How water is managed in the Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine water plan area now
The replacement of the Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine water plan provides an opportunity to review how water is managed in the water plan area.
The current water plan sets the rules for allocation and use of surface water—such as overland flow water and water in rivers, lakes and springs—as well as groundwater. It applies to all water resources in the plan area, except those managed by the Great Artesian Basin and other regional aquifers water plan.
The water plan is a key document that supports the Warrego-Parro-Nebine water resource plan, that was accredited in June 2017 by the Australian Government as consistent with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan 2012.
Surface water
Water in the plan area is largely unregulated. There is only one water supply scheme—the Cunnamulla water supply scheme—based on the Allan Tannock Weir near Cunnamulla. Releases from the weir are made solely to comply with the stock and domestic water sharing rules, in line with the scheme’s operations manual. The scheme is managed by Sunwater under a resource operations licence. It supplies 29 tradable water allocations with a combined nominal volume of 2,612ML.
Across the plan area, there are 54 tradable water allocations (total nominal volume of 51,112ML), 8 water licences (total nominal entitlement of 269.4ML) and 4 other entitlements that that do not have specified volumes. Most of the entitlements are in the Warrego catchment, with relatively few in the Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine catchments.
The Australian Government holds unsupplemented surface water entitlements of 20.1GL in the Warrego catchment and 3.8GL in the Nebine catchment. These are managed as held environmental water that was recovered to meet sustainable diversion limits established under the Basin plan. No water recovery occurred in the Paroo catchment, as the sustainable diversion limit was met. The Bulloo catchment is not part of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Surface water managed in the water plan also includes overland flow–water that runs across the land after rainfall, either catchment runoff before entering a watercourse, after it leaves a watercourse as floodwater, or after it rises to the surface naturally from underground. The current water plan outlines the limitations for taking overland flow water in the plan area.
Groundwater
Groundwater (also called underground water) is the water that flows beneath the earth's surface that occurs in alluvium and rock formations called aquifers.
The entire Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine water plan area is a groundwater management area, consisting of 4 groundwater units:
- the St George alluvium (shallow)
- the St George alluvium (deep)
- the sediments above the Great Artesian Basin
- the Warrego alluvium.
There are 16 volumetric groundwater licences in the plan area (located in the Warrego alluvium and the sediments above the Great Artesian Basin), with a total nominal entitlement of 449ML.
In reviewing the current water plan, we will consider public feedback and technical assessments to ensure water use across the Warrego, Paroo, Bulloo and Nebine water plan area continues to be managed in a sustainable way.