Neeraj Maini, Principal Policy Officer, Regulatory Implementation, Water Operations Division, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Lucy Peters, Water Resource Officer, Water, Department of Planning and Environment.

Commencement of the Water Management Amendment Act 2010

On 1 March 2024, the Water Management Amendment Act 2010 for joint private works schemes started. As a result, the parts of the Water Management Act 2000 (the Act) that deal with private water trusts have changed.

I understand Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd (KCB) were retained by the NSW Department of Industry, Planning and Environment (DPIE) to ‘conduct a literature review of published recharge mechanisms and collate existing estimates of recharge for the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), focusing on the Southern and Eastern Recharge Groundwater Sources in New South Wales’. As a result of their review, KCB recommended recharge volumes in the Southern and Eastern Recharge Groundwater Sources should be increased.

 

Reports from the Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment. Whole-of-basin and regional reports are available for download.

The Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment findings were released at the Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee forum in Adelaide on 27 March 2013.

 

Australia is a land of extremes subject to an adverse and unreliable climate. The original inhabitants lived mainly in coastal zones without permanent settlements. European settlers, who arrived from 1788, founded towns from which they penetrated into the drier interior following rivers or sinking wells. There was pressure for Government to provide guidance in obtaining water supplies. The various States began to establish Geological Surveys in the 1850s and, although their prime objective was to advise on minerals they also advised on groundwater. Artesian water was discovered in 1878 and the boundaries of the Great Artesian Basin were established by around 1900. Declining yields and the long-term reliability of supply resulted in numerous conferences and committees. Following World War II geologists were appointed by organizations outside the Geological Survey. From the mid-1960s to 1980 intensive groundwater exploration took place and hydrogeology became accepted as a discipline in its own right.

 

Safe drinking water is essential to sustain life. Therefore, every effort needs to be taken to ensure that drinking water suppliers provide consumers with water that is safe to use. The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (the ADWG) are intended to provide a framework for good management of drinking water supplies that, if implemented, will assure safety at point of use. The ADWG have been developed after consideration of the best available scientific evidence. They are designed to provide an authoritative reference on what defines safe, good quality water, how it can be achieved and how it can be assured. They are concerned both with safety from a health point of view and with aesthetic quality