You are here: ANRA home » Natural resource topics » Water » Overview
This web site is no longer being updated
In this section you will find detailed information, including national overviews and state and regional level assessments, from the 2000-2002 National Land and Water Resources Audit theme assessments.
Australian Natural Resources Atlas
Australia
Australia's water resources - an overview
Australia's estimated total water supply in 1996/97 was 80,363 Gigalitres (GL) - of this supply 85% was "self extracted", 14% as mains supply, and <1% as effluent reuse. In addition, some 49,480 GL was supplied as regulated discharge (ABS Water Account, 2000).
On average 24,000 GL of Australia's water is used per year. Of this, 19,000 GL of water is used from surface water sources. 20,623 GL of surface water is allocated to consumptive use. 5,000 GL of water is used from groundwater sources per year. 6,300 GL of groundwater is allocated to consumptive use.
Irrigation accounts for 75% of total water use.
Water usage has increased by 9,400 GL/yr or 65% since 1985.
34 of 325 basins and 59 of 538 groundwater management units are assessed as being highly or overdeveloped.
Urban water use in a number of the State capitals (while variable) declined over the 1990s. Industrial use is not large and is falling as industries become more water efficient-in some cases achieved indirectly as a result of energy efficiency gains (AATSE/IAE, 1999).
| City | Use in 1983/84 (ML/yr) | Use in 1996/97 (ML/yr) | % change |
| Adelaide | 182,800 | 214,650 | 17 |
| Brisbane | 144,900 | 183,900 | 27 |
| Canberra | 67,500 | 50,700 | -25 |
| Darwin | 21,890 | 37,400 | 71 |
| Geelong | 29,600 | 34,900 | 18 |
| Hobart | 19,860 | 36,600 | 84 |
| Melbourne | 406,600 | 500,000 | 23 |
| Newcastle | 55,400 | 60,800 | 10 |
| Perth | 322,000 | 314,600 | -3 |
| Sydney | 473,000 | 480,900 | 2 |
Australia is dry with rainfall distributed unevenly-geographically and seasonally. River flow is highly variable largely driven by an erratic climate. Diversion of water into irrigation has significantly altered and sometimes lead to the reversal of the flow patterns of water in some rivers.
Australia has one of the world's large aquifer systems, the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) estimated at 1.7 million km² and a storage volume of 8,700,000GL. Each year the GAB currently supplies 570 GL of water for a variety of uses dominated by pastoral enterprises.
Approximately 70% of Australia's irrigation occurs within the Murray Darling Basin. The Murray Darling Basin occupies about one seventh of Australia's land mass, accounting for over $8.5 billion, or over 40% of the nation's gross value of agricultural production in 1992.
The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the world's largest internal drainage basins with an area of over 1 million-km2. Using a model similar to that of the Murray Darling Basin Commission, the Lake Eyre Basin Management Committee is in the process of establishing inter-State agreements for the integrated management of this unique part of Australia.
Australian water use increased by about 65% between 1983/84 (DPIE, 1987) and 1996/97. This was mostly due to increases in irrigated agriculture while urban centres have shown either low increases or nett decreases in water consumption over the same period (ATSE, 1999).
Australia's river basins
The 246 river basins as defined by the former Australian Water Resources Council and form catchment areas of major rivers draining to the sea and are named after these rivers. River basins have been used to present the results of the surface water quality and water availability assessments-with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory where monitoring stations have been used as the basis for reporting water quality.
Click here to view a list of the River Basins in Australia.
Australia's Surface Water Management Areas
The Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000 defined 325 Surface Water Management Areas as a basis for reporting water availability, use and allocation. Surface Water Management Areas refine the former Australian Water Resources Council river basin definitions to better reflect the increasing need to intensively manage surface water systems.
Click here to download and view map in.pdf format (425 KB).
Click here to view a list of the Surface Water Management Areas in Australia.
Australia's Groundwater Provinces
Australia has a spatially defined set of 538 groundwater management units. Some 69 broadly defined groundwater provinces (see map below) have been used as an aggregation unit for mapping as groundwater management units often overlie each other.Access to the detailed descriptions and data for individual groundwater management units is by first selecting the State or Territory of interest from the navigation box at the top of the screen, and then selecting the Groundwater Provinces located at the bottom of the list of sub-regions.
Click here to download and view map in.pdf format (425 KB).
Click here to view a list of the Groundwater Provinces in Australia.
Groundwater Management Units
Australia has a spatially defined set of 538 groundwater management units, an important basis for improved groundwater management.
Australia's Drainage Divisions
The 12 drainage divisions and 246 component river basins were defined by the former Australian Water Resources Council and have been used to present the results of the surface water quality assessment - with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory where the monitoring stations have been used as the basis for reporting.
Click here to download and view map in.pdf format (240 KB).
Click here to view a list of the Drainage Divisions and their river basins.
Further information
- Further introductory information about water resources is available for each State and Territory:
- Australian Capital Territory
- New South Wales
- Northern Territory
- Queensland
- South Australia
- Tasmania
- Victoria
- Western Australia
- Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000 report
- Link to data available for download on the:
Key
Links to an another web site
Opens a pop-up window