Client: Department of Sustainability and Environment
The Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy discusses threats to water availability and quality over the next 50 years, and outlines actions to manage the consequences of prolonged drought and climate change. The strategy includes innovative measures such as a new framework for adaptive decision making for managing environmental assets, enhanced reserve policy for major systems to ensure operation of the distribution system in all years, enhanced rules for the carryover of water allocations, and the development of spillable water accounts.
Denis Flett of DG Consulting made significant contributions as Chair of the Consultative Committee which comprised a broad range of stakeholder representatives who provided a diversity of perspectives. This included the development, testing and assembly of policy options; the consideration, synthesise and inclusion of ideas from valuable community input; and the selection of preferred actions to improve water resource management in the context of addressing climate change and variability.
Garry Smith of DG Consulting was involved as a member of the consultative committee, the water allocations working group and the carryover working group. Through these roles he made significant inputs to the development of strategy options, particularly in relation to storage reserve policies; enhancements to carryover; water trade improvements; better management of domestic and stock use from farm dams and groundwater; and access arrangement and charging principles for use of irrigation supply networks to deliver environmental water entitlements.