The Victorian Water Accounts
The Victorian Water Accounts provide a snapshot of the year in water across Victoria. The accounts are an authoritative and comprehensive record of water availability and use. They cover different sources of water including surface water, groundwater, recycled water and desalinated water. The accounts demonstrate Victoria’s compliance with its water entitlement framework, and help make water-related decisions better informed.
The accounts consolidate information from many sources including rural and urban water corporations, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the Victorian Environmental Water Holder, the Essential Services Commission, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Victorian Alpine Resorts Commission, power generators and other major users of water. The information is recorded in the Victorian Water Register.
All information in the accounts is provided for the water year (the period from 1 July to 30 June).
We've provided some detail on the site pages below - click the down arrows to expand each page type.
Site structure
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This page provides an overview of Victoria's water resource story for the year. It includes:
- a message from the Minister
- rainfall and climate summary for the year
- summary of restrictions on water use
- summary of overall water use and the volume of entitlements.
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There are four statewide pages: Surface water, Groundwater, Water supply and Environment.
The Surface water and Groundwater pages provide information on:
- available water and response to availability
- water use
- entitlements and compliance
- trade.
The Water supply page provides information on:
- urban water restrictions on use
- water deliveries via water supply systems
- recycled water availability and use.
The Environment page provides information on managed environmental water, environmental entitlements and deliveries.
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In this website, we report on surface water, groundwater and water supply at a more local scale. This includes:
- Surface water reports by river basin
- Groundwater reports by groundwater catchment
- Groundwater reports by groundwater management unit
- Water supply reports by water corporation
- Water supply report by water supply system (e.g. individual town or irrigation system). These pages are reached indirectly through links on each water corporation page.
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The water explained pages summarise:
- the types of resources the accounts report on
- which agencies have responsibilities for managing water in Victoria
- Victoria’s water entitlement and planning framework and the way it shares available water resources
- methods used to compile the accounts, and key definitions and assumptions used.
The transformation journey
Since 2003-04, we have published the accounts each year in the form of a large report (in PDF and hard copy). In 2018, we began our journey to transform the accounts from a report into a digital resource. Following some early website iterations, user needs analysis and research, we were able to launch this comprehensive website in early 2024. This site provides users with all the information previously found in the report and previous websites in one place. Interactive data visualisations, more succinct text and easy multi-year data downloads make this a more modern and engaging way to use the accounts.
Previously released versions of the accounts can be found on the Previous Accounts page.
The structure has changed a bit from the report - our mapping file below provides information on where each section of the report can now be found on the website.
We'll continue to improve as we go along. Please get in touch at water.reporting@delwp.vic.gov.au if you have any suggestions or feedback.
