Ausinnovate Dr Rob Vertessy Bureau Of Meteorology

Measuring up to improve water

management in Australia: How the

National Broadband Network can help

CeBIT Ausinnovate Conference, Sydney

Dr Rob Vertessy

24 May, 2010

“Finite, vital, much wanted but little understood, water looks unmanageable. But it needn’t be … ”

How low did we go?

Current valuesCurrent values

Lowest valuesLowest values

System Storage (% of capacity)

Why invest in water information?

Diverse data are needed to understand our water resources

Navigating the water information jungle

• Lots of players

• Fragmentation within organisations

• Lack of standard data formats

• General absence of metadata

• Poor geocoding of sites

• Immature data supply systems

• Data quality unclear

• Varied data licenses

Our new water information mandate.

• 10-year Australian Government program began July 2007

• $450m funding

– 130 new staff + systems + research and development

– Administered funding support for data providers

• Legislative backing

– Water Act 2007

– Water Regulations 2008

Our new water functions

1. Set standards for water data.

2. Collect primary information from water data holders and build a national repository.

3. Provide a range of value-added water information products and services for the nation.

4. Assist water data collecting agencies to modernise their observing systems.

5. Invest in water information research and development

Administrative boundaries•Water planning areas, councils, supply schemes, g/w areas

Place and feature names

Land cover, soils, hydrogeology

National Digital Elevation Data

Satellite and Airborne Orthoimagery

National hydrofeatures•Rivers, lakes, wetlands, reservoirs, aquifers

Catchment reporting units•Basins, catchments, sub-catchments

Water infrastructure•Supply and drainage channels, pipes, plants, storages

Monitoring points•Flow and rain gauges, water meters, climate stations, bores

All Australian public storages

> 1 GL

How the NBN can help

• A trunk for a national environmental monitoring telemetry network

• Enhances the delivery of powerful environmental information to the household

Components of the BureauComponents of the Bureau’’s Observation Systems Observation System

6753 sites @ May 201043% telemetered

Open sites - all parameters

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

level or

pressure

water quality

level or flow

water quality

meteorological

storages

groundwater surface water

number of sites

with telemetry

without telemetry

49268

0.3%

19205

0.7%

6753

43%

7582

16% 3334

52% 459

48%

Bureau web site hits(Billions per month)

2.0

1.0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Forecast Explorer

Thanks for listening

Visit www.bom.gov.au/water

Rob Vertessy

r.vertessy@bom.gov.au

+61 2 6232 3501