Identifying and Managing Connected Water Resources across Australia
Project objective
The importance of stream-aquifer connectivity, particularly the issue of streamflow depletion due to groundwater pumping, has been recognised by the National Water Initiative (NWI). In response, The Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) in 2005/06 developed a generic framework for conjunctive water management based upon aquifer type, climate and streamflow. Use of the framework by water managers will enable a tailored approach to water management for each catchment and progress the coordinated management of groundwater and surface water resources across Australia.
This project will test the implementation of this framework, focussing on assessment of the groundwater contribution to rivers and how this changes due to water resource development. This will provide a way of defining stream-aquifer connectivity across Australian catchments, which is a fundamental information gap for the NWI. Such categorisation is essential for targeting stressed catchments with highly connected water resources.
This project will contribute to the improvement of water access arrangements and development of water resource assessment methodologies to support national and regional reporting and water accounting.
Key deliverables
- Methodology for assessing groundwater contribution to streams and the impact of water resource development.
- Categorisation schema for Australian streams on the basis of stream-aquifer connectivity.
- Testing of the BRS conjunctive water management framework.
Project outputs will be made available via the Connected Water website.
Project collaboration
The project builds upon the work undertaken by BRS in 2005/06 for the Managing Connected Water Resources project. The project team will collaborate with and report to the existing project steering committee established for the 2005/06 BRS project and the National Groundwater Committee.
Project completion date
30/06/2007
Related work
- Managing Connected Water Resources Project
- A Framework for Conjunctive Water Management
- Mapping of Groundwater/Surface Water Connectivity