Who issues entitlements to water?

Under section 7 of the Water Act 1989, the Crown has the right to the use, flow and control of all water in a waterway and all groundwater.

The Minister for Water issues entitlements and administers water allocations under the Water Act 1989.

What is the difference between an entitlement and an allocation?

A water entitlement is the maximum amount of water authorised to be taken and used by a person under specific conditions/specifications.

There are four different types of issued entitlements to take water.

• bulk entitlements
• environmental entitlements
• water shares
• water licences

In addition to issued entitlements, section 8.1 and section 8.4c of the Water Act 1989 allows individuals to take water for domestic and stock purposes from a range of surface water and groundwater sources without an entitlement. In these cases, no issued entitlement is required.

The Minister for Water is responsible for determining the total volume of water that may be held under entitlements.

Deciding how many water entitlements to issue is a balancing act. Decisions about issuing entitlements to water are made to balance the needs of:

• consumptive uses: urban, irrigation, stock and domestic and commercial; and
• environmental uses: wetlands, aquatic biota, estuaries, rivers or streams and groundwater-dependant ecosystems (through the Environmental Water Reserve).

A water allocation is the amount of water that can be used under an entitlement to water, each year. The allocation depends on the conditions during the year and in a dry year an allocation will be reduced.

The Victorian government's white paper Our Water Our Future, released in 2004, provides further policy details on balancing water resources and their allocation.