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South Australian Private Carryover

What is private carryover?

Private carryover is a drought management measure that allows water to be stored in one year and used in the next. It provides insurance to boost allocations by increasing the volume of water available to water users by up to 20 percent at the beginning of a water year.

Access to carryover is not always available – it is made available when the projected minimum opening water allocation, announced in April each year, is 50 percent or less.

Private carryover provides additional flexibility to water users by allowing for some unused water allocation at the end of one water year to be granted for use in a following dry water year.

An individual’s allocation in a water year cannot exceed 100 percent (total of allocations against entitlement and carryover). This is to ensure that South Australia complies with its Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL) in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and doesn’t use a higher volume than is allowed to be taken from the River Murray in a water year.

Private carryover in 2023-24

In accordance with the Water Allocation Plan for the South Australian River Murray Prescribed Watercourse, access to private carryover is only available to eligible users when the projected minimum opening irrigation allocation is 50% or less.

As the worst case projected minimum opening allocation for 2023-24 is 100% private carryover will NOT be available in the 2023-24 water year.

Private carryover in 2022–23

As the worst case projected minimum opening allocation for 2022–23 was 100% private carryover was not available in the 2022–23 water year.

Private carryover in 2021–22

As the worst case projected minimum opening allocation for 2021–22 was 82% private carryover was not available the 2021–22 water year.

Private carryover in 2020–21

Private carryover was made available for eligible water users in the 2020–21 water year. Entitlement holders were able to carry over their unused 2019–20 allocations, up to 20% of the volume of their Class 3 (High Security) entitlement.