On-Farm Water Storage Volume Estimates for the Murray-Darling Basin, 1987-Present

Monthly timeseries of estimated water volume for On-Farm Storages across five valleys in the northern Murray-Darling Basin from 1987 to the present. The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water produces these estimates using a two-step remote sensing approach combining satellite imagery and LiDAR-derived capacity curves. The dataset is updated monthly using the latest cloud-free satellite imagery.

Use Cases

• Monitor water availability for irrigation based on monthly estimated volume timeseries.
• Analyze long-term water storage trends based on the 1987-present record.
• Model agricultural water supply resilience based on regional water volume estimates.
• Assess the impact of climate variability and regulatory changes on farm water resources based on the described water scarcity context.

Strengths

• Timeseries spans from 1987 to the present, providing a long-term record.
• Estimates are derived from a described two-step remote sensing methodology using Landsat, Sentinel-2, and LiDAR data.
• Covers five specific valleys in the northern Murray-Darling Basin.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Collection Method

Water surface area calculated from multispectral satellite imagery (Landsat and Sentinel-2), with volume estimated using LiDAR-derived storage capacity curves.

Time Range

1987 to present

Freshness

Updated monthly; last metadata update was 2026-05-12.

Geography

Five valleys of the northern Murray-Darling Basin: Border River, Gwydir, Namoi, Macquarie-Castlereagh, and Barwon