Water strategies program
Long-term strategic planning for water management is critical to a successful climate adaptation response in NSW. To date, the NSW Government has developed a comprehensive, integrated water strategy program designed to improve the security, reliability, quality, and resilience of water resources across the state.
Over the last 12 months, significant progress has been made to ensure that water resources in NSW are supported by evidence-based, strategic, and integrated management approaches to deliver on our water management strategy actions.
Strategy development and implementation play a crucial role in shaping the future of water management and service delivery. The water strategies program provides a framework for integrated strategy-led planning and comprises 3 state-wide strategies: the NSW Water Strategy, the NSW Groundwater Strategy and the Aboriginal Water Strategy, along with 13 regional and 2 metropolitan strategies.
The strategy program sets the long-term strategic direction for the NSW water sector and provides a platform for NSW water agencies to work together. This strategic focus ensures decisions are based on the latest climate science data.
As an integrated program, the state-wide strategies work in tandem with place-based strategies to align high-level priorities and local solutions. This means strategy actions can be planned and coordinated to efficiently use government and community resources to achieve the intended outcomes. Integration also allows the implementation of state-wide strategies to be informed by the evidence and examples that are emerging through our work with communities at the regional level.
This integrated annual progress report combines information from the water strategy program and focuses on specific themes. The 2022 - 2023 progress report themes are listed below:
- Community confidence and trust
Building community confidence and capacity through engagement, transparency, and accountability. - Water for Aboriginal communities
Recognising First Nations/Aboriginal Peoples’ rights, values and increasing access to and ownership of water for cultural and economic purposes. - Sustainable groundwater
Enhanced, state-wide focus on sustainable groundwater management. - System connectivity
Improving river flows across connected water catchments. - Water security and resilience
Reducing urban water security risks and supporting resilient cities and towns. - Doing more with less
Water efficiency and leakage reduction – doing more with less. - Drought preparedness
Preparing for drought and managing risk. - Healthy rivers
Taking a holistic approach to land and water management. - Coastal waterways
Sustainable coastal waterways in a changing climate.
This annual report includes an update on how the strategies at the region-level are being actioned.
Integrated water strategies diagram
The diagram below shows the integration of the planning and reporting process for each of the following documents.
- NSW Water Strategy – sets the objectives and outcomes for water management in NSW and was developed in parallel with regional and metropolitan strategies.
- NSW Groundwater Strategy – provides the state-wide approach to sustainable groundwater management across NSW.
- NSW Aboriginal Water Strategy – developed with Aboriginal people to identify a program of measures to deliver on First Nation’s water rights and interests in water management (under development).
- Regional water strategies – a suite of catchment-based strategies identifying future challenges along with a package of locally based solutions to address challenges for each region.
- Metropolitan strategies – setting out long term priorities for Greater Sydney and the Lower Hunter regions to ensure sustainable and resilient water for now and into the future.
- Annual Reports on Water Strategy Implementation – provides an overview of strategy implementation achievements for the reporting period and is integral to our commitment for transparency and accountability to our stakeholders (this report).
