Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3 environmental sustainability - to protect the water resources base and
related aquatic ecosystems and more broadly to help address global
environmental issues.
These goals reflect the commonly used 'triple bottom line' approach used
in assessing impacts or programs. They provide a good basis for ensuring
that objectives are comprehensive. A typical water resource plan would be
aiming to achieve outcomes in all three of these areas. If there are no stated
objectives in one area, it may be that they are being considered but not being
explicitly stated. For example, a plan might be developed with a single stated
objective of supplying water for irrigation. However in developing the plan
the impact on riparian domestic water users and instream ecosystems might
also be considered. These implicit objectives should be explicitly stated and
discussed up front.
Within a particular jurisdiction there are often objectives in legislation,
policies or broader plans that should be considered in setting water resource
plan objectives. Boxes 6.1 and 6.2 show how the scope and nature of
objectives in water resource plans in the state of New South Wales (NSW),
Australia and EU WFD are dictated by contextual requirements.
Box 6.1: Contextual requirements for objectives in water
resource plans - New South Wales, Australia
As part of signing up to Australia's National Water Initiative Agreement
in 2004, NSW agreed that its water resource plans would include
objectives that:
1 define environmental and other public benefit outcomes
1
(clause 37)
2 define resource security outcomes (clauses 37, 43).
Under the State Government's
Water Management Act 2000
, water
resource plans prepared under the Act are to 'promote' the following
(see sections 5 and 9):
a) water sources, floodplains and dependent ecosystems (including
groundwater and wetlands) should be protected and restored and,
where possible, land should not be degraded; and
b) habitats, animals and plants that benefit from water or are potentially
1 The NWI defines public benefit of water use and management as 'mitigating pollution, public
health, for example, limiting noxious algal blooms, Indigenous and cultural values, fisheries,
tourism, navigation and amenity values'.
