Water – Report Card

2026 Assessment: Progressing

Climate change is increasingly incorporated into water allocation planning within the NAR.

The Gingin groundwater and surface-water allocation plans have been evaluated in response to declining rainfall, groundwater levels and streamflow. Updated management arrangements introduced following the 2024 evaluation include caps on some groundwater resources and revised surface-water management. A new combined Gingin water allocation plan is being developed using updated climate projections.

The older Arrowsmith and Jurien groundwater allocation plans recognise pressures associated with a drying climate, and supporting work used to establish and review allocation limits has considered climatic change. However, these plans pre-date more recent climate projections and do not demonstrate the same level of explicit climate-change adaptation as the more recent Gingin planning process.

Formal water allocation plans do not cover every water resource within the NAR, and available information does not provide a comprehensive assessment of how all water distribution systems are adapting to climate change.

Overall, substantial progress is evident, but available evidence does not support considering the regional 2030 goal fully achieved.

2026 Assessment: Progressing

Water allocation planning provides mechanisms for balancing consumptive water use with environmental, social, cultural and economic requirements. Allocation limits, licensing conditions, water reserves, monitoring and adaptive management are used to manage pressure on water resources and protect environmental and other values.

However, some NAR water resources are under increasing pressure from declining rainfall, reduced recharge and streamflow, and water demand.

The 2024 evaluation of the Gingin groundwater and surface-water allocation plans found continuing declines in some groundwater levels and streamflow associated with climate change and abstraction. Of the 35 groundwater resources managed under the Gingin groundwater allocation plan, 10 were fully allocated and a further eight were capped at existing licensed entitlements. The volume of groundwater available for additional licensing had fallen from 68 GL in 2015 to 20 GL by the time of the 2024 evaluation. Management arrangements have been strengthened in response to these pressures, demonstrating adaptive management towards sustainable use.

Available information does not, however, provide an objective measure of whether water is distributed equitably between all environmental, cultural, social and economic interests across the NAR. The evidence therefore demonstrates active management towards sustainable water distribution, but does not establish that this 2030 goal has yet been achieved across the region.

Projects identified to date: at least 8 of 25

Projects identified through available records include:

• Water-quality monitoring and management through the Improving Subtropical and Temperate Coastal Saltmarsh in the NAR project;
• The East Midlands groundwater investigation;
• Healthy Rivers assessments of the Hill River;
• Healthy Rivers assessment work in the Nambung/Mullering Brook system;
• Healthy Rivers assessment work in the Moore River/Red Gully system;
• Chapman Catchment collaborative landscape-scale regeneration;
• The Stabilising Soils project across the Hill, Chapman and Moore catchments; and
• Chapman River Estuary Reserve Action Plan — monitoring and management.

Other ongoing activities, including recreational-water-quality and groundwater monitoring programs, also contribute important information about water quality but have not been included in this project count where they could not be clearly identified as discrete projects for the purposes of the NARvis target.

The figure represents projects that could be verified through available information and should be regarded as a minimum rather than a complete record of water-quality activity across the NAR.

Projects identified to date: at least 7 of 25

Verified examples include:

• Healthy Rivers assessment of the Hill River;
• Healthy Rivers assessment work in the Nambung/Mullering Brook system;
• Healthy Rivers assessment work in the Moore River/Red Gully system;
• Monitoring and management of subtropical and temperate coastal saltmarsh;
• Chapman Catchment landscape-scale regeneration and wetland restoration;
• Riparian, erosion and hydrological restoration through the Stabilising Soils project; and
• Implementation of the Chapman River Estuary Reserve Action Plan – monitoring and management.

These projects include river-health assessment, wetland and estuary monitoring, riparian restoration, hydrological rehabilitation, weed and pest management, erosion control and other actions intended to maintain or improve the ecological function of water-dependent environments.

A project may contribute to both Goal 3 and Goal 4 where it demonstrably addresses both water quality and ecosystem health. Projects operating at multiple sites are counted as a single project rather than counting each monitoring or works site separately.

As with Goal 3, this represents projects identified through available records and does not necessarily capture all relevant activity undertaken across the NAR.