Water compliance
Your obligations as a water user
In order to take water from a prescribed water resource, a water licence or water account is required.
As the holder of a water licence/account, it is your responsibility to comply with the conditions of this approval and the requirements of the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 (and associated regulations), which include:
- not taking water in excess of the allocation endorsed on your water licence/account in any given water use year or accounting period
- if you have a meter, submitting your meter reading(s) on time
- ensuring your metering equipment is not faulty
- only taking water from the water sources listed on your water licence
- complying with any other conditions on your approval.
A water allocation is the total quantity of water permitted to be taken from a prescribed resource (e.g. groundwater, surface water). A water allocation is granted for a full water use year (which runs from 1 July – 30 June).
Compliance framework
The Department for Environment and Water is responsible for ensuring that water resource activities, including the taking and use of water, comply with South Australia's water legislation. Our compliance activities help protect water entitlements and detect and deter illegal activities, such as the unlawful take and use of water.
In order to detect non-compliant water use activities:
- All licensed water use must be metered and accounted for, with only low risk activities being exempt from metering. As a result, 93% of licensed water use is metered. Further information on metering is here.
- Meter readings are required to be submitted quarterly or annually; and compared to allocation to determine if water has been taken in excess of allocation.
- At least 10 % of licensed sites are visited each year through a targeted and proactive compliance monitoring program View the latest compliance report.
Where water users are found to be in breach of their legal obligations, we may undertake compliance action.
Mandatory penalties apply where water is taken in excess of, or without, an allocation – see below for further information regarding penalty rates. Further, expiations may apply for non-compliance with licence conditions, including if meter reads are not submitted on time. Under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 the current expiation fee is $1,102.
In the event that highly recalcitrant and/or repeated behaviour is detected, a range of additional compliance measures available under the Act, such as imposition of additional licence conditions and/or suspension or cancellation of the user’s licence or prosecution. A range of factors are used to determine if additional compliance measures are used which can be found here.
Useful links are provided below:
Penalties for taking water in excess of, or without, allocation
We recognise that the overwhelming majority of South Australia’s water users do the right thing by monitoring and managing their water use within their available allocation, supporting the sustainable use of our state’s water resources.
Unfortunately, a small number of water users take more water than they have been allocated. This behaviour reduces the security of supply for all other users, including the environment.
Under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 (the Act), water licence/account holders must remain within their available water allocation at all times. Penalties apply to any water taken without an authorisation or taken in excess of available allocation.
Penalties for unauthorised water use are a transparent and avoidable charge, issued in response to an offence being committed.
Penalty rates are calculated for each prescribed area with consideration for the market value of water and severity of the offence. These rates vary by prescribed area and act to deter the illegal take of water by ensuring penalty rates are set at a value that is considerably greater than the cost of purchasing water on the market.
Penalty rates are reviewed and published towards the end of the first half of the accounting period for which they apply and are published below.
In prescribed areas where annual penalties apply (that is, areas other than the River Murray Prescribed Watercourse), the accounting period is from 1 July to 30 June.
Quarterly accounting for the River Murray watercourse
For the River Murray Prescribed Watercourse, a quarterly accounting period applies. This means that a penalty charge applies if water is taken without authorisation or a water account holder is found to have taken water in excess of the allocation available on their water account at the end of each quarter – being 30 September, 31 December, 31 March and 30 June. This charge will apply even if any overuse (unauthorised take) from one quarter is balanced in a subsequent quarter (that is, the account is put back into credit).
Quarterly accounting was introduced to mitigate the risk of water being taken before it is allocated or purchased. This is important to protect other irrigators and water users, including the environment. It also ensures South Australia’s compliance with the Basin Plan sustainable diversion limits and avoids compromising water being delivered for environmental purposes by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.
The quarterly accounting periods that apply to the River Murray Prescribed Watercourse are:
- Quarter 1 accounting period: 1 July to 30 September
- Quarter 2 accounting period: 1 October to 31 December
- Quarter 3 accounting period: 1 January to 31 March
- Quarter 4 accounting period: 1 April to 30 June
Declared penalty rates
All areas except the River Murray
The penalty rates below apply for all prescribed water resource areas with an annual accounting period:
| Accounting period that the unauthorised water use occurred | Applicable penalty rates and link to official declaration |
|---|---|
| 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 | Annual 2024-25 penalty rates (see pages 5028 to 5030) |
| 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 | Annual 2023-24 penalty rates (see pages 4182 to 4184) |
| 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023 | Annual 2022-23 penalty rates (see pages 6974 to 6976) |
River Murray only
The penalty rates below apply for all unauthorised or unlawful take of water that occurred for the River Murray:
| Accounting Period that the unauthorised water take occurred | Applicable penalty rates and link to gazette notice |
|---|---|
| Quarter 4 2024-25 (1 April to 30 June 2025) | Quarter 4 penalty rates (pages 1233-1234) |
| Quarter 3 2024-25 (1 January to 31 March 2025) | Quarter 3 penalty rates (page 176 to 177) |
| Quarter 2 2024-25 (1 October to 31 December 2024) | Quarter 2 penalty rates (page 4199) |
| Quarter 1 2024-25 (1 July to 30 September 2024) | Quarter 1 penalty rates (page 2445) |
| Quarter 4 2023-24 (1 April to 30 June 2024) | Quarter 4 penalty rates (page 822) |
| Quarter 3 2023-24 (1 January to 31 March 2024) | Quarter 3 penalty rates (page 145) |
| Quarter 2 2023-24 (1 October to 31 December 2023) | Quarter 2 penalty rates (pages 3848 to 3849) |
| Quarter 1 2023–24 (1 July to 30 September 2023) | Quarter 1 penalty rates (pages 2997 to 2998) |
Compliance reporting
We report annually on water compliance and enforcement statistics and targeted water compliance monitoring operations:
- Water compliance activities (2023-24)
- Water compliance activities (2022-23)*
- Water compliance activities (2021-22)
- Water compliance activities (2020-21)
- Water compliance activities (2019–20)
- Water compliance activities (2018–19)
- Water compliance activities (2017–18)
- Water compliance activities (2016–17)
- Water compliance activities (2015–16)
- Water compliance activities (2014–15)
