The pump or outlet location recorded in the Water Register where the amount of water taken by a person is measured or estimated.

A shortfall event is when there is not enough water in the river system to meet all entitlement holder’s demands at the time and location they want it.

When water is discharged from the storage when there is more water in supply than demand for water.

Spill allocation is the volume made available to customers in the Ovens and King systems while the storages in these systems are spilling.

In southern Victoria, spill is extra water that irrigators can receive on top of their normal high-reliability allocation, if their water storage overflows in spring.

For example, in the Macalister Irrigation District, any water that spills over the Glenmaggie Weir between 1 July and 15 December becomes spill entitlement.

The water must be ordered and taken through a metered outlet to be available as spill allocation to a high-reliability water share.

Southern Rural Water has a 62,000 ML cap per year as part of its bulk entitlement.

An announcement made by the resource manager that water is spilling from a dam, which has implications for the spillable water account.

This is different from a low risk of spill declaration.

In southern Victoria a spill declaration is an opportunity for irrigators to take water over and above their allocation annually (see spill entitlement).

In southern Victoria, spill is extra water that irrigators receive on top of their normal allocation, if their water storage overflows in spring.

For example, in the Macalister Irrigation District, any water that spills over the Glenmaggie Weir between 1 July and 15 December becomes spill entitlement.

The water must be ordered and taken through a metered outlet to be available as spill entitlement.

Southern Rural Water has a 62,000 ML cap per year as part of its bulk entitlement.

Water that is above entitlement volume and is quarantined in a spillable water account until the resource manager for northern Victoria declares a low risk of spill.

A feature of an allocation account where spillable water is recorded before the resource manager for northern Victoria declares a low risk of spill.

It keeps track of casual access to storage space, and the water that could spill as the storages in northern Victoria fill.

An agreement between a water corporation and a person giving an entitlement to water for defined period.

Supplies by agreement usually cover less reliable water sources, like drainage water, or areas where supply is not guaranteed.

Generally, sustainable diversion limits are the maximum long-term average quantities of water that can be taken each year for consumptive use from the Murray-Darling Basin’s water resources.

The Commonwealth Water Act (2007) requires that the limits reflect an environmentally sustainable level of take.

The final Murray-Darling Basin Plan agreed by all Basin States sets a sustainable diversion limit for each catchment and aquifer in the Basin, as well as an overall limit for the whole Basin.

In northern Victoria (the southern Basin) this means a sustainable diversion limit is the upper limit on the amount of surface water and groundwater that can be taken from for consumptive use within an unregulated river sub-catchment.

Sustainable diversion limits will operate from 2019 and will replace the current cap system in the southern Basin.

A group of people who hold an entitlement together, most commonly a works licence.

A take and use licence is either a fixed term or ongoing entitlement to take and use water from a waterway, catchment dam, spring, soak or aquifer.

Each licence has conditions set by the Minister for Water which are specified on the licence.

There are three types of transfer for a take and use licence. Permanent volume transfer and temporary volume transfer shift part or all of the volume from one licence to another.

Change of ownership changes the ownership of a licence without affecting its volume.

This is now called allocation trade in unbundled systems.

In bundled systems, this refers to trade of water from a take and use licence for a single year.

Zones which make it simpler to manage trade by defining the area where trade can occur and if there are any set conditions.

They set out the known supply source or management arrangements and the physical realities of relevant supply systems within the zone.

The trading zone that determines where the water share and allocation can be traded and where the allocation can be used.

The trading zone relating to the land defined on a water-use licence/ bundled entitlement.

Refers to the change of ownership of a water share. Can also be used to refer to either temporary or permanent trade of bundled entitlements.

A water share that was not formally associated with land under a water-use licence or registration. The concept of association was used to support the historical ‘10% non-water user limit’, a rule that was removed in 2009.

The concept of ‘associating’ a water share was formally removed from the Water Act 1989 in November 2023, and replaced with the new place of take approvals framework.

When the entitlement previously called a water right, or a take and use licence in a declared water system, is converted into three separate entitlements.

These are: a water share, a delivery entitlement (delivery share or extraction share), and a water-use licence.

This occurred for declared water systems on 1 July 2007 in northern Victoria and 1 July 2008 in southern Victoria.