment. The Water Bill 2014 proposed amendments to do this but did not proceed through parliament. Revocation in 2017 of regulations requiring registration of new and modified farm dams in rural residential areas occurred after a review found they did not achieve their purpose and were an unreasonable burden on dam owners.

WfV Action 8.4 Better record and report on emerging significant uses of water reinforced the importance to investigate the need to introduce reasonable use limit for domestic and stock rights under section 8 of the Water Act 1989.

The need to increase the information on domestic and stock dams and bores and ways to do this will be reassessed in consideration of the reasonable use for domestic and stock. DEECA will consult with stakeholders and community about options to progress this action.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Partly or not yet achieved

Delivery period: NA

This action was to improve knowledge of farm dams to enhance understanding of overall water harvesting within a catchment. The Water Bill 2014 proposed amendments to do this, but it did not proceed through parliament. Regulations requiring registration of new and modified farm dams in rural residential areas were revoked in 2017 after a review found they did not achieve their purpose and were an unreasonable burden on dam owners.

WfV Action 8.4 Better record and report on emerging significant uses of water (a) reinforced the importance to investigate the need to introduce reasonable use limit for domestic and stock rights under section 8 of the Water Act 1989.

The Progress report reinforced that registering domestic and stock bores is important for improving accountability for the volume of water taken for domestic and stock purposes and important for an equity perspective (fairness in access to water resources).

The need to increase the information on domestic and stock dams and bores and ways to do this will be reassessed in consideration of the reasonable use for domestic and stock. DEECA will consult with stakeholders and community about options to progress this action.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Partly or not yet achieved

Delivery period: NA

This ongoing action contributes to improving knowledge about unaccounted water use which will help to improve management of water use outside the entitlement framework. National Water Commission funding initiated the action.

Although the NWC has been dismantled, the Victorian Water Accounts include estimates of water use by small catchment dams. Further, all domestic and stock bores require a construction licence and estimated use volumes are reported in the water accounts. WfV Action 8.4 commits to recording and reporting on all emerging significant uses of water.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This action is to document existing management rules into local management plans (LMPs), to provide transparent water management. The action is well-progressed and ongoing. LMPs are to be developed in line with DEECA guidelines, which were released in May 2014, and be publicly available on rural water corporations’ websites.

For this assessment, an LMP is considered complete when the existing rules are documented and published on the rural water corporation’s website. If the rural water corporation responsible for developing an LMP considers the existing rules sufficient and effective, only documentation is required. Therefore, many of the unregulated surface water and groundwater LMPs are documentation of existing rules only.

LMPs established for surface water in the Western Region include for the Otway Coast, Hopkins, Portland Coast, Avoca River, Glenelg and Wimmera-Avon. Lake Corangamite, Mallee, Millicent Coast and Hopkins will be investigated in the future.

Also, LMPs were to be developed for some groundwater systems. The Hopkins-Corangamite Groundwater Catchment Statement includes the local management plan for the Colongulac, Glenormiston and Gellibrand GMAs. The West Wimmera GMA has replaced the areas of Balrootan, Kaniva TCSA, Goroke, Little Desert and Nhill. These areas are now covered by the West Wimmera Groundwater Management Strategy 2011.

The action also includes reviewing some existing rules. Examples where this has occurred are the Heywood, Hawkesdale, Portland, Nullawarre and Yangery WSPAs (all in the South West Limestone LMP).

The Progress report confirmed that this action is progressing on a priority basis and as resourcing is available. Priority is given to areas where there is significant water regulation and significant water management issues.

Plans for these areas have been completed. Where there is significant water regulation but there are few management issues are prioritised next. Most of these areas have been completed. Where there is limited water demand and subsequently limited management issues, these areas are not considered a priority and are unlikely to be completed. This includes areas in GWMW area such as the Mallee and Lake Corangamite and the Millicent coast in SRW area.

Newlingrook LMP is documented in Appendix 7 and Paaratte LMP is documented in Appendix 8 of the Hopkins Corangamite catchment statement.

Next steps will be to progress LMPs based on available resources and priorities.

DEECA — in partnership with key stakeholders — will revisit the Victorian groundwater management framework. The outcomes of this process will be updated in the next monitoring and reporting cycle (2020).

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Partly or not yet achieved

Delivery period: NA

This action was to review the process and establish opportunities for streamlining surface water and groundwater management plans to provide more efficient water management. When the WRSWS was published, statutory management plans were administratively costly and could take more than 2 years to develop. In the meantime, local management plans have been the main way groundwater and unregulated surface water is managed.

After a review of WSPA processes, amendments to the Water Act were proposed in the Water Bill 2014, but the Bill did not proceed through Parliament. In line with WfV action 8.9, DEECA intends to streamline the process and will propose amendments to the Act at the next opportunity.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and completed

Delivery period: 2012 to 2013

This ongoing action contributes to improving information-sharing about climate variability and risks. Research reports by the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative (SEACI) is available on its website.

