The Integrated Accounts for the Canberra Region are the result of a collaboration between the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
This joint publication presents water accounts for the Canberra region for the reference period 2013-14 to 2016-17, including accounts for:
- water assets and liabilities,
- the physical supply and use of water,
- the monetary supply and use of water,
- water condition/quality, and
- contextual information for understanding these accounts.
Detailed information can be found via the Data downloads section, datacubes (.xls files). The contents have also been published on the Bureau of Meteorology's website in html format http://www.bom.gov.au/water/nwa/2018/canberra-integrated-pilot/.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Bureau of Meteorology produce annual national water accounts, using different frameworks, for differing but complementary purposes.
The Bureau of Meteorology's National Water Account (NWA) focuses on the volume of water in the environment, its availability, the rights to abstract water and the actual abstraction over time. The ABS Water Account, Australia (WAA) focuses on flows of water from the environment to the water supply industry and other economic activities, the flows of water from the water supply industry to households and businesses, and the monetary values associated with water supplied and used in the economy.
This collaboration, resulting in an integrated set of water accounts for the Canberra region, is the first of its kind between these two government organisations. These pilot accounts combine the elements of both the NWA and the WAA, using the Australian Water Accounting Standard (AWAS) (WASB 2012) and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) frameworks (UN et al. 2014), to integrate these water accounts. It provides an excellent example of two government organisations working together to produce a valuable set of integrated environmental-economic accounts.
The integration of the ABS and BoM accounts will aid reporting and environmental management in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) by providing more integrated information, and builds on previous work by the ACT Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment (Smith et al. 2017).
The accounts are organised as follows:
- Key Findings: provides a quick overview of key facts and figures from the publication.
- Background: provides contextual information for understanding the accounts, including geographic features, land use, water resources and water systems.
- Statement of Water Assets and Water Liabilities: similar to a balance sheet, presents the volume of water assets and water liabilities at the start and end of each year (prepared according to the AWAS framework).
- Statement of Changes in Water Assets and Water Liabilities: similar to an income statement, presents the changes in water assets and water liabilities that occurred during the year, including both accrual transactions and actual water flows (prepared according to the AWAS framework).
- Water Asset Accounts: provide similar information to the previous two sets of statements, but with a different presentation (based on the SEEA framework) and further disaggregation.
- Water Use / Water in the Economy: presents the physical and monetary supply and use accounts, based on the SEEA framework; these accounts describe the water flows in physical units (ML) within the economy, and associated monetary data.
- Water Quality Accounts: present information on the health and condition of waterways across the Canberra region, based on the SEEA framework.
- Climate and Water: provides an overview of the climatic conditions and important water-related events during the reporting period.
- Water Markets: provides an overview of water entitlements, allocations, use and trade during the reporting period.
- Water Management: provides contextual information about the administrative and legal frameworks of water management in the Canberra region.
- Water Rights: provides contextual information about water rights in the Canberra region.
- Governance: provides a summary of water accounting frameworks and policies that have been used to prepare the integrated accounts.