Making the best use of the region's groundwater resources

The action was completed through DEECA’s Secure Allocations, Future Entitlements project. The groundwater catchments that were introduced after the project reflected connected groundwater resources and flow systems.

All groundwater resources are within a groundwater catchment, allowing for amalgamation of management areas (for example, West Wimmera GMA and South West Limestone GMA) and for management to be documented for all groundwater resources.

As knowledge improves, there will be further changes to management areas to reduce administration and costs and to support market development.

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

Delivery period: 2012

This ongoing action set clear rules for water-sharing and improves the management of short-term variability in groundwater systems. Water Supply Protection Area management plans and local management plans have documented management rules across much of the region.

Updates to plans have included updates to management rules.

Plans are yet to be developed for the Lower Otway Aquifers. Plans will be prepared for this area based on available resources and priorities. Plans will continue to be reviewed as required.

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

Delivery period: Ongoing

The action was to undeclare water supply protection areas (WSPAs) without approved statutory management plans.

Local management plans were prepared before a WSPA was undeclared. In some cases, when statutory management plans were reviewed, the WSPA was undeclared and the plan revoked because the risk to the resource did not justify continued management under a statutory management plan.

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

Delivery period: 2011 to 2012

This action is to facilitate groundwater trading opportunities between Victoria and South Australia. Many border areas overlie aquifers that extend into both states. While Victorian legislation already allows for interstate groundwater trade, the ability to trade is constrained by the incompatibility of entitlements between the states, the lack of a combined trading zone with a set permissible consumptive volume and the lack of an interstate agreement on how to account for interstate trade.

Barriers to interstate trade are being addressed as a part of a review of the border groundwaters agreement. The Border Groundwaters Agreement Review Committee is considering these issues for interstate trade as a part of a review of the agreement.

The Progress report confirmed that this action is progressing.

Next steps will be to release groundwater trading arrangements for South Australia and Victoria.

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

Delivery period: NA

This action contributed to ensuring that groundwater-dependent ecosystems and existing surface water users were protected from the impacts of increased groundwater extractions through the identification of areas of high groundwater/surface water interaction.

Before the WRSWS, the impact of groundwater use on surface water was considered in the development of groundwater management plans and licence assessment, although approaches were inconsistent. Local management plans and statutory management plans now identify and manage significant groundwater / surface water interactions, to ensure groundwater use does not reduce the reliability of water for surface water users or for the environment.

Resource-sharing guidance informs considerations about groundwater / and surface water interactions and supports planning. Guidelines for groundwater licensing to protect high-value groundwater-dependent ecosystems have also been developed to manage the impact on these ecosystems.

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

Delivery period: May 2017

This ongoing action contributes to increased availability of water for consumptive users while ensuring the sustainability of groundwater systems. A tender has been held to allocate groundwater in the West Wimmera. Further sales processes are planned in 2018–19 for the unincorporated groundwater resources of the Lower Tertiary Aquifer north of Warrnambool.

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

Delivery period: Ongoing

This action contributed to a revised and improved groundwater monitoring network. Groundwater in Victoria is monitored mainly through the State Observation Bore Network (SOBN). When the WRSWS was published, groundwater monitoring infrastructure was inadequate in some areas. Who would fund the SOBN was also unclear, which put at risk the long-term maintenance and operation of the network.

The SOBN was restructured soon after the WRSWS was published. The restructured SOBN is now a regional monitoring network with a clearly defined purpose for each site. The ageing monitoring infrastructure has been upgraded through a program of bore refurbishment works. Key stakeholders have been identified for each monitoring site, and the approach to future cost-sharing is to be negotiated. Annual expenditure on maintaining and developing the SOBN is currently being reported.

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

Delivery period: 2013 to 2014

This ongoing action helps to ensure funding for maintaining and renewing Victoria’s monitoring network. A formal process was needed to determine an operating and maintenance program that shares costs on a beneficiary-pays basis.

Costs are shared between DEECA (funded through the Environment Contribution Levy) and water corporations (funded through fees and charges approved through the Essential Services Commission’s pricing determination processes).

For groundwater, monitoring costs are covered by a partnership of water corporations, CMAs and DEECA. For surface water monitoring, costs are covered by a partnership of water corporations, CMAs, local governments, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and DEECA. Funding for monitoring may be under pressure, with an ongoing issue relating to the need for more monitoring versus capacity to pay.

Since 2011, approximately $ 2,800,000 has been invested in the Western region into improving asset condition and capacity to capture monitoring data (loggers and telemetry expansion and upgrades) and post flood recovery works and OH&S improvements. This has improved the reliability of the asset performance, introduced data logging and telemetry and reduced the overall cost of the monitoring in some systems.

The Progress report supports ongoing funding for future maintenance and renewal of the monitoring network. Where gaps in the monitoring network are identified, this action supports the inclusion of filling gaps as part of the network “renewal”. The forward works program is now submitted for consideration under routine budgetary processes.

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

Delivery period: Ongoing

This action contributed to improved knowledge about groundwater-dependent ecosystems and facilitated the integrated management of these systems. The WRSWS acknowledged there was insufficient understanding of groundwater-dependent ecosystems when it was published, so it recommended a risk-based approach to manage impacts on GDEs.

Groundwater licensing guidelines to protect high-value impacts on GDEs were released in 2015 and outline the approach licensing authorities should take to consider risks.

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

Delivery period: April 2015

This ongoing action assists in protecting the region’s groundwater resources. New technologies and industries that affect water resources and water users include geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage.

DEECA (and its predecessor departments) have studied the impacts of emerging technologies and industries through small-scale trials, and there have also been regional studies about coal seam gas and shale gas.

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

Delivery period: Ongoing