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).