Major water interception report released

The National Water Commission has released a report on the challenges facing governments in managing water interception activities.

Surface and groundwater flows are intercepted by land use activities that include farm dams, re-afforestation, overland flow and groundwater extraction.

“This Waterlines report, ‘Approaches to, and challenges of managing interception’, highlights the need for a harmonised approach to water interception across all Australian jurisdictions,” chairman of the National Water Commission, Ken Matthews, said.

“As this report shows, current efforts to deal with interception are uneven in their quality and sophistication. There are deficiencies in the models, tools, data and information to quantify the impact of interception at the catchment level, and this must be redressed urgently.

“In particular, there is a need for commonly agreed definitions of ‘sustainable levels of extraction’ and ‘overallocation’. Having a clear and agreed view of these concepts is fundamental to managing interception.”

Achieving the outcomes of the National Water Initiative on interception will be difficult without rigorous quantification of the major forms of water interception and the impact that they have on the allocation of water — including environmental water.

The commission believes that first priority should be given to the three major forms of interception: farm dams, afforestation and groundwater extraction. Attention also needs to be given to catchments at, or approaching, full allocation and to peri-urban areas.

In addition to this report, the commission will make targeted investments in improved measurement and modelling methodologies to assist water planners and catchment managers.