2019-20 opening water allocation rises
The opening water allocation for the South Australian River Murray has risen to 26 percent for the 2019-20 water year.
After two consecutive years with low rainfall and inflows across the Murray-Darling Basin, the volume of water in Murray-Darling Basin Authority controlled storages is around 35 percent of capacity and increasing.
Department for Environment and Water River Murray Water Operations Manager Jarrod Eaton said that the opening allocation is based on the latest advice from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
“In the last few months we’ve seen the minimum opening allocation increase from 14 percent to 22 percent,” Mr Eaton said.
“Recent rainfall across key catchment areas in the southern Murray-Darling Basin has been a positive sign.
“However, the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-term weather outlook indicates that drier and warmer than average conditions are likely over the next three months.
“Given that most inflows to the River Murray system historically occur between July and November, we will be monitoring the resource condition extremely closely.
“We continue to remain hopeful that we’ll see reasonable improvements over the coming months to further improve allocations.”
Based on climate of the last 30 years and current resource condition, there is 90 percent likelihood that allocations will reach at least 85 percent in 2019-20.
Private carryover will be available for eligible entitlement holders in 2019-20.
For more information about water allocations, visit the Water allocations and announcements page.
Information about River Murray Private Carryover in South Australia – June 2019
To help support irrigators, the private carryover video below explains how any unused water from 2018-19 can be carried over for use in 2019-20, up to 20 percent of a user’s entitlement.
