Our water, our future

We know how vital water is

Across NSW - from our smallest towns to our big cities, from our coasts to mountains and outback - people, communities and businesses know how vital water is to our way of life and wellbeing.

Every person in NSW has a right to expect access to safe drinking water for use at home and water security in their communities to sustain job creating businesses and healthy natural environments. This is particularly important for regional NSW, where economies are often built on water essential industries such as agriculture, food processing and manufacturing, resources and tourism.

Our rivers, creeks, wetlands, floodplains, estuaries and groundwater sources support almost every aspect of our daily lives: from the water we drink and use in our homes to water for crops and activities that support our industries and economy. They are also vital environmental assets, sustaining natural ecosystems and habitats that not only support our unique flora and fauna, but also help to make our lives healthier and more productive and our communities more attractive and amenable places to live.

Water is also at the heart of Aboriginal people’s connection to Country and culture, and First Nations are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of all of NSW’s water resources. First Nations and Aboriginal people have rights and a moral obligation to care for water under their law and customs.

Like many places around the world, our water resources are coming under increasing pressure from a combination of population growth, changing industry and community needs and a more variable and changing climate. In NSW, we have also been dealing with an extended period of severe drought, followed by severe flooding in some places.

Wherever we live in NSW, we all know the value of clean, safe and healthy water resources - and their importance to the future of our communities and our state. To secure our water future, we need to work together and start preparing now for the challenges ahead.

We have reformed how we manage water in NSW - but there is more to do

The NSW Government has put in place plans for sharing water and established clear water rights and a market for trading these rights. These reforms provide for the sustainable, equitable and efficient allocation of water and for achieving better economic, cultural, social and environmental outcomes.

But the recent drought, which followed on quickly from the Millennium Drought, exposed vulnerabilities in regional and metropolitan water services that we cannot ignore. Addressing and minimising future water service risks to NSW communities requires some fundamental changes in thinking about how we access, manage and use water. We need to ensure that we have the right organisational arrangements in place to lift the performance of the water sector across NSW to ensure high-quality water service delivery for the critical needs of communities and the environment, and to improve our resilience to extreme events including drought, bushfires and flooding.

This includes managing our landscapes and catchments better to keep water in the landscape, improve the health of our river and groundwater systems, manage flood risk and improve community and industry resilience to drought. This means working with communities on land management initiatives to support sustainable land use practices that harness the knowledge of local people.

We also need to improve how we plan for water in the landscape and manage the impacts of flooding through flood risk management, emergency management and land use planning to mitigate the impacts of floods on lives and livelihoods.

We need to be thinking longer term. We need to prepare now for a future where water sources and services may come under even greater stress. We need to use the knowledge we have gained during recent droughts and floods to find smarter, better ways of managing our water resources for the environment and improving water service delivery to communities. We need to make decisions now about how, where and when to direct water-related investment and infrastructure.

While we can’t predict the future, we can develop plans to achieve our objectives that are flexible and can adapt to future uncertainties. We can do this by contemplating how robust our plans may be under a range of plausible future scenarios.

The NSW Water Strategy will prepare NSW for the future

The NSW Water Strategy will tackle the key challenges and opportunities for water management and service delivery across the whole of the state and set the strategic direction for water service delivery and resource management in NSW over the long-term. It will:

• set high level objectives and principles to guide water service delivery and management across NSW
• build on the progress made from previous reforms and set the direction to keep improving
• identify key challenges, opportunities, strategic priorities and actions for the whole of NSW
• clearly articulate the water management and service delivery framework and policy context for NSW, including how the Murray- Darling Basin Plan and state-wide, regional, metropolitan and local strategic water policy and planning frameworks work together.

A comprehensive set of integrated water strategies for NSW

The NSW Water Strategy is part of a suite of long-term strategies being developed by the NSW Government to maintain the resilience of the state’s water services and resources over the coming decades. This state-wide, high-level strategy works in tandem with 12 regional water strategies and two metropolitan water strategies, the Greater Sydney Water Strategy and the Lower Hunter Water Security Plan.

These strategies will set the direction for and inform the best mix of water-related policy, planning and infrastructure investment decisions over the next 20 to 40 years. They aim to balance different and changing water needs and make sure that households, businesses, towns and cities, communities and the environment have access to the right amount of water for the right purpose at the right times. Building on the NSW Government’s record of action and reform in water management, these strategies bring together all the knowledge, tools, experience and solutions we have - and apply the best and latest evidence - to use and share our water wisely, responsibly and sustainably into the future.

Additionally, the development of an Aboriginal Water Strategy and Groundwater Strategy are key actions from the NSW Water Strategy that will apply state-wide and complement these place-based strategies.

