Water Information eXchange

The Water Information eXchange (WIX) introduces a major change in the way the NSW Government collects and provides information to better manage the state's water resources. It will provide a consistent, statewide approach that will support the implementation of water sharing plans by providing more detailed and timely data and information.

WIX will offer water access licence holders a simple and fast way to provide information such as meter readings, water orders, gauge readings and crop statistics directly to the corporate database thus making additional and more timely information available.

In addition, farmers will also have ready access to more comprehensive and up to date information on pumping conditions, water account details such as balances, gauging information and customer profile.

WIX is a NSW Government initiative and jointly funded by the NSW Department of Water & Energy (DWE) and State Water, and is supported by NSW Farmers Association and the NSW Irrigators Council. Initially WIX will concentrate on implementing Regulated River Systems under the Water Management Act 2000 with the primary focus being internet access. As the system moves forward for Unregulated Rivers and Groundwater additional communication protocols will be introduced.

The WIX project aims to:

• Deliver timely and relevant water information to customers and staff via internet, phone, SMS, fax and e-mail.
• Meet the information and data transfer requirement needs of DWE and State Water customers.
• Provide unregulated river daily pumping conditions via phone, Internet, SMS, e-mail, to access licence holders, as required under the Water Sharing Plans.
• Provide a mechanism for data entry into the corporate database by both DWE and State Water staff and their customers via internet, phone and SMS.
• Provide secure access and appropriate protocols to be used in data entry and extraction to and from the corporate database.

Proposed Timetable

WIX is expected to introduce a pilot internet site in early 2008 for Regulated Rivers. It is expected that other regulated river valleys will progressively be rolled out throughout 2008. Once finalised for regulated rivers WIX will be progressed in the groundwater and unregulated systems later in 2008.