River Murray water allocations – 15 October 2019
Conditions across the southern Murray-Darling Basin have remained relatively dry with no reasonable rainfall falling since the last update on 1 October 2019, which has resulted in no improvement to the water resource availability to South Australia.
As a result, South Australian River Murray irrigators’ water allocations will remain at 87 per cent until the next round of water availability advice is provided by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) in two weeks’ time.
The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) Water Delivery Manager Jarrod Eaton said the MDBA controlled storages have decreased by 1 per cent (to 43 per cent capacity).
“This is well below the end of October average of 81 per cent in storages,” Mr Eaton said.
“Both New South Wales and Victoria received improvements to their water resource availability as a result of state owned tributary inflows and internal spills in Lake Victoria from Victoria to New South Wales.
“According to the projections, unless improvements in water availability for the remainder of 2019-20 are worse than for any year in the last 30, water allocations are still likely at this stage to get to 100 per cent by the end of the water year.”
“Below average rainfall and above average temperatures are forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology over the next few months.
“With current low levels of water in storage and low inflows likely over the rest of spring and into early summer, water availability is likely to be limited heading into the 2020-21 water year.”
DEW will continue to update its water allocations fortnightly while allocations remain below 100 per cent. The next update will be provided on 1 November 2019.
Click here for more information about water allocations and to view the Water Allocation Statement.
