Murrumbidgee Catchment )
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Murrumbidgee Water Resource Plan Surface water resource description Published by the Department of Primary Industries, a Division of NSW Department of Industry, Skills and Regional Development. DPI Water (2017) Murrumbidgee Water Resource Plan: Surface water resource description First published April 2018 More information www.dpi.nsw.gov.au Cover images Murrumbidgee River at Balranald, Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, threatened trout cod, aerial view to Piggery Lakes in Yanga National Park. Photos courtesy of Dayle Green (main image), Department of Primary Industries and Simon Hunter (OEH) Acknowledgments This document was prepared by Stephen Allen. It expands upon a previous description of the Murrumbidgee Valley published by the NSW Office of Water in 2011 (Green, Burrell, Petrovic and Moss 2011, Water resources and management overview – Murrumbidgee catchment ) The maps in this report were prepared by Bilal Hossain. They contain data sourced from: Murray-Darling Basin Authority © Commonwealth of Australia (Murray–Darling Basin Authority) 2012. (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License) NSW DPI Water © Spatial Services - NSW Department of Finance, Services and Innovation [2016], Panorama Avenue, Bathurst 2795 http://spatialservices.finance.nsw.gov.au NSW Office of Environment and Heritage Atlas of NSW Wildlife data © State of New South Wales through Department of Environment and Heritage (2016) 59-61 Goulburn Street Sydney 2000 http://www.biotnet.nsw.gov.au NSW DPI Fisheries Fish Community Status and Threatened Species data © State of New South Wales through Department of Industry (2016) 161 Kite Street Orange 2800 http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/species-protection/threatened-species-distributions-in-nsw © State of New South Wales through the Department of Industry, Skills and Regional Development, 2018. You may copy, distribute and otherwise freely deal with this publication for any purpose, provided that you attribute the NSW Department of Primary Industries as the owner. Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing (April 2018). However, because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date and to check currency of the information with the appropriate officer of the Department of Primary Industries or the user’s independent adviser. Murrumbidgee Water Resource Plan: Surface water resource description Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Overview of the plan area ............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Water management units .............................................................................................. 3 1.3 History of water management in the Murrumbidgee WRPA .......................................... 3 2 Regional setting ................................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Climate ......................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Land use ..................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 Topographic description .............................................................................................. 13 2.4 Streamflow characteristics .......................................................................................... 19 3. Environmental assets ......................................................................................................... 25 3.1 Parks and reserves ..................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Wetlands ..................................................................................................................... 25 3.3 Hydrologic indicator sites ............................................................................................ 27 3.4 High ecological value aquatic ecosystems .................................................................. 28 4. Water quality ...................................................................................................................... 31 4.1 Background ..................................................................................................................... 31 4.2 Murrumbidgee above Burrinjuck ...................................................................................... 31 4.3 Murrumbidgee below Burrinjuck....................................................................................... 32 4.4 Billabong Creek ............................................................................................................... 32 5. Riparian condition .............................................................................................................. 33 6. River operations and management .................................................................................... 35 6.1 Storages and regulating structures.............................................................................. 35 6.2 Other storages and regulators ..................................................................................... 37 6.3 Licensed water use ..................................................................................................... 38 6.4 Water trading .............................................................................................................. 45 6.5 Planned and held environmental water ....................................................................... 46 Appendix 1: 1998-99 river flow objectives and rules .................................................................. 52 Appendix 2: Water sharing rules for the Lowbidgee .................................................................. 53 Appendix 3: Amendments to water sharing rules for Murrumbidgee Regulated River ............... 55 References ............................................................................................................................... 56 iii DPI Water, September 2017 Murrumbidgee Water Resource Plan: Surface water resource description Tables Table 1: Land use in the Murrumbidgee WRPA ........................................................................ 11 Table 2: Mean daily flow for Murrumbidgee gauge sites ............................................................ 19 Table 3: Significant wetlands in the Murrumbidgee WRPA ........................................................ 26 Table 4: Major weirs in the Murrumbidgee catchment ............................................................... 37 Table 5: Unregulated share components for the Murrumbidgee WRPA 2016 ........................... 43 Figures Figure 1: Murrumbidgee Water Resource Plan Area (SW9) ........................................................ 2 Figure 2: Murrumbidgee regulated and unregulated water sources ............................................. 4 Figure 3: Average annual rainfall in the Murrumbidgee WRPA .................................................... 8 Figure 4: Average monthly rainfall for selected stations .............................................................. 9 Figure 5: Average annual evaporation across the Murrumbidgee WRPA .................................. 10 Figure 6: Average monthly evaporation at Wagga Wagga ......................................................... 10 Figure 7: Land use of the Murrumbidgee WRPA ....................................................................... 12 Figure 8: Sub-regions of the Murrumbidgee WRPA – revised map required.............................. 13 Figure 9: Annual stream flow in the Murrumbidgee River at Mittagang ...................................... 20 Figure 10: Annual stream flow in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga ............................ 20 Figure 11: Annual stream flow in the Murrumbidgee River downstream of Balranald ................ 21 Figure 12: Annual stream flow in the Goodradigbee River at Wee Jasper ................................. 21 Figure 13: Daily flow in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga ........................................... 22 Figure 14: High, medium and low daily flows above Burrinjuck Dam ......................................... 23 Figure 15: High, medium and low daily flows below Burrinjuck Dam ......................................... 24 Figure 16: High, median and low daily flows in Billabong Creek ................................................ 24 Figure 17: Instream values for the Murrumbidgee WRPA .......................................................... 29 Figure 18: Distribution of threatened fish species within the Murrumbidgee WRPA ................... 30 Figure 19: Endangered ecological communities in the Murrumbidgee WRPA ........................... 30 Figure 20: Water quality condition of the Murrumbidgee WRPA ................................................ 31 Figure 21: Native riparian vegetation cover in the Murrumbidgee WRPA .................................. 34 Figure 22: Geomorphic recovery potential in streams in the Murrumbidgee WRPA................... 34 Figure 23: Daily storage volume Burrinjuck Dam 1913-2017 ..................................................... 36 Figure 24: Daily storage volume Blowering Dam 1975-2017