Posted 1 February 2011
The National Water Commission has released a new report produced by CSIRO on policy design for managed aquifer recharge (MAR).
One of the contemporary challenges for the urban water sector is meeting community and political expectations for the cost-effective supply of fit-for-purpose water at agreed levels of security. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) has assumed a recognised and important role in the portfolio of urban water management strategies being implemented to meet that challenge.
Current Australian MAR schemes are subject to an array of discrete policy provisions, at times attempting to comply with competing and uncoordinated policy requirements for each of four MAR operational elements (source-water harvesting, aquifer storage, recovery and end-use).
This report was produced by CSIRO as one output of a three year Raising National Water Standards Program project - Facilitating recycling of stormwater and reclaimed water via managed aquifer recharge (MAR) in Australia. It contributes to a number of outcomes in the National Water Initiative including increased water use efficiency in domestic and commercial settings; encouraging the use of reuse and recycling of wastewater, where cost effective; and encouraging innovation in water supply sourcing, treatment, storage and discharge.
The publication presents work undertaken by CSIRO on policy design for MAR. It summarises policy options analysis and recommendations consistent with the National Water Initiative for the separation of water rights to harvesting, recharge and extraction of stormwater into and out of aquifers. CSIRO workshopped the main findings and recommendations with targeted agencies and water industry in the jurisdictions.
Focusing on water and natural resource management policies and their current readiness for managed aquifer recharge, the publication spells out some of the issues relating to the coordinated design and implementation of urban water policy, taking account of:
The report describes the role of managed aquifer recharge in urban water systems, the characteristics of the robust separation of water rights, and recommendations from the workshops. It applies robust design principles to the four operational elements of managed aquifer recharge:
Source: NWC web site
Links:
Professor Andy Baker features in American Water Resources Association ‘Water Resources Impact’, September 2020 edition.
The Connected Waters Initiative (CWI) is pleased to welcome Taylor Coyne to its network as a postgraduate researcher. If you’re engaged in research at a postgraduate level, and you’re interested in joining the CWI network, get in touch! The CWI network includes multidisciplinary researchers across the Schools of Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Languages and Law.
The Grand Challenge on Rapid Urbanisation will establish Think Deep Australia, led by Dr Marilu Melo Zurita, to explore how we can use our urban underground spaces for community benefit.
On the 21 August 2020, CWI researchers made a submission to the National Water Reform Inquiry, identifying priority areas and making a number of recommendations as to how to achieve a sustainable groundwater future for Australia.
Results published from a research project between the Land Development Department (LDD) Thailand and UNSW has demonstrated how 2-dimensional mapping can be used to understand soil salinity adjacent to a earthen canal in north east Thailand (Khongnawang et al. 2020).
