Australian Natural Resources Atlas

Natural Resource Topics

Water resources - Overview - New South Wales


Location map of SWMA Tuross River

Basin & Surface Water Management Area: Tuross River

Introduction

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The Tuross River basin (2150 square kilometres) consists mainly of steep, heavily forested land that extends from the mountain boundary in the west, almost to the coast. About 85 percent of the region is rugged or mountainous to within 8 kilometres of the coast where the river passes through undulating country. The maximum elevation is about 1360 metres. Virtually no flat country exists in the Basin. The Tuross River is fed by many tributaries through this mountainous country, the largest being the Wadbilliga River.

This basin contains the southern tip of the Deua National Park and about half of the Wadbilliga National Park. This park features one of the States largest undisturbed river catchments. On the eastern side of the Deua and Wadbilliga National Parks, there are very large areas of State Forest, which occupy well over half of the Tuross River basin. Forestry is a major landuse in the area, as is agriculture.

Rainfalls are moderate and range from 1000 mm on the coast to 700 mm on the mountainous western margin. The wettest months are December, January and February and the driest are from August through November.

The Tuross River enters the ocean through Tuross Heads. Other small rivers along the coast flow to the ocean through shallow coastal lakes.

Vital Statistics:

Area: 2,155 Km2
Total storage volume: no data
Total surface water use: 0 ML/yr
Development category: LOW DEVELOPMENT
Mean annual run-off: 585,000 ML/yr

Please note: No data were supplied about total surface water use for some river basins (eg. unregulated basins in NSW).

A four-class classification system was developed to provide a simple method to communicate the status of the use and allocation of Australia's water resources in relation to sustainable water management.

It is important to recognise that adequately quantifying a sustainable flow regime or sustainable yield and consequent operating rules is a complex matter. State, Territory and scientific agencies continue to develop and apply methods and measures for determining sustainable flow regimes and sustainable yields.

This categorisation provides a general guide only. Please refer to the State and Territory Overview and Technical reports for detail on the analysis methods used.

CategoryDevelopment status
1<30% Low development
230 - 70% Moderate development
370 - 100% Highly developed
4100% Overdeveloped

* Water use as a percentage of sustainable flow regime (surface water) and sustainable yield (groundwater)

PLEASE NOTE:

Sustainable Yield:

NSW is introducing volumetric licenses for the management of unregulated valleys and is currently collecting a wide range of data in unregulated basin.

The sustainable yield concept, ie the amount of water that can be diverted from rivers in perpetuity, is recognised in NSW. However NSW's current management practices views the sustainable yield as an allowable daily extraction volume as opposed to an annual yield figure. As well future reviews of the performance of the management rules to be adopted in each valley plus additional knowledge at that time may result in changes to the rules and hence changes to the "Sustainable Yield".

NSW has taken the approach that it is better to await the availability of data on the unregulated basins based on reliable and realistic analysis than to divert limited resources from this process to provide data based on unreliable information and inappropriate analysis. Accordingly the Sustainable Yield has not been calculated for the unregulated basins in NSW.

However an attempt was made to obtain a categorisation for the catchment based on the work done for the stressed streams.

A variable P was determined for the total catchment on the basis of the combined stress classsification results from the stressed streams analysis where P = (Total area of sub-catchments with high combined stress / Total area of classsified sub- catchments in basin)

Categorisation was on the basis that: 

 Category 1 applies for 0% <= P
< 30% Category 2 applies for 30% <= P
< 70% Category 3 applies for 70% <= P
<100% Category 4 applies for P = 100%

Please refer to the Stressed Rivers Report(s) from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website for further information about this basin.

PLEASE NOTE:

Categorisation:

Categorisation of the SWMA has been based on the classification system developed for the NSW Stressed Rivers Approach to the management of unregulated streams.

The stressed rivers classification system separates subcatchments into nine categories (stressed and unstressed) based on assessments of both current environmental and hydrologic stress. This is illustrated by the matrix in Figure 1 of the Stressed Rivers Report(s) available from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au . These reports also provides some of the rationale underlying the different categories.

In summary : Category 1 - comprises subcatchments with Low Combined Stress Category 2 - comprises subcatchments with Medium Combined Stress Category 3 - comprises subcatchments with High Combined Stress Category 4 - comprises Unresolved subcatchment

The distribution of categories across the SWMA is illustrated in the Figures in the Stressed Stream Report for the Tuross Basin at the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au .

How saline are the surface water resources in the Tuross River surface water management area?

No data were available about the salinity of surface water resources in the Basin / SWMA for the Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000.

Major water storages

Table: Major water storage areas:

Storage name: Capacity (ML)
Bates Weirno data
Totalno data

Further Information

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