Conjunctive water management and Western Australian water policy
In Western Australia, the Rights in Water and Irrigation (RiWI) Act (1914) was amended in 2001 to incorporate the COAG water reforms. The Act treats water resources as three entities: water in a watercourse; water in wetlands and groundwater. The Act also differentiates between 'certain surface waters' and 'other surface waters'.
'Certain surface waters' refers to every watercourse and wetland that is situated within the boundaries of an area proclaimed under the Act - a proclaimed surface water area.
'Other surface waters' refer to every watercourse and wetland that is not within a proclaimed area.
In effect this means that water access and use is licensed within a proclaimed area and not licensed outside a proclaimed area. Stock and domestic and riparian rights are enforceable in both areas.This also applies to groundwater: within proclaimed groundwater areas (only the Yilgarn fractured rock areas remain unproclaimed in WA), all access and use is licensed. Artesian bores are licensed everywhere.
There is no integration of surface water/groundwater resources in the Act and the resources are treated separately. Even though many water resources are highly connected, there is little scope in WA for conjunctive management due to water quality and quantity issues in surface water. There are few places where fresh surface water and groundwater interact. In areas where there is fresh surface water flowing into dams, connected groundwater is within a fractured rock environment. Surface water flowing across the Swan Coastal Plain is generally saline or connected to groundwater in discharge areas. Carnarvon can be considered as a conjunctive scheme but the surface water-groundwater interaction occurs only when the river flows. Most of the larger unregulated rivers in WA are perennial.
The WA legislation may be a constraint to conjunctive water management. Water management plans are generic and apply to both surface water and groundwater resources. However, plans are either groundwater management plans or surface water management plans. Development of regional scale plans that will cover both surface water and groundwater is anticipated, however, they will be either regional groundwater plans that take into consideration any connected surface water resources that may be impacted upon by groundwater abstraction, or regional surface water plans that take into consideration groundwater resources. In this context, some integration will occur but there is currently little other scope for conjunctive management of highly connected systems in Western Australia
Trading between groundwater and surface water has not occurred and there is little scope for it in the future.
Relevant Links
Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation
Western Australia Water Legislation
References
NGC, 2004. Surface water-groundwater integration and legislative constraints. National Groundwater Committee