In 2013, DEECA, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO launched the Victorian Climate Initiative (VicCI); and its research, which covers climate change’s past impacts and projections for Victoria, is available on its website.

In 2017, the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative was launched, which will look at past, current and future climate research. Communicating research results to the water sector is an important function of the initiative.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action promotes proactive demand management by supporting water corporations to continue to pursue water conservation and efficiency measures at various levels. The Millennium Drought highlighted the importance of water conservation, water use efficiency and robust planning of water supply and demand.

Many initiatives and processes have since been developed, either along with or as a result of the WRSWS, and the Victorian Government continues to support them. They include voluntary water efficiency programs across Victoria, sustainable irrigation programs and irrigation development rules at the CMA level, and water supply and demand planning for urban water corporations.

Sufficient progress on implementing the intent of this action has resulted in it being assessed as achieved. To ensure the intent of the action is retained, there are some components that are still ongoing (such as the development of reasonable domestic and stock use guidelines).

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This action is to provide guidance and clarity for section 67 storage construction licence applicants and assessing authorities. At the time the WRSWS was published, applicants for section 67 works licences had to undertake various investigations and environmental assessments, which were often burdensome.

The Progress report confirmed that this action is progressing.

DEECA will publish guidance to RWCs about the assessment required for licence applications and to improve the application process.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Partly or not yet achieved

Delivery period: NA

This action was to help explore more-adaptive water-extraction options through the extraction of high flows outside the winter-fill period (July – October).

The five-yearly assessment linked this action to WfV Action 8.3 Investigate increased flexibility for taking water under winter-fill licences. WfV Action 8.3 is now reported as complete.

The Water Plan represents the more recent consideration of this issue and the Progress report supports its findings: Investigation completed and concluded that it would be a highly unreliable source of water. Guidelines are proposed to permit high flow extraction on a case-by-case basis.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and completed

Delivery period: 2018

This ongoing action contributes to cost-effectively increasing water reliability and reducing the risks to water reliability by dry conditions. Expanding the reticulated water supply network is a cost-effective way to improve water reliability for communities close to existing supply networks that do not yet have access to those networks.

Several extensions to reticulated networks have been proposed or approved (such as the South West Loddon Rural Water Supply Project, which is planned for completion by mid-2019, and the East Grampians Water Supply Project, which has been partially funded and is currently in the planning and approval stages).

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

The five-yearly assessment linked this action to Water for Victoria action 9.7, which is in progress and expected to be completed in 2021.

DEECA has commenced market effectiveness case studies for selected systems in order to better understand opportunities for improving trade in groundwater and unregulated systems across the state.

SRW is working with DEECA on an aquifer-based management framework to enable trading over larger connected systems.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Being progressed through Water for Victoria or the Murray-Darling Basin Plan

Delivery period: NA

This action focus on exploring the use of fit-for-purpose alternative water supplies to provide benefits to communities and reduce demand on potable water supplies.

Shortly after the WRSWS was published, water supply demand strategy guidelines to consider alternative water supply were published and such consideration continues to be a part of water corporations’ most recent urban water strategies.

Policies for the assessment and approval of local desalination systems and for brine disposal management were released in 2013.

The Water Plan maintains the use of alternative water supplies to achieve secure water supplies as a priority, and stormwater allocation is being discussed across Victoria in integrated water management (IWM) forums.

Opportunities are also being assessed through IWM Forums. Wimmera CMA is leading this in the GWM Water region.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Being progressed through Water for Victoria or the Murray-Darling Basin Plan

Delivery period: NA

This action is to provide an approach to managing unallocated water on unregulated rivers and streams, which balances the needs of consumptive users and the environment. The Victorian winter-fill Sustainable Diversion Limits have been updated and are applied when assessing applications for new surface water licences and transfers.

The Progress report considered that this action is progressing.

The 2010 order applies to (PCV orders): Thomson, Latrobe, Bunyip, Yarra, Maribyrnong, Werribee, Moorabool, Barwon, Otway Coast River Basins.

DEECA plans to update the 2010 PCV Surface Water Order.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Partly or not yet achieved

Delivery period: NA

This action is to provide more water to meet the needs of consumptive users in an environmentally sensitive manner. The staged release of unallocated water has been planned to give consumptive users greater access to the water in a manner informed by a better understanding of the sustainable yield of the relevant water system.

Unallocated water has been identified in some areas and there are mechanisms in place to release unallocated water. This occurs through tender processes (GWMWater) and the WaterBid platform (SRW), launched in 2015. Auctions have been held for water from the Hopkins and Gellibrand rivers and the Parwan GMA. A tender was used for allocation of groundwater in the West Wimmera GMA.

Further sales processes are planned in 2019–20 for the unincorporated groundwater resources of the Lower Tertiary Aquifer north of Warrnambool.