The NSW Water Strategy and the regional and metropolitan water strategies do not replace statutory instruments (such as water sharing plans). They set the agenda for water management and service delivery into the future and are designed to contribute to water management outcomes aligned with the objects and principles of the Water Management Act 2000, the NSW Government’s priorities and NSW’s commitments under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the National Water Initiative, and other commitments such as the Great Artesian Basin Strategic Management Plan.

The NSW Water Strategy and the regional and metropolitan water strategies are being developed in parallel (Figure 2). This allows us to make sure there is alignment between the overall state-level priorities in the NSW Water Strategy and the place-based solutions being developed for each region. It also allows the NSW Water Strategy to be informed by the evidence and examples that are emerging through our work with communities at the regional level. Figure 2. How the NSW Water Strategy and regional and metropolitan water strategies interact

Regional water strategies

Twelve new regional water strategies are being developed by the NSW Government that will bring together the best and latest climate evidence with a wide range of tools and solutions to plan and manage the water needs in each NSW region over the coming decades. The strategies look out over the next 20 to 40 years and determine how much water a region will need to meet future demand, the challenges and choices involved in meeting those needs and the actions available to manage risks to water availability. The strategies will aim to balance different water needs, inform investment decisions, and deliver the right amount of water, of the right quality for the right purpose at the right times.

Regional water strategies will set out a long- term ‘roadmap’ of actions to deliver five objectives:

1. Deliver and manage water for local communities - improve water security, water quality and flood management for regional towns and communities
2. Enable economic prosperity - improve water access reliability for regional industries
3. Recognise and protect Aboriginal water rights, interests and cultural values— including Aboriginal heritage assets
4. Protect and enhance the environment - improve the health and integrity of the environmental systems and assets, including by improving water quality
5. Affordability - identify least cost policy and infrastructure options.

The regional water strategies are being developed in stages, with the aim of having a final strategy in each region by the end of 2022. Each strategy will go on public exhibition with opportunities for feedback and discussion. The final strategy for each region will include a final package of actions approved by the NSW Government and a plan for implementation with clear time frames and defined roles and responsibilities for delivering each action.

Metropolitan water strategies

The Greater Sydney Water Strategy will replace the existing Metropolitan Water Plan 2017 and provide confidence in the security of Greater Sydney’s water supply to 2040 to support economic growth, environmental protection and community wellbeing. It will support delivery of the Greater Sydney Regional Plan and identify the best value and most affordable investment pathways for water infrastructure decisions. It will be based on an integrated water cycle management approach, consistent with the National Water Initiative, and identify any policy or regulatory changes required for implementation.

Development of the Greater Sydney Water Strategy is being guided by customer feedback, with public exhibition and consultation planned for the third quarter in 2021.

The Lower Hunter Water Security Plan will also be consistent with the National Water Initiative and will include a portfolio of supply and demand measures to ensure there is enough water to supply homes, businesses and industry in the region for the future and during drought. The Lower Hunter Water Security Plan is being developed with customer feedback and was released for public exhibition in August 2021. The department is working with other state agencies and local government to ensure the water strategies align with key NSW economic, infrastructure and land use strategies, plans and programs shown in Figure 4 including the:

• NSW State Infrastructure Strategy 2022-2042
• Nine Regional Plans 2017
• NSW Regional Development Framework
• 2019 NSW 2040 Economic Blueprint
• Greater Sydney Region Plan 2018
• Future Transport Strategy 2056
• Marine Estate Management Strategy 2018-2028
• NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap
• 20-year Economic Vision for Regional NSW.

All water strategies are also being informed by key reports including the Australian Government Productivity Commission’s draft report on National Water Reform, the ACCC’s Murray- Darling Basin water markets inquiry, and the NSW Productivity Commission’s Productivity Green Paper.

A set of common planning assumptions underpins all of these plans and strategies. This coordinated governance will make sure that water policy and investment decisions are robust, complementary and fully integrated with other plans.

Local water utilities are responsible for undertaking long-term strategic town water services planning for their communities. This includes setting service and investment priorities with reference to state and regional water strategies. An integrated water cycle management strategy is a 30-year plan developed by local water utilities that identifies  an integrated water, sewerage and stormwater supply scenario that provides the best value for money on the basis of social, environmental and economic considerations. Figure 5 shows the relationship between all water strategies and plans, and how they work together to form the water policy and planning context for NSW.

The National Water Initiative

NSW is committed to implementation of the National Water Initiative, which is the national blueprint for water reform agreed by the Council of Australian Governments in 2004.

Under the National Water Initiative, governments commit to:

• prepare comprehensive water plans
• achieve sustainable water use in overallocated or stressed water systems
• introduce registers of water rights and standards for water accounting
• expand trade in water rights
• improve pricing for water storage and delivery
• better manage urban water demands.

The National Water Initiative is informing the development of NSW’s regional and metropolitan water strategies.