Water Resource Plans - An Overview · Vanessa O’Keefe | Director Planning Water Resource Plans...

Vanessa O’Keefe | Director Planning

Water Resource Plans – An Overview

ALL SAP MEETING | 5 & 6 JUNE 2018

Water Resource Plans (WRPs)

• Water resource plans (WRPs) are a key requirement of the Commonwealth Basin Plan 2012.

• For a specified Water resource Plan Area, they:

• must be developed in consultation with stakeholders

• recognise the economic, social, cultural and environmental objectives established in the Basin Plan

• specify how water will be shared and managed to sustainable diversion limits

• recognise the long term (environmental) watering plan for the area, and provide for its implementation

• deal with water quality protection objectives and measures

• adopt a monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework

• Chapter 10 of the Basin Plan establishes the requirements for WRPs

• In order to streamline their structure and ensure consistency across all plans WRP templates been developed (one for surface water and one for groundwater).

Water Resource Plans

Development Process

Water Resource Plans Document relationships

• WRPs adopt key elements of statutory water sharing plans (WSPs) which will remain the primary instruments for water sharing in NSW

• These elements will be ‘accredited’ under the Basin Plan

• WSPs will be amended to reflect Basin Plan requirements

Basin Plan: NSW Context

Water Resource Plan

Water Quality Management Plan

(includes Salinity) (Dept of Industry –

Water)

Water Sharing Plan

(Dept of Industry –

Water)

Water Act 2007 (Cth)

AccreditationWater

Management Act 2000 (NSW)

Gazettal

Intergovernmental

Agreement 2008 –

Implementing Water

Reform in the Murray

Darling Basin

Act

Agreement/Agreed Plan

Key

Deliverable

MDBA Basin Plan

Long-term Watering Plan

(OEH)

Other supporting NSW legislation including:

Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979

Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997

Local Land Services Act 2013

NSW Supporting Documents and Policies

Dotted line – indirect link

Solid line – direct link

Risk Assessment(Dept of Industry –

Water)

Gwydir Water Resource Plan


Reading the document

Water Resource Plan: Content

A WRP contains 8 sections – a logical planning approach:

• Introduction

• Identification of WRP Area, SDL resource units and other matters

• Risks to water sources

• Environmental water, cultural flows and sustainable management

• Take for consumptive use

• Water quality management

• Measuring and monitoring

• Information used to prepare the WRP


• Describes the purpose and scope of the WRP

• Puts the plan in context with the legislative requirements

• Recognises the objectives of the Basin Plan, and specifies Indigenous values, uses and objectives for the protection of cultural flows

• Explains the form of the WRP – how to read and interpret it

• Discusses enforcement provisions of the WMA and C’th Water Act that apply to the WRP

• Outlines consultation that was undertaken and introduces the consultation report for accreditation

• The consultation report will be attached in Schedule C

1. Introduction


• Identifies the WRP Area, SDL resource units and water resources

• Regard to other water sources is described

2. Identification of WRPA and other matters


• Specific risks to the availability of Basin water resources evaluated include: • (a) insufficient water available for the environment;

• (b) water being of a quality unsuitable for use; and

• (c) poor health of water-dependent ecosystems.

• Specifies the individual table in the Risk Assessment for accreditation, including those relating to: • data, methods used to identify and assess the risks, and the uncertainties

associated with the methods

• the outcomes of the assessment and

• strategies to manage risks

• The risk assessment will be attached in Schedule D

• Section 3 satisfies the Chapter 10 requirements of the Basin Plan “Approaches to addressing risks to water resources” – 10.41 – 10.43

3. Risks to water sources


• Defines environmental water from a legislative perspective – WMA 2000

• Highlights the requirements of the WSP in relation to planned environmental water

• Identifies Planned Environmental Water by reference to the WSPs (regulated and unregulated)

• Describes the Register of Held Environmental Water and the holders of that water

• Discusses priority environmental assets and ecosystem functions by reference to the Long Term Watering Plan (Appendix C)

• Discusses environmental watering within the WRP Area and between WRP Areas

• Highlights WRP area specific rules relating to no net reduction of PEW

• Discusses cultural flows

• Acknowledgement surface water and groundwater connectivity

4. Environmental water, cultural flows & sustainable management


Definitive links between WRP and WSP:

• Identifies water access rights and other forms of take, describes how these rights are enabled under the WMA and their priority order

• Introduces Schedule F for accreditation (Tables describing access/take types and BDL components)

• References conditions applied to access licence under the WMA (NSW) to ensure operation of take provisions and compliance

• SW/GW trade

• The SDL is defined and a framework for adjusting the SDL is described

• Determining available water for the different licence categories

• Overview of available water determinations in the regulated and unregulated water sources

• Determination of actual take (via measuring or estimation)

5. Take for consumptive use


• Annual permitted take (APT)

• Methods of assessing compliance with the SDL and APT discussed as well as corrective actions for SDL compliance

• Interception activities and floodplain harvesting. Variation between Basin Plan and NSW explained and other interception activities listed

• Response to extreme events outlined and the Incident Response Guide (IRG) is introduced for accreditation and attached in Schedule G

• Section 5 satisfies the Chapter 10 requirements of the Basin Plan – 10.08, 10.10 – 10.13, 10.15, 10.23 – 10.25, 10.39 and 10.51

5. Take for consumptive use


• Introduces the WQMP attached in Schedule H

• Specifies the WQMP Tables for accreditation:

• key causes of water quality degradation

• water quality target values in the WRP Area to meet BP objectives

• measures to address medium and high risks relating to water quality

• Section 6 satisfies the Chapter 10 requirements of the Basin Plan “Water quality objectives” – 10.29 – 10.35

6. Water quality management


• Specifies how NSW will monitor river flows and various types of water ‘take’ in the WRPA, and links back to Section 5.2.1 and 5.4

• References Schedule I: State-wide principles for measuring water take

• References Schedule K: Monitoring, reporting & evaluation plan for the WRP area

• Monitoring water resources is accredited by referring to Table 7.1 of the WRP – monitoring of water resources

• Section 7 satisfies the Chapter 10 requirements of the Basin Plan – 10.44 – 10.46

7. Measuring and monitoring


• Introduces Schedule J for accreditation

• Schedule J describes the information, tools, methods and models used in the development of the Gwydir WRP

• Section 8.1 provides a summary of this

8. Information used to prepare the WRP


• Schedule A: WSP information

• Schedule B: WRP Index

• Schedule C: Consultation report

• Schedule D: Risk assessment information

• Schedule E: Planning for environmental water

• Schedule F: Water for consumptive use information

• Schedule G: Extreme Events Information

• Schedule H: Water quality management information

• Schedule I: State-wide principles for measuring water take

• Schedule J: Information & tools used in preparing WRP

• Schedule K: WRPA monitoring, reporting & evaluation plan

Schedules


• Appendix A: Summary of Indigenous Values & Uses

• Appendix B: Water Resource Plan Area Description

• Appendix C: Long Term Watering Plan

• Appendix D: NSW Water Take Measurement Policy

• Appendix E: No net reduction in the protection of PEW report

• Appendix F: Incident Response Guide

Appendices

Water Resource Plans - An Overview · Vanessa O’Keefe | Director Planning Water Resource Plans...

Documents

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