DEECA uses data from the Victorian Water Register and other sources to produce the Victorian Water Accounts. The Accounts provide a year-by-year overview of water availability and use across Victoria at a bulk supply level. This includes a detailed water account for each of Victoria's 29 river basins and 20 groundwater catchments. Since 2003–04, we have published the Accounts each year in the form of a report.
Accounts for earlier years going back to 2003 remain available as PDFs on the Victorian Water Accounts website.
Groundwater is found in the spaces and fractures in rock and sediment beneath the ground’s surface.
Where groundwater is held within an aquifer it can be pumped to the surface for use.
This page reports on statewide groundwater use, entitlements and compliance and trade for 2021-22.
Groundwater information is reported in these accounts by groundwater catchments or groundwater management units (GMUs).
Local reports can be selected and viewed by either GMU or groundwater catchment via the groundwater local reports page.
There are 20 groundwater catchments, 8 in the north and 12 in the south.
Within groundwater catchments, there are smaller management units — groundwater management units (GMUs) — which are either water supply protection areas (WSPAs) or groundwater management areas (GMAs). Groundwater resources that are licensed and used outside a WSPA or GMA are reported as ‘outside management units’.
There are 55 GMUs, and of these there are 44 GMAs and 11 WSPAs.
More information:
Groundwater resources are explained in Water resources
Water management is detailed in How is water managed?
Groundwater accounting is detailed in How do we account for water?
