Surface water monitoring and data management

This initiative delivers rigorous information on the state of Victoria's water resources, to support decision making and policy development across the water sector, and enable monitoring and reporting on the effectiveness of the government's water resource management decisions. It also supports planning for critical incidents including floods, drought and fire.

Total EC3 investment: $10.7 m

2012-13 expenditure: $2.188 m 
2013-14 expenditure: $2.612 m 
2014-15 expenditure: $2.785 m 
2015-16 expenditure: $2.786 m
2016-17 expenditure: $0.308 m

Progress

This initiative has enabled the delivery of a statewide dataset comprising data from 826 monitoring sites across Victoria, including 287 flood warning sites and 355 water quality monitoring sites.

The surface water monitoring data (including water quality, water level and flow) is delivered monthly into the State's Water Management Information System.

The information collected and maintained underpins a range of water sector functions including waterway management and improvement programs, the Index of Stream Condition, environmental water management, flood warning and floodplain management, water entitlement and resource allocation models and water accounting.

Maintenance of surface water gauges and probes has also been carried out to ensure that data collection is not interrupted, and upgrades made to database systems to improve data management and access to data.