Water Resources Allocation and Agriculture: Transitioning from Open to Regulated Access
The book brings together a range of leading scholars and practitioners to compile an international account of water allocation policies supporting a transition to sustainable water use in regions where agriculture is the dominant water use. In Section 1, the collection canvasses five key cross-cutting issues shaping the challenge of sustainable water allocation policy, such as legal and economic perspectives, the role of politics, the setting of environmental flows, and the importance of indigenous rights. Section 2 presents 13 national, state and transboundary case studies of water allocation policy, covering cases from Europe, the Americas, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific region. These case studies highlight novel and innovative elements of water allocation regimes, which respond to the cross-cutting issues addressed in Section 1, as well as local challenges and social and environmental imperatives. The book provides a comprehensive account of water allocation in a range of international settings and provides a reference point for practitioners and scholars worldwide wishing to draw on the latest advances on how to design and implement sustainable water allocation systems.
ISBN: 9781789062779 (print)
ISBN: 9781789062786 (eBook)
ISBN: 9781789062793 (ePUB)
Chapter 12: Groundwater allocation in New South Wales, Australia
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Published:August 2022
Joseph H. A. Guillaume, Alvar Closas, Andrew McCallum, 2022. "Groundwater allocation in New South Wales, Australia", Water Resources Allocation and Agriculture: Transitioning from Open to Regulated Access, Josselin Rouillard, Christina Babbitt, Edward Challies, Jean-Daniel Rinaudo
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Abstract
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.