One of the most significant changes in groundwater regulation introduced by the Water Management Act 2000 is the separation of the water licence from land ownership. This has facilitated the development of the groundwater market within New South Wales. Groundwater entitlement can be traded or leased without the need to purchase any associated land and licensees can also hold entitlements with zero shares and purchase account water as required on a seasonal basis.
The significant movement of pumping stresses associated with trading has resulted in regulation challenges. Impacts associated with these changes need to be managed within acceptable levels on existing groundwater supply bores as well as environmental assets.
The areas of greatest trading activity are the highly productive inland alluvial groundwater systems within the Murray Darling Basin. The volume of account water annually traded in these groundwater systems typically ranges from 15 to 30 per cent of all water debited from accounts. This has risen to as much as 50 per cent in some years. These systems are all fully committed and the market is the only avenue for new groundwater based industry to acquire access to groundwater which has in turn has seen an increase in applications for new water supply bores.
The increasing volume of groundwater trade and need for state wide consistency have been primary drivers for recent changes in the groundwater trade assessment process in NSW. Groundwater trade applications are triaged based on preliminary criteria to determine the impact risk and then assessed on defined impact criteria. These criteria refer to environmental assets, culturally significant sites, existing groundwater supply works and the local sustainability of the groundwater system. Cumulative impacts of the change in pumping stresses associated with the trade are included in the assessment.