Land and water > Water management > Water affecting activities

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Water affecting activities

Water resources on Kangaroo Island are precious and need to be managed sustainably. This includes watercourses, dams and catchment landscapes.

Some activities can have adverse impacts on the health and condition of water resources and the ecosystems that depend on them, as well as on other water users. These water affecting activities include:

• constructing or enlarging dams, drains or other structures that collect or divert water
• placing/depositing solid materials in a watercourse (e.g. buildings, erosion control, constructing water crossings or dumping materials)
• excavating material from a watercourse (e.g. excavating or cleaning soaks, waterholes and on-stream dams)
• destroying vegetation in or near a watercourse (e.g. removal of reeds, riparian vegetation)
• drilling, deepening and back filling wells and bores.

Permits for water affecting activities

Water affecting activities need to be managed carefully and require a permit. Please download the relevant form below, complete and send with the permit fee to:
Water Resources Officer
Natural Resources Centre
37 Dauncey Street
Kingscote  SA  5223

• Application for permit for a water affecting activity: respect of a watercourse, floodplain of a watercourse, lake or bank of a lake
• Water affecting activity permit application form - dams, water collection and diversion

Water affecting activities policy

Download your copy of the Kangaroo Island Water Resources Management Policy: Water Affecting Activities

Download your copy of Attachment 1 of the Kangaroo Island Water Resources Management Policy: Water Affecting Activities

The KI Water Resources Management Policy: Water Affecting Activities (WAA Policy), including Attachment 1 and the Natural Resources Management Act 2004, describes what is considered by the NRM Board or DEWNR when determining whether a WAA permit is required, if a WAA permit will be granted or refused and conditions that may be placed on a permit.

Attachment 1 contains data and information referred to within the WAA policy that are location-specific or are subject to change, including:

• catchment/sub-catchment:

  • names

  • boundaries

  • mean annual rainfall

  • surface water yields

  • water deemed taken

  • water take limits

  • water available for development and status

  • percentage of land cleared

  • area under commercial forestry

  • sum of dam capacities

  • threshold flow rates for calculating low flow bypass design specification

  • minimum dam catchment area for the fitting of a low flow bypass

• stream orders

• references to supporting information

Attachment 1 will be updated as required to allow public access to the most recent data and information used by the NRM Board or DEWNR related to the assessment of WAA Permits and Development Applications.

Related links

• Water Management on Kangaroo Island FAQs