Kununurra Dam in northern Western Australia.

Sustainable management of northern Australia's water resources

This Water for a Healthy Country Flagship research is developing the scientific knowledge to underpin an integrated and sustainable development framework for northern Australia's water resources.

• 15 February 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Summary
• Goals and outcomes
• Project partners 

Summary

Northern Australia has the world's most significant concentration of river catchments that still retain their ecological integrity.

This research stream is providing robust, comprehensive assessments of water resource availability, as well as agricultural, industrial and social requirements for water across northern Australia to ensure sustainable development of northern Australia's water resources and allow better targeting of infrastructure investment and additional economic activity.

Goals and outcomes

This research stream:

• supports the Australian Government's Northern Australian Water Futures Assessment (NAWFA), which aims to provide the science needed to inform the development and protection of northern Australia's water resources so that development is ecologically, culturally and economically sustainable
• supports the cultural and indigenous component of NAWFA and recognises the need for improving indigenous access to water and aquatic resources and participation in water management
• delivered the Northern Australia Sustainable Yields (NASY) project in September 2009 which has provided critical information on both current and future water availability. This built on the Northern Australian Irrigation Futures (NAIF) project which has provided new knowledge, tools and processes to support irrigation decisions in northern Australia. 
  Northern Australia has the world's most significant concentration of river catchments that still retain their ecological integrity.

Research is focusing on:

• understanding the nature of groundwater-surface water interaction in tropical monsoon environments 
• recharge in the tropical monsoon climate
• the nature of alluvial and karstic groundwater systems in northern Australia
• integration of Indigenous water knowledge in water management in northern Australia.

Other work undertaken in northern Australia includes CSIRO's partnership in the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) Consortium that provides the science and knowledge that governments, communities and industries need for the sustainable use and management of Australia’s tropical rivers and estuaries.

Project partners

This work draws together work of leading researchers from CSIRO, Australia's leading universities and other world-class research institutions and has established collaborative research arrangements with a number of organisations to strengthen its research capability and research outcomes, including:

• Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research
• Australian Government Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
• Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory
• Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Irrigation Futures
• Griffith University, Queensland
• Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce
• Northern Australian Water Futures Assessment (NAWFA)
• Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland government departments
• Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) Consortium.

Find out more about the The Northern Australia Sustainable Yields Project.