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National Water Quality Management Strategy

National Water Reforms

National Water Quality Management Strategy (NWQMS)

"to achieve sustainable use of the nation’s water resources by protecting and enhancing their quality while maintaining economic and social development."

The National Water Quality Management Strategy (NWQMS) evolved from work of the Australian and New Zealand Conservation Council, the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, and the National Health and Medical Research Council. It is now a joint initiative being developed by all of the Commonwealth, State, and Territory Governments. It is an aim of the strategy to deliver a nationally uniform approach to water quality management, guided by the principles of ecologically sustainable development.

To deliver the outcomes of the Strategy, the following are being developed:

• Tools to help communities manage their water resources to meet current and future needs;
• Water Management policies;
• National guidelines for water quality management;
• Community water management plans to protect the quality of local waters.

More information about the National Water Quality Management Strategy is available from the Federal Government at:

AFFA: National Water Quality Management Strategy

National Water Reforms

"...inefficient and inappropriate use of water and poor environmental management in Australia has created major environmental problems"

In 1994 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted a water reform framework. Major environmental problems identified in Australia include:

• Rising water tables;
• Increased groundwater and soil salinity;
• Soil erosion;
• Degraded surface waters;
• Algal blooms; and
• Degraded coastal areas.

Over 70 per cent of the 14,600 million cubic metres of water consumed in Australia each year is used for irrigation. A further 21 per cent goes to urban and industrial uses and the remaining nine per cent to other rural activities. Australia's rivers exhibit some of the most highly variable flow regimes on earth and much of our aquatic flora and fauna has adapted to this. To get around these variable flows and ensure reliable supply for human activity massive dams dykes and bores have been built or sunk across the Australian continent - we now have the highest per capita water storage of any country.

Under Australia's Federal system of government, responsibility for natural resource management rests with the States and Territories. However all governments recognised that a national approach was required to promote ecologically sustainable water reform. Consequently, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), developed a national policy for the efficient and sustainable reform of Australia's rural and urban water industries. Each State and Territory exercises flexibility in developing its own approach to Water reform implementation but an agreed nationally consistent framework is to be implemented by the year 2001.

A package of diverse but interrelated requirements developed within the framework, and covering both urban and rural areas, is designed to generate an economically viable and ecologically sustainable water industry. The key elements of the package concentrate on:

• Water pricing;
• Economic and Environmental viability of irrigation schemes;
• Water allocations and licensing - including allocations for the environment;
• Water trading;
• An integrated catchment management approach;
• Separation, as far as possible, of resource management and regulatory roles;
• Local responsibility for water management;
• Public education about water use;
• Research in water use efficiency technologies and related areas.

More information about the National Water Reforms is available from the Federal Government at:

AFFA: National Water Reforms

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