NSW Office of Water Groundwater Licence Extract, North and South Sydney - Oct 2013

Abstract

This dataset and its metadata statement were supplied to the Bioregional Assessment Programme by a third party and are presented here as originally supplied.

A SHORT GUIDE TO NSW OFFICE OF WATER'S LICENSING DATA

Methodology

1. Using the supplied bioregional assessment data capture polygons a spatial select was taken for each polygon area for the Surface and Groundwater Approved Work locations. These Work Location points were exported to an ArcGIS 10.0 File Geodatabase for each polygon area. These work locations have a "Status" of either "Active" (under the Water Act) or "Current" (under the Water Management Act).

2. These spatial locations link to the licence volumes found in the *_WLS-EXTRACT_n.xls and the *_WLS-EXTRACT_n_WALs_volume.xls as per below

3. The work locations in these shapefiles link to the Office of Water's Water Licensing System (WLS) to extract details on each Approved license including any linked Water Access Licenses (WAL) if the Work was now under the Water Management Act (WMA). These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n.xls.

4. If found the linked WAL number is used to re-query using WLS to extract details on each linked WAL. These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n_WALs_volume.xls.

5. The Approved License number attached to each Work was then used to query the Office of Water's Water Licensing System (WLS) to extract details on each Approved license including any linked Water Access Licenses (WAL) if the Work was now under the Water Management Act (WMA). These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n.xls.

6. If found the linked WAL number is used to re-query using WLS to extract details on each linked WAL. These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n_WALs_volume.xls.

7. It should be noted that due to query size constraints in WLS the output files for each polygon area may be split into a number of subset files ("n" being the number of the subset).

8. The field headings are as per the WLS Extract report. They include some characters (e.g. "\") that may cause problems if loaded into ArcGIS. Not knowing how the data is to be used I have not amended them.

Understanding Licensing data

1. A Licensed Work Approval may have more than work (and therefore work location, i.e. point) associated with it. If the Licensed Work Approval is under the old Water Act it may have associated with it an "Entitlement" volume (if on a Regulated River) or an "Allocation" volume in an unregulated area. Please note that these volumes are for the whole licensed approval distributed amongst the related works but not against any particular one.

2. A Licensed Work Approval, if under the newer Water Management Act may have more than one linked WAL. Each WAL may have a "Share Component" volume associated with it. This will nee to be summed against each linked Licensed Work Approval to get the total WAL volume. Please note again that these volumes are for the whole licensed approval distributed amongst the related works but not against any particular one.

3. It is important to note that under the WMA it is possible for WALs not to have a linked Licensed Work Approval (to support Water Trading). This means a spatial select with not find these WALs and the volumes associated with them. The WAL is still related to a particular Water Source and can be re-associated with a different Licensed Work Approval at a later date.

This dataset has been provided to the BA Programme for use within the programme only. Third parties may request a copy of the data from DPI Water (previously known as the NSW Office of Water) at http://www.water.nsw.gov.au/.

Dataset History

This data was extracted from Office of Water's Water Licensing System (WLS) to extract details on each Approved license including any linked Water Access Licenses (WAL) if the Work was now under the Water Management Act (WMA). These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n.xls.

If found the linked WAL number is used to re-query using WLS to extract details on each linked WAL. These files end in *_WLS-EXTRACT_n_WALs_volume.xls.

Dataset Citation

WaterNSW (2013) NSW Office of Water Groundwater Licence Extract, North and South Sydney - Oct 2013. Bioregional Assessment Source Dataset. Viewed 13 March 2019, http://data.bioregionalassessments.gov.au/dataset/b48f941e-b557-411f-aebd-e3c463b60614.