Groundwater
The Groundwater project, led by the University of New South Wales, has delivered six
long-term groundwater monitoring sites with multiple bores and installations at each site to
allow Australian groundwater resources to be evaluated against a background of continuing
climate variability and oncoming climate change.
The sites explore groundwater flow and solute transport processes in simple and complex
aquifer systems, interactions between groundwater and river systems, interactions between
groundwater, vegetation and climate, as well as social and policy dimensions to
groundwater systems. In addition, a groundwater database is being created for collation and
distribution of the data obtained from the groundwater monitoring equipment.
Key facts
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States: NSW, SA, NT, VIC.
Lead institute: University of NSW through the Connected Waters Initiative Research
Centre.
Partners: Flinders University, Australian National University, Monash University.
Project status: In progress.
Australian Government contribution:
o $15 million from the Education Investment Fund Super Science Initiative
o $488,250 from the Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme
o $350,000 from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy
2013 programme.
Project deliverables
Through the involvement in the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training,
the Groundwater project is directly contributing to the current and future needs of
government agencies involved in agriculture, water resources, town planning and
infrastructure.
Around 98 per cent of Australia’s freshwater resources are located in groundwater aquifers
and groundwater currently accounts for approximately 30 per cent of our total water
consumption.
The Groundwater project is monitoring groundwater levels and in some cases quality (i.e.
salinity) with hourly readings from each of the 45 sub-sites which generates real-time data
of high temporal resolution. These 1,100 daily readings form a globally unique system
focussing on climatic effects on Australian groundwater levels and quality. The ability to
predict and monitor groundwater levels is critical to proper management of groundwater
resources and ultimately maintaining a secure water supply for Australia’s population,
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supporting regional communities and underpinning water dependent industries such as
agriculture and mining. The vision is that the facilities and the ongoing monitoring will
create continuous time series of groundwater level and salinity data that are long enough
(several decades) to resolve the impact of varying climate on groundwater levels and thus
the resource.
Access
The time series data collected has been made freely and easily available to the research
community via the internet. Further, the Groundwater project facilities are available for
international collaboration and have so far secured European Union funding for a three year
post-doctoral fellow, several students and a couple of international academic visitors to
come to Australia to work on the sites.
Participating organisations and partners
 Long-term groundwater monitoring sites has been established at Wellington and
Namoi Valley (NSW), Willunga (SA), Ti Tree (NT) and the Upper Ovens Region (VIC).
 The Fowlers Gap site in NSW, operated by University of NSW, has now become part
of the programme representing groundwater research in the arid zone.
 The Australian National University operates the Groundwater database component
of the project.
Related links
The University of NSW leads the project through the Connected Waters Initiative Research
Centre.
For more information visit:
http://groundwater.anu.edu.au/
http://www.connectedwaters.unsw.edu.au/
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