Water monitoring policy, guidelines and procedures

The department and a number of organisations monitor and collect the state’s water data to help make informed decisions about water resource management in South Australia.

To ensure all water data from the various sources is consistent, comparable and of a known quality, data is collected and recorded to a set of recognised state and national guidelines and standards.

National guidelines

Under the Commonwealth Water Act 2007, the department as the lead water Agency in South Australia is required to supply water data to the Bureau of Meteorology on a regular basis. This data must comply with the quality standards outlined in the National Industry Guidelines for hydrometric monitoring Part 1: Primary Measured Data.

The department is also heavily involved in the development and ongoing review of the existing National Industry Guidelines for hydrometric monitoring and the development of new guidelines and related documents through membership of the Water Monitoring Standardisation Technical Committee.

Read more information on national water data collection standards.

South Australian water monitoring policy, guidelines and procedures

Current state-based procedures

View a list of current state-based technical procedures.

Please note that the list of state-based technical procedures may not be complete at any given time due to ongoing document reviews and improvements.

If you would like to access the department’s water monitoring guidelines and technical procedures please contact us at DEW.ResourceMonitoring@sa.gov.au.

Policy in development

The department is developing a state-wide water monitoring policy that responds to the requirements of the Water Act 2007 and the National Industry Guidelines for hydrometric monitoring. This policy will be underpinned by numerous state-based guidelines and technical procedures, as well as the relevant Australian Standards, International Organisation for Standardisation standards and national guidelines.