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New South Wales has more than 100 years of history of water licensing and allocation. This chapter reflects on the approach to water allocation in the current groundwater sharing plans, including general principles and underlying reasoning for application elsewhere. Focus is on groundwater-specific issues for transition from open to regulated access, while embedded within broader water regulations and connections to surface water management. Water allocation is built around water sharing plans that determine extraction limits, with community consultation. Water rights are differentiated in terms of water sources and priority, separated from land ownership, and from time-varying water allocations, subject to available water determinations. Both water entitlements and allocations can be traded, with rules governing impact of trade. Water sharing plans are state-level instruments explicitly connected in applicable regions to the Commonwealth-level Murray-Darling Basin Plan and associated extraction limits. Compliance is based firstly on metering of water extractions. Future prospects are also discussed.

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