The total of 59 sociocultural assets in the asset list were sourced from the Australian Heritage Database (Department of the Environment, 2015; Bioregional Assessment Programme, Dataset 1), comprising 56 assets from the RNE and 3 assets from the National Heritage List. A total of 53 were considered to be water dependent and were included in the water-dependent asset register. Of the water-dependent assets, 10 assets are assessed as dependent or possibly dependent on surface water alone, 4 assets are assessed as dependent or possibly dependent on groundwater alone and 39 assets are assessed as dependent or possibly dependent on both surface water and groundwater. No additional sociocultural assets were nominated at the Pedirka asset workshop in Adelaide in March 2015.
Table 12 shows the breakdown of water-dependent sociocultural assets by dataset, subgroup and class. The geographic locations of the assets are shown in Figure 19. There are 42 assets in the ‘Cultural’ subgroup and 11 assets in the ‘Social’ subgroup. Thirty-three of the assets from the RNE are classed as Indigenous sites. In the north, east and south of the Pedirka preliminary assessment extent (PAE), several large assets intersect with only a small part of the PAE and extend far beyond the boundaries of the PAE. During subsequent stages of the Bioregional Assessment Technical Programme, impact will only be assessed for those parts of such assets that lie within the PAE.
Table 12 Summary of the water-dependent sociocultural assets in the preliminary assessment extent (PAE) of the Pedirka subregion
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
Figure 19 Water-dependent sociocultural assets in the Pedirka subregion
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
The three assets from the National Heritage List: Dalhousie Springs, Freeling Springs and Lake Eyre National Park (NHL) are all areas that have natural values and are partly or entirely protected under national and/or state conservation legislation. These sociocultural assets were also nominated as ecological assets. All examples of this type of asset depend on a combination of surface water and groundwater – at least in part.
Two of the three assets sourced from the RNE that are classed as heritage sites are also natural areas that have federal or state-level conservation designations (Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre and the Simpson Desert). They are also nominated as assets from other databases that were classified as containing ecological assets and depend on surface water, at least in part.
The remaining asset (Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station) sourced from the RNE and classed as a heritage site is a historical place. This site was an active part of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin during the 19th century. It was assessed as water dependent because it is located on the floodplain of the Finke River.
The water-dependent asset register includes 36 Indigenous sites sourced from the RNE. Other than the name and location of the asset, very little information was available to assess water dependence. Hercus (2009) described locations with similar or related names in northern SA and associated many of those locations with waterholes and rockholes. On the basis of this naming information and the secondary analyses through intersections with remotely sensed data sources, and applying the precautionary principle in each case, all of these Indigenous sites are likely or possibly dependent on surface water, and all but one site may also be dependent on groundwater.