The total number of economic assets in the water-dependent asset register for the Hunter subregion is 249, of which 108 are surface water assets and 141 groundwater assets. All of these are, by their very nature, water dependent.
The economic assets represent groupings of economic elements. Economic elements include water access licences and basic rights to take water (both referred to as water access entitlements), represented spatially by:
- location of surface water offtake points and groundwater bores (i.e. represented as point features)
- water source areas identified within water sharing plans which intersect the PAE (represented as polygon features)
- water supply and monitoring infrastructure (represented as point features)
- river segments (represented as line features).
All economic elements, assets and total share component data were sourced from NSW Office of Water including:
- an extract from the Water Licensing System and Surface and Groundwater Approved Work Locations database (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2013a)
- NSW Water Sharing Plans (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2015).
Every water access right (licensed entitlement) and basic water right (statutory entitlement) is an element. The NSW Office of Water classifies water access entitlements by 'purpose', which records the intended use of that water. Bores that are classified as exploratory or monitoring bores and which generally do not have water access rights associated with them are not included in the asset register. In all, 1924 monitoring and exploration groundwater bores were excluded from the water-dependent asset register (Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1). A number of bores have high security licences, reflecting their importance for meeting basic community needs; 57 bores are classified as being for town water supply and 6 bores for power generation. Most other entitlements have a general security classification, which means they are at greater risk of allocation cuts when resource availability is low, such as in times of drought.
In the Hunter subregion, there are 10,327 economic elements, of which 4,864 pertain to surface water resources and 5,463 to groundwater resources. Most of these are water access entitlements; 10 are groundwater source areas and 43 are surface water source areas, which are contained within or intersect the PAE; two water supply dams, Grahamstown Dam and Mardi Dam; the regulated part of the Hunter River (i.e. downstream of Glenbawn Dam and Glennies Creek Dam), represented as a single asset. Table 9 summarises the breakdown of assets within the Hunter water-dependent asset register. Elements have been grouped by type (purpose) and spatial location (water source area) to create assets.
Table 10 shows the share components for the surface water and groundwater resources. Share components are a specified share or volume of water that can be extracted within a specified water management area within a water year. Total share components include basic landholder rights described in water sharing plans (WSPs) (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2015). In the Hunter PAE the share component for surface water sources is 384,455 ML/year and for groundwater sources 212,841 ML/year. While these data suggest greater reliance on surface water than on groundwater in the Hunter subregion, actual annual use patterns may tell a different story, depending on water resource availability and climate conditions.
Table 9 Assets within each category of economic asset in the Hunter subregion water-dependent asset register
Dataa: NSW Department of Primary Industries, NSW Office of Water (Dataset 2), Bureau of Meteorology (Dataset 3), NSW Office of Water (Dataset 4, Dataset 5)
aThe asset database (Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1) is a collation of all these source datasets.
Table 10 Total share components for surface water and groundwater access entitlements for the Hunter subregion
Dataa: Bureau of Meteorology (Dataset 3), NSW Office of Water (Dataset 4, Dataset 5)
aThe asset database (Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1) is a collation of all these source datasets.
The Hunter PAE contains seven water sharing plan areas. The distribution of surface water elements across the water sharing plan areas is shown in Figure 9. WSPs define the water sources to which they pertain and can include rivers, aquifers and lakes. These water source areas are used to group economic elements within the PAE into assets.
Not all the water source areas within the water sharing plan areas are contained within the Hunter PAE. Those that intersect the PAE are included in the asset list for the Hunter subregion (Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1). Of the 53 water source areas in the asset list, 10 water source areas were not included in the water-dependent asset register because the area of intersection with the PAE was negligible, a consequence of small boundary differences in their mapped extents. The Hunter Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources plan area is the largest planning area and contains 35 water source areas that intersect the PAE.
The groundwater elements within the Hunter PAE span five water sharing plan areas (Figure 9). Most of the alluvial groundwater in the Hunter subregion is managed under the NSW Water Sharing Plan for the Hunter Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources 2009 (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2009b). The coastal sand aquifers which comprise the Tomago Tomaree Stockton groundwater sources are covered by the Tomago Tomaree Stockton WSP (DIPNR, 2003b). The boundaries of the Hunter subregion intersect with the outer boundaries of management areas within the Greater Metropolitan Region Groundwater Sources (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2011a) and NSW Murray–Darling Basin Fractured Rock Groundwater Sources (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2011b) water sharing plan areas. The Kulnura Mangrove Mountain Groundwater Sources are managed under the Kulnura Mangrove Mountain Groundwater Sources WSP, which was amended in May 2013 (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2013b) and a small area of the Hunter subregion lies within this WSP area. The draft WSP for the North Coast Fractured and Porous Rock Groundwater Sources, which is currently under development (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2014), will manage groundwater extracted from the hard rock groundwater sources which fall within the Hunter subregion. It is not shown in Figure 9.
Groundwater water access rights have been grouped into assets on the basis of water source areas and use. Of the 17 water source areas in the asset list for the Hunter subregion, 7 were excluded because the area of intersection with the PAE was negligible. Ten groundwater sources have been retained in the water-dependent asset register (Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1).
The WSPs for the Central Coast Unregulated Water Sources (NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2009a), Jilliby Jilliby Creek Water Source (DIPNR, 2004a), Karuah River Water Source (DIPNR, 2004b) and Ourimbah Creek Water Source (DIPNR, 2003a) do not cover groundwater extraction. There are small portions of other WSP areas that fall within the Hunter subregion, however groundwater entitlement in these areas is relatively minor.
The Hunter subregion water sharing plans are discussed more in Section 1.1.4.1 and Section 1.1.5.4 of the companion product 1.1 for the Hunter subregion (McVicar et al., 2015). An account of groundwater availability and use, in the context of how groundwater resources are managed, as well as groundwater quality, are discussed in companion product 1.5 for the Hunter subregion (Zhang et al., 2015).
Data: Bureau of Meteorology (Dataset 3), NSW Office of Water (Dataset 5)
Data: NSW Department of Primary Industries, NSW Office of Water (Dataset 2), NSW Office of Water (Dataset 4)