Further water may also become available from the aquifer because of additional resource assessments and planning.
The tender process in the West Wimmera GMA did not allocate all water due to a lack of demand. GWM Water continues to look for alternative ways to release unallocated water.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: NA

This action contributed to effective and comprehensive water supply and demand planning to ensure the reliability of supply for urban and industrial users. The WRSWS articulates requirements to ensure urban water corporations’ water supply demand strategies follow planning best practices. These requirements, which DEECA set out in WSDS guidelines, include exploring alternative water sources, making agreements about service levels that meet community expectations and completing annual water supply outlooks.

Urban water corporations have developed water supply demand strategies for their regions, consistent with DEECA’s 2011 WSDS guidelines.

Urban water corporations continue to undertake strategic supply and demand planning. They revised their water supply-demand strategies as urban water strategies in 2017, as required by WfV.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and completed

Delivery period: 2011 to 2012

This action contributed to a better understanding of and more consistent guidance about Victorian water restrictions during drought and water scarcity. The Millennium Drought saw widespread water restrictions which had major consequences for Victorians. A review to better manage those impacts in the future was completed in 2011.

The review’s main recommendations — simple permanent water savings rules, a revised set of four-stage water restrictions and a model water restriction by-law — have been implemented.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and completed

Delivery period: 2011

This ongoing action encourages adaptive, innovative and productive water management as well as the use of alternative water sources (such as stormwater, desalinated water and recycled water). Integrating land use and water planning can improve the cost-effectiveness and adaptiveness of water resource management.

Water supply demand strategy guidelines issued in 2011 require water corporations to work with local governments to integrate their planning, and the provision of water services is included in regional growth plans.

Integrated water management forums are currently considering ways to improve the cost-effectiveness and integration of water management in their regions. Integrated water management forums have been established across the region including for the Great South Coast, Barwon and Central Highlands.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action contributes to promoting additional online resources for dryland farmers to manage water sustainably and mitigate climate risks. Historically, there has been less guidance for dryland farmers then for irrigators about efficient and sustainable water use. Since 2015, Agriculture Victoria has published guidance for farmers and will continue to do so.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action contributes to creating benefits for consumptive users, the environment and local communities through innovative water system planning. Releases of water for consumptive use can be timed to also provide benefits for the environment, so long as timing alterations do not disadvantage consumptive users. In future, the social benefits derived from using water en route could also be considered.

The VEWH annual seasonal watering plan addresses the use of consumptive water en route to provide environmental benefits. For example, delivery of the Glenelg River compensation flow —an entitlement held by GWMWater to provide for stock and domestic use downstream of Rocklands Reservoir — improves environmental outcomes. This is further supported by the increasing focus on recreational values (achieving shared benefits) as outlined in Chapter 6 of WfV.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

Stock grazing and invasive weeds pose a continuous risk to riverine and riparian ecosystems. This ongoing action helps to protect waterway health and water quality by ensuring that riparian land is managed appropriately through activities such as fencing, revegetation, weed management and vegetation enhancement.

Managing riparian land is a priority for CMAs, and specific management goals and targets in each region are set out in the regional waterway management strategies. To accelerate the implementation of riparian works, the state government launched the Regional Riparian Action Plan in 2015.

The action has ensured continued Environmental Contribution funding for works on a large scale to ensure there is ongoing provision of cost-effective, off-stream, stock watering infrastructure.

In the Glenelg Hopkins CMA catchment for example, the Merri River restoration project is currently underway and has removed 3.8 km of woody weeds and planted more than 12,500 native trees, shrubs and grasses.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action promotes adaptive management by ensuring that a process is in place to alter environmental objectives in response to long-term changes in water availability. Climate change will most likely make Victoria drier, and adapting to the changed conditions will probably need severe actions.

The 2013 Victorian Waterway Management Strategy includes a framework for assessing and changing management objectives in regional waterway strategies, which CMAs develop, and which will inform the 15-year long-term water resource assessment due in 2019.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action contributes to greater recognition, knowledge and consideration of the impact that bushfire management actions have on water quality and quantity. Bushfires can reduce water quality: for example, major bushfires in the Grampians during the Millennium Drought greatly increased sedimentation in Bellfield Reservoir.

Since the WRSWS, some strategic bushfire plans have considered water quality. The Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research Program also continues to study bushfire impacts on forested catchments including on water quality and quantity.

When prioritising planned burns, planners consider wildfire risks to water quality and quantity and how planned burns can reduce this risk

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing

This ongoing action provides the opportunity for increased Aboriginal involvement in water management through activities that support capacity building and participation. Traditional Owners have managed the state’s water resources for millennia but in post-settlement times lack of resources and expertise has disadvantaged their capacity to do so.

The WRSWS details capacity building programs for young Aboriginal leaders through universities, water corporations, CMAs and DELWP. These programs occurred as planned. Traditional Owner groups and Aboriginal Victorians still need to be involved in the management of water resources, beyond their involvement in consultation processes, through partnerships and employment. Chapter 6 of WfV also addresses this issue.

Action status (5-yearly assessment): Achieved and ongoing

Delivery period: Ongoing