What are water affecting activities (WAA)?
- Fact sheet
- August 2015
Water resources in the SA Murray-Darling Basin are precious and need to be managed sustainably. This includes our watercourses, lakes, dams, floodplains, groundwater, springs, wetlands, waterholes and catchment landscapes.
Water affecting activities must be managed to:
- protect our water-dependent ecosystems
- maintain water quality
- minimise impact on other water users.
Permits for water affecting activities
Some water affecting activities can have an adverse impact on the health and condition of water resources and need to be managed carefully, and may require a permit. These include, but are not limited to:
- the construction or enlargement of dams or structures to collect or divert water
- building structures, or obstructing, or depositing solid materials in a watercourse, lake or floodplain (eg depositing material for erosion control or construction of water crossings)
- excavating material from a watercourse, lake or floodplain (eg excavating or cleaning soaks, waterholes and on-stream dams)
- destroying vegetation in a watercourse, lake or floodplain (eg removal of reeds)
- draining or discharging water or brine into a watercourse or lake (eg desalination waste, stormwater including urban discharge, drainage and salinity control)
- drilling, deepening and backfilling wells, bores and groundwater access trenches
- the use of effluent or imported water for commercial activities (eg irrigation).
Duty of care
In South Australia all persons have a general statutory duty of care to act reasonably and responsibly in relation to the management of natural resources. This includes an obligation to maintain and not damage a watercourse, floodplain or lake.
More information
Refer to related links below for more information.