3.7.1.3 Potential impacts on water-dependent assets

The water-dependent asset register for the Maranoa-Balonne-Condamine subregion (Bioregional Assessment Programme, 2017; Mitchell et al., 2015) contains 2660 assets, such as bores, wetlands or heritage sites. Of the 2660 water-dependent assets nominated by the community, 2495 are very unlikely to be impacted because they experience less than 0.2 m drawdown due to additional coal resource development.

However, 130 water-dependent assets are subject to potential hydrological change due to additional coal resource development. This does not mean that these assets are definitely impacted – finer resolution models are required for that local-scale assessment of impact. At this stage, however, there is not compelling evidence to rule out impacts for the following water-dependent assets:

  • 115 of the 2215 ecological assets, including 41 ecosystems. This includes potential habitats of 4 threatened ecological communities and 18 species listed under the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act); an additional 6 endangered regional ecosystems and potential habitats of 11 species listed under Queensland’s Nature Conservation Act 1992; and 2 riparian vegetation assets.
  • 14 of the 310 economic assets, including one licensed surface water access right and 13 groundwater economic assets comprising 163 bores (7 water access rights and 6 basic water rights (stock and domestic)). Of these 163 bores, 17 to 30 are predicted to experience additional drawdown in excess of 5 m.
  • 1 of the 135 sociocultural assets, the Barakula State Forest, near Miles in Queensland, is located where drawdown in the regional watertable due to additional coal resource development exceeds 0.2 m with greater than 5% chance. It is very likely that 21 km2 (0.7% of the 3092 km2 forest) experiences more than 0.2 m of drawdown due to additional coal resource development.

Consultation with Traditional Owners in the Maranoa-Balonne-Condamine subregion identified an additional 56 Indigenous assets, which were included in the water-dependent asset register and used for the impact and risk analysis (Bioregional Assessment Programme, 2017). Of these, 35 are cultural values associated with animals and plants that do not have geographic location information, which means they cannot be specifically assessed for impacts due to additional coal resource development.

Last updated:
5 January 2018
Thumbnail of the Maranoa-Baloone-Condamine subregion

Product Finalisation date

2017
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