Getting a better picture of Australia's water resources

摘要

Prolonged drought in eastern Australia has exposed the lack of water balance information required for timely response and adaptive water resources management. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has recently been delegated a legislative mandate and resources to develop a range of water information services and the statutory power to request water observations from all relevant sources. Services will include annual national water accounts, scheduled and occasional water resources assessments that interpret current and future water availability and trends in a historical context, and forecasts of water availability over days to decades.