NSW General Purpose Water Accounting Reports

About water reporting in NSW

The department continues to progress reforms under the National Water Initiative (NWI). The NWI recognised the need for a standardised, cohesive and comparable approach for water resource accounting and, to ensure that adequate reporting and data systems are in place.

NSW is the leading state in implementing standardised water resource accounting. Our General Purpose Water Accounting Reports (GPWAR) adopt the Australian Water Accounting Standard 1 (AWAS 1). We produce annual GPWAR for all major regulated NSW inland valleys. We release these reports following the closure of a water year. The annual reports provide stakeholders with consistent and transparent water resource accounting information.

Water resource accounting looks at the current trends, demand, accessibility, status and use of water. The GPWAR provide water information such as:

• Climatic conditions (How did the annual reporting period compare to historical conditions?)
• Water resources (How much water was there?)
• Water resource changes (Where did the water originate and where did it go?)
• Water resource commitments (How was the water distributed amongst stakeholders?)
• Water resource use (How much entitlement is active and what proportion of available water is being used?)
• Environmental water (How much water was available for environmental use, and how much was delivered to environmental assets?)
• Water resource management (What legislative rules determined the sharing of available water?)
• Water market activity (How much water is being traded, and how much does the water cost?)

The GPWAR rely on information from a wide range of sources in different formats. We collate and verify this information to produce a final product. This final product is a comprehensive and validated report of water information.