Frequently asked questions

The aim of the Southern Gulf Water Resource Assessment is to provide information and analysis about the catchments as a whole. It seeks to inform public discussion and decisions around sustainable resource management and potential development in the Southern Gulf catchments.

Most of northern Australia's land and water resources have not been mapped in enough detail to support reliable resource allocation. This impacts stakeholders’ capacity to understand and mitigate risks (including investment, environmental and social risks). It also affects governments’ capacity to build policy settings that can support informed decision-making.

The Assessment provides an independent source of fundamental information about the feasibility, economic viability and sustainability of water resource development in the Southern Gulf catchments. Researchers investigated the following areas: climate; hydrology; land suitability; Indigenous interests, rights and values; water storage; socio-economic viability; and ecology. The findings are presented in a way that’s consistent with past assessments, to better enable direct comparisons between other catchments across northern Australia.

The Assessment was funded through the National Water Grid’s Science Program, which provided $6.3 million in funding from 2021 to 2024. The National Water Grid sits within the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).

The Assessment produced 20 technical reports, the findings of which have been summarised in a 516-page catchment report. The key findings have been further distilled into a 32-page summary report and a two-page factsheet. All reports are freely available for download on our Southern Gulf Water Resource Assessment website.

No. As the national science agency, it is not CSIRO’s role to advocate specific policy positions or development decisions. CSIRO provides science to underpin decision making and help evaluate likely outcomes from different policy or management decisions.

The Assessment simply shows the upper limit of what might be biophysically possible. In practice, the area actually available for development would be considerably less. The Assessment does not advocate for water resource and irrigation development, nor undertake to assess or enable any particular development. It does not replace any planning processes, nor seek to recommend changes to existing plans or planning processes.

Instead, it identified the resources that could be deployed in support of potential irrigation enterprises, and the constraints on those resources. It evaluated the feasibility of development and considered the overall scale of the opportunities that might exist, as well as the risks that may attend those opportunities.

In reality, the nature and scale of any future development will depend heavily on government and community values about desirable forms of development and the balance of potential benefits and impacts, including impacts to communities and water-dependent ecosystems. Development decisions will be influenced by laws, policies and regulations about land tenure, land ownership, Indigenous rights and interests, land use, water management and environmental protection, as well as by production costs and market demands.

The Assessment was led and conducted primarily by CSIRO. We worked with Queensland and Northern Territory Government agencies, universities, private sector consultants, research providers and local communities.

In all, more than 80 research staff from CSIRO and other organisations were involved over a three-year period.

The results of the Assessment can be accessed by anyone. They provide a framework that may be used by governments, industry, communities, environmental advocates, Traditional Owners, individual landholders, incoming farmers and developers to inform resource planning, management and investment decisions.

More specifically, the results can inform local development needs and aspirations, government and the due diligence requirements of private investors. It also provides a trusted information base to enable everyone to equally partake in the debate about water and agriculture resource development in the Southern Gulf catchments.

CSIRO’s role is to provide independent scientific evidence to inform decision-making by others and help evaluate the likely outcomes from different policy or management decisions. It is not CSIRO's role to advocate specific policy positions or development decisions. The Assessment does not replace any planning processes, nor does it seek to recommend changes to existing plans or planning processes.

Yes. This study involved two parallel activities: consultations with the Traditional Owner representative agencies in the Southern Gulf catchments and a review of literature on Indigenous water values, rights interests and development goals relating to the Southern Gulf catchments and from previous Assessments within catchments of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Under the guidance of the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (CLCAC), the team re-modelled its method of consultation to engage each Prescribed Body Corporate with information about the Assessment and to address questions about their preferred approach for consultation and potential future collaboration on local issues.

The literature review identified key contextual drivers and issues in the Southern Gulf catchments regarding Indigenous water values, rights, interests and development goals. It also identified common themes from previous Assessments that can be locally ground-truthed and further developed through a future collaborative approach with Traditional Owners in the Southern Gulf catchments.

The Assessment did not seek to establish formal positions from Indigenous groups about any issues raised.

No. The Assessment did not seek to establish formal positions from Indigenous groups about any issues raised.

No analysis on wider stakeholder values was completed as part of this Assessment. However, scoping analysis completed as part of the Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment indicates that there is a diverse set of stakeholders with different and sometimes conflicting interests and values relating to the use of water resources and irrigated agricultural development.

The diversity of stakeholder perspectives has implications for the ability of developers to gain and maintain social licence to operate throughout the development process. Development planning and implementation is likely to require a systematic and robust social impact analysis.

Yes. Though irrigated agriculture in Australia typically occupies a small percentage of a given catchment area, it can potentially use a large proportion of the water. That’s why it was important for the Assessment to consider the impacts of changes in streamflow, resulting from water resource development. We investigated the potential ecological changes to near-shore marine, estuarine, freshwater and riparian ecosystems.

The range of environmental changes that could potentially occur as a result of water and irrigation development is as varied as the number of developments that could be proposed. It was not possible to quantify impacts of development on specific environmental assets, because these cannot be determined in the absence of specific development proposals. This would normally occur as part of an environmental impact assessment.

The Assessment considered a wide range of potential impacts on key water-dependent ecological assets in detail. A range of functional groups and species was identified, as were key habitats and ecosystem processes.

Yes. River catchments across northern Australia vary widely, and so do the opportunities and risks of water resource development. It is not possible to make assumptions about resources of certain catchments, based on assessments of catchments found elsewhere. Local community attitudes also differ between catchments.

CSIRO undertook a pre-feasibility analysis of the potential for water storages, including dams, in the Southern Gulf catchments. This information can be used by governments and communities to decide if particular sites warrant more-detailed feasibility studies. The information can also be used to independently evaluate the validity of proposals by a future proponent. CSIRO does not suggest that any dam should be constructed, nor does CSIRO suggest how dams could or should be funded.

Yes. The research has been peer-reviewed by scientists not associated with the research within CSIRO, and by external technical experts within the university, public and private sectors. CSIRO’s role is to provide independent scientific advice to inform decision making. CSIRO places great importance on the trust placed in the organisation by governments and the Australian community.

Previous studies, such as CSIRO's Northern Australia Sustainable Yields Study (NASY) and Northern Australia Land and Water Science Review (both completed in 2009) were broad-scale desktop studies across all of northern Australia. As a result, they were necessarily less detailed. The Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment (FGARA), completed in 2013, focused on two catchments in Queensland (about 155,000 km²).

The Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment (NAWRA), completed in 2018, built on the methods developed as part of FGARA and focused on one study area in each of the three northern jurisdictions (collectively an area of 194,000km²). CSIRO completed assessments in the Roper catchment (2023) and Victoria catchment (2024) of the NT, a further 160,000 km².

The Southern Gulf Water Resource Assessment was built on the methods refined in NAWRA. Although the methods were further refined, the Assessment produced information in a similar format to FGARA and NAWRA, as well as the Roper River Water Resource Assessment and Victoria River Water Resource Assessment, so as to better enable direct comparisons between catchments.

As the client, the Australian Government’s National Water Grid helped to set the Assessment’s original objectives. As part of the Assessment, CSIRO worked with the northern jurisdictions, research partners and communities to undertake the evaluations. However, the outcomes of the project reflect the independent findings of our scientists.

Yes. The Assessment used future climate projections from 32 global climate model simulations, sourced from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) website. These projections were used to investigate the impact of long-term changes in rainfall and potential evaporation on streamflow. The Assessment also accounted for the fact that rainfall in northern Australia is highly seasonal and has a very high variability from one year to the next. The seasonality and inter-annual variability of rainfall was considered in every analyses undertaken by the Assessment.

Agriculture comprises about 70% of Australia’s water use by sector. Water use by mining, industry, and urban centres trail far behind, by comparison. The non-agricultural users often have a higher capacity to pay for the construction and operation of water infrastructure. Coupled with considerably smaller water demand, water supply options tend to be highly localised.

The Assessment is primarily a resource assessment and these resources remain relatively static through time. In contrast, legislation and regulation, which are tied to government and community values, can and do change rapidly. By deliberately setting aside most regulatory issues, the Assessment is better placed to provide resource information that will be useful over the longest time frame possible. Others with policy and regulatory responsibility and/or the capacity to directly influence these regimes can then overlay legislative and regulatory frameworks at any point in time.