Management Strategies

Key Knowledge and Skills

• Current management policies and strategies to implement these policies

• Evaluate the effectiveness of water-management policies and strategies in terms of current use and sustainability

• 50 years ago the main concern was the storage and regulation of water = some of the nations greatest engineering

• However natural river- flow patterns were dramatically changed

Source: page 58 your text

Change in Policy

• Floods, an important part of the rivers ecology are now controlled

• What may have been appropriate allocations in the past, may no longer be appropriate

• New policies and strategies have been developed to ensure the sustainable use of water resources and to restore the health of the catchment

Water licences &water allocations

Water licence • gives and irrigator an entitlement to extract a certain volume

of water from a river, dam or groundwater each year

• Refers to the specific volume of water a licence holder can withdraw in a season

• The allocation is a percentage share of the pool of water available that year

• Irrigators do not have a guaranteed right to water every year

Variability• Allocations vary from year to year = planning for farmers

difficult• Amount of water available for irrigation varies from year to

year, influencing the types of crops that are grown.

Would you grow cotton in a drought year? What crop would you grow?

• Rice production virtually ceased, cotton production declined, and dairy farmers substituted grains and other feed for irrigated pastures

Variability

Water plentiful• Allocations may be high and farmers may choose to plant

annual crops such as rice and cotton which require more water per unit area

Water scarce• Irrigators may receive only a percentage of the allocation to

which they are entitled or none at all.• They may plant other cereals that use less water• Trade some or all of their allocation• Not sow a crop

Low water availability

•When there is low water availability, farmers with perennial crops like fruit and grapes may loose their annual crop and their trees and vines if they decide not to irrigate.

• If their water allocation at the beginning of an irrigation season is insufficient to produce a crop, they may choose to buy extra water

The Darling River

• Queensland's rivers supply only about 4% of the Murray’s flow

• Most water used in the Darling basin is unregulated

• When the river reaches a certain height, water is pumped out and stored on farms, or is harvested from the floodplains and put into dam storage.

• Water is not released from large dams as is along the Murray

Water Trading

• Introduced in the 1990s, occurs when irrigators buy or sell their water allocations on either a permanent or temporary basis.

• The irrigators right to extract water was turned into a tradable commodity called a ‘water access entitlement’ or licence.

• Trades can be between:• individuals, • irrigation districts or • states

Water Trading • If irrigators know they are going to have reduced

allocation during a season, they may decide to sell their water to someone else.

• In a drought a guaranteed income from the water sale may be better then risking growing a crop.

• Moving water licences between users ensures that water allocated for irrigation progressively moves to a higher-value user.

• = greater production for the same (or less) volume of water

Water Recovery

• The Living Murray Initiative (page 71) aims to recover:

• 500 GL of water annually to help restore the rivers health costing $ over years

• The actual volume of water available each year depends on allocations

Water can be recovered through these means:

Infrastructure improvements• Replacing out-dated infrastructure allows:• better management and control of flows• Reduces evaporation and seepage

Example:Goulburn Valley as part of the Northern Irrigation Renewal Project

On farm initiatives

• Incentives can be offered to encourage land owners to improve the use of water on their properties

• The federal government announced tax changes in February 2011 that would encourage irrigators to invest more water efficient infrastructure to increase productivity

Buy-backs• Water for the future is a 10 year plan to address over

allocation

• As part of the initiative, $3.1 billion will be invested in restoring the balance in the MDB, to purchase water entitlements from irrigators willing to sell

Urban improvement• Water can be recovered from urban areas through improved

use of water• undertaking permanent water conservation measures and• water recycling projects

Amounts of water recovered (source: page 74)

Living Murray Initiative• The federal government as part of the Living Murray Initiative

allocated 3.1 billion to buy back water from irrigators between 2008 and 2018.

• Toorale station was purchased for $ 23.75 million = 14 GL water entitlements

• Water entitlements for the living Murray are subject to allocations the same way as irrigation water

• Once allocations are announced, the sites needing most water are identified.

• The plan aims to replicate natural watering cycles

• Sites would receive large scale watering at 3 – 5 year intervals and low to moderate amounts in the years between

Impacts of water recovery

• More than 216 GL of environmental water was delivered to the rivers, wetlands and floodplains of the MDB in the first 2 years of the commonwealth water recovery program

• This water has been used to replenish wetlands in NSW, Victoria and SA.

Read page 75 for some of the sites that received this water

Attitudes to water recovery• Pair and share

Stake holder Pros Cons