An irrigation machine spraying water on a large field.

Water rights (extracted surface or groundwater)

Metric:

Water rights (extracted surface or groundwater)

Units

Volume, e.g. megalitres (ML)

Example target

Site-specific

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.