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Water resources - Overview - New South Wales

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Basin & Surface Water Management Area: Wollongong Coast

Introduction

The Wollongong/Illawarra/Hacking basin extends from Port Hacking in the north to Gerringong in the south. The basin covers an area of approximately 800 km² along a narrow strip of land between the Illawarra escarpment and the coast.

The basin comprises many different landuses and includes natural conservation areas such as the Royal National Park and the Illawarra Escarpment Nature Reserves; the heavy industrialised areas of Port Kembla steelworks and associated industries; the coal mines near Coledale; the large commercial areas of Wollongong, Shellharbour, Warrawong and Corrimal; the rural areas in the southwestern catchments; and the urban residential areas along the coast.

The streams in the Illawarra section of the basin are generally short and steep and run in an easterly direction from the escarpment to the coast. Those in the Hacking catchment are similar but tend to be longer and less steep. Flows within the shorter streams tend to be very fas

No major storages have been constructed in the Basin. Urban water supplies are obtained from the adjacent Hawkesbury Basin.

Vital Statistics:

Area:	800 Km2
Total storage volume:	293
Total surface water use:	0 ML/yr
Development category:	LOW DEVELOPMENT
Mean annual run-off:	598,000 ML/yr

Please note: No data were supplied about total surface water use for some river basins (eg. unregulated basins in NSW).

A four-class classification system was developed to provide a simple method to communicate the status of the use and allocation of Australia's water resources in relation to sustainable water management.

It is important to recognise that adequately quantifying a sustainable flow regime or sustainable yield and consequent operating rules is a complex matter. State, Territory and scientific agencies continue to develop and apply methods and measures for determining sustainable flow regimes and sustainable yields.

This categorisation provides a general guide only. Please refer to the State and Territory Overview and Technical reports for detail on the analysis methods used.

	Category	Development status
1	<30%	Low development
2	30 - 70%	Moderate development
3	70 - 100%	Highly developed
4	100%	Overdeveloped

* Water use as a percentage of sustainable flow regime (surface water) and sustainable yield (groundwater)

PLEASE NOTE:

Sustainable Yield:

NSW is introducing volumetric licenses for the management of unregulated valleys and is currently collecting a wide range of data in unregulated basin.

The sustainable yield concept, ie the amount of water that can be diverted from rivers in perpetuity, is recognised in NSW. However NSW's current management practices views the sustainable yield as an allowable daily extraction volume as opposed to an annual yield figure. As well future reviews of the performance of the management rules to be adopted in each valley plus additional knowledge at that time may result in changes to the rules and hence changes to the "Sustainable Yield".

NSW has taken the approach that it is better to await the availability of data on the unregulated basins based on reliable and realistic analysis than to divert limited resources from this process to provide data based on unreliable information and inappropriate analysis. Accordingly the Sustainable Yield has not been calculated for the unregulated basins in NSW.

However an attempt was made to obtain a categorisation for the catchment based on the work done for the stressed streams.

A variable P was determined for the total catchment on the basis of the combined stress classsification results from the stressed streams analysis where P = (Total area of sub-catchments with high combined stress / Total area of classsified sub- catchments in basin)

Categorisation was on the basis that:

 Category 1 applies for 0% <= P
< 30% Category 2 applies for 30% <= P
< 70% Category 3 applies for 70% <= P
<100% Category 4 applies for P = 100% 

Please refer to the Stressed Rivers Report(s) from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website for further information about this basin.

PLEASE NOTE:

Categorisation:

Cateogorisation of the SWMA has been based on the classification system developed for the NSW Stressed Rivers Approach to the management of unregulated streams.

The stressed rivers classification system separates subcatchments into nine categories (stressed and unstressed) based on assessments of both current environmental and hydrologic stress. This is illustrated by the matrix in Figure 1 of the Stressed Rivers Report(s) available from the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website http://www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au . These reports also provides some of the rationale underlying the different categories.

In summary : Category 1 - comprises subcatchments with Low Combined Stress Category 2 - comprises subcatchments with Medium Combined Stress Category 3 - comprises subcatchments with High Combined Stress Category 4 - comprises Unresolved subcatchment

The distribution of categories across the SWMA is illustrated in the Figures in the Stressed Stream Report for the Wollongong Coast at the NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation's website http://www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au .

How saline are the surface water resources in the Wollongong Coast surface water management area?

No data were available about the salinity of surface water resources in the Basin / SWMA for the Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000.

Major water storages

Table: Major water storage areas:

Storage name:	Capacity (ML)
Macdonalds Weir	no data
Macquarie Rivulet Farm Dam 10	no data
Macquarie Rivulet Farm Dam 8	no data
Stanwell Creek Dam	143
Macquarie Rivulet Farm Dam 9	no data
Mullet Creek Weir	no data
Oxford Weir	no data
Pheasant West Dam	no data
Stanwell Dam No.2	no data
Fountaindale Dam	61
Huntley Colliery 2	59
Blackbutt Reserve	30
Helensburgh Dam	no data
Jerrara Creek Dam	no data
Total	293

Further Information

• View the New South Wales Water Resources Assessment 2000 Report
• View the New South Wales Water Resources Assessment 2000 Technical Report
• Link to data available for download on the:
• Surface Water Management Areas
• Data from the 1985 Review of Australia's Water Resources and Water Use
• Link to the Map Maker to make a map using this information.
• For more information about water and other natural resource issues link to www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au.