WaterTight

The WaterTight 2032 Project is an education and awareness program. Its role is to optimise on-ground behaviour change and assist in the delivery of outcomes that contribute to achieving the intent of making the GAB watertight by September 2032 as set out in the GABORA Plan. The program will run from 2022 through to 2024.

The purpose of the project is to:

• Develop or build on existing relationships with landholders within the GABORA Plan area.
• Identifying specific GAB landholders and connecting them with incentives and programs designed to help them achieve a watertight property, including providing assistance to apply for these programs. 
• Raise awareness among landholders of their responsibility under the GABORA Plan to be watertight by September 2032, including the completion of the required Bore Management Statements, either as part of the IGABDR application package or as a requirement of section 34 of the GABORA Plan.
• Inform landholders that post-September 2032, RDMW will be obligated to move into a more compliance focused role and action may be taken against those who have not achieved a watertight state for their bores.
• Increase awareness among all GAB landholders of their responsibility to inform RDMW should a cease–to-flow bore recommence flowing, and their obligation to rehabilitate these bores beyond 2032.
• Advise all GAB landholders of the watertight status of the infrastructure they own, their responsibilities, and the importance of their care and maintenance program.
• Be sensitive to and inclusive of traditional owners and any issues they have with the use of GAB water or the protection of sensitive locations of cultural significance.
• Increase understanding among GAB landholders and across the Basin community more broadly, of the positive impacts of capping and piping, sustainable water usage and the need for efficient GAB groundwater management.
• Collect material and obtain consent for the use of this material as case studies on WaterTight activities in Queensland, including photographs, interviews and/or videos, for promoting the positive impacts of sustainable groundwater management.
• Report back to the State, and Commonwealth Government (via the State) on milestone achievements of the WaterTight 2032 Program and how these contribute to implementation of the GABORA Plan and the national GAB Strategic Management Plan 2019.

The WaterTight Program is co-funded by the Queensland Government’s Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water and the Australian Government under the Improving Great Artesian Basin Drought Resilience Program and is delivered in partnership with Desert Channels Group.