Please choose a Metric:
Proportion of water used of adequate quality
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Data on Australian ground water salinity are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Groundwater Insight (select Groundwater salinity). Data on Australian surface water pH, electrical conductivity (indicator of salinity), turbidity and temperature are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Water Data Online.
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Notes
Relevant water quality metrics and thresholds depend on the use of the water and known threats to water quality. For example, sheep production will likely be impaired if total dissolved solids (TDS) is >5,000 mg/L (Hamlyn-Hill 2016).
Example Tier 1/Tier 2 metrics might include Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, Organic and inorganic compounds, Nutrients, Acidity, Salinity/Total Dissolved Solids. Tier 3 could also include additional, more difficult or costly to measure metrics such as concentrations of cyanobacteria, pathogens and parasites, heavy metals and organic contaminants, where appropriate.
See Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality for information and guidance on how to identify relevant water quality metrics and thresholds or ‘guideline values’ for Australian and New Zealand waters. See also: Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater; UN Environment (2017) A Framework for Freshwater Ecosystem Management (especially Volume 2, Tables 4 and 5 which list example water quality metrics for different freshwater ecosystem types).
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Maps of Australian precipitation data are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Maps and gridded spatial data.
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Data on Australian climate variables from 1889 to the present in point and grid form are available at Long Paddock – SILO (Scientific Information for Land Owners)
Notes
The relevant target and time period for rainfall received will depend on the production system, target productivity level and climate, e.g. sheep production in south-western Australia is generally thought to require 250mm of annual rainfall plus 25mm per 1.3 DSE/ha. Some production systems may depend mainly on long-term average annual rainfall (e.g. forestry) whereas a fruit orchard might require a certain minimum amount of water during the fruiting season in order to achieve target fruit production, and a different minimum amount of water during the rest of the year to maintain tree condition. Similarly, a crop or pasture might depend on rainfall not exceeding certain levels which can lead to waterlogging, pugging or compaction, or high-intensity events which lead to soil erosion. Reliability of rainfall may be important over various different timescales, and can be measured in different ways – e.g. the Australian Bureau of Meteorology uses an index of rainfall variability which is defined as the 90th rainfall percentile minus the 10th percentile, divided by the 50th percentile (see Rainfall variability maps). Different metrics could be used to measure each of these dependencies, while all broadly being based on similar methods and data.
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Maps of Australian historical and forecast root zone soil moisture are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Australian Water Outlook.
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Data on Australian historical and forecast root zone soil moisture are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Australian Water Outlook.
Notes
The relevant target and time period for root zone soil moisture will depend on the production system, target productivity level and climate.
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
For example, data on water rights in Queensland are available at Queensland Government Open Data Portal – Water entitlements and in Victoria at Victorian Water Register – Entitlement statistics. Note that water rights may be called different things in different jurisdictions – see ‘What are nationally equivalent terms for water products?’ at the Bureau of Meteorology – About water markets.
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Notes
The relevant target for water rights will depend on the production system, target productivity level and climate, but should reflect the rights required to ensure that the chance of failing to meet target production due to being allocated insufficient water is acceptably low, over a relevant time period. This may include defining the level of security required and type of tenure, as well as the required volume.
Luke (1987) provides lookup tables for average daily water consumption requirements per DSE in different parts of Australia. However, these figures do not include losses.