State Roundup

In July, the New South Wales Government announced its Floodplain Harvesting Measurement Policy, which sets out a pathway for measuring, monitoring and licensing water captured during flood events in large on-farm storages. As a result, all floodplain harvested water directly used or collected and impounded in on-farm storages will be measured in New South Wales.

The policy was announced against a background of discontent from floodplain graziers as well as southern Murray-Darling Basin irrigators, who believe that water harvesting in the north of the basin was severely affecting their allocations.

The NSW Government estimates that water privately captured during flood events constitutes as much as 35 per cent of the overall surface take in the Northern Basin and said the policy is an attempt to manage flood water more equitably.

According to the government, unmanaged floodplain harvesting has "had significant cumulative negative impacts on Aboriginal culture and traditional practices, non-irrigated agricultural production, downstream communities and provision of ecological services".

All water storages fed by floodplain harvesting with a capacity of more than 1000 ML must be metered by 1 July next year, and smaller storages by 1 July 2022.

This means that New South Wales is the first Australian state to measure and license privately impounded floodwaters that otherwise would have flowed downstream in the rivers of the Murray Darling system. The policy will initially apply to the five northern NSW Murray–Darling Basin valleys: Border Rivers, Gwydir, Namoi, Barwon–Darling and Macquarie valleys.

Above: New South has announced its policy on floodplain harvesting, which will affect New South Wales owners of 92 per cent of on-farm water storages in the Murray Darling Basin's Northern Basin. Photo. NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

The pressure is now on the other MDB states to follow suit.

Farmers will pay for meters to be installed by a certified installer and telemetry meters will feed near real-time information directly to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment - Water. Irrigation Australia will be responsible for providing training for and certifying meter installers.

For information about the policy go to New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment website.

For information about certified meter installer training, go to Irrigation Australia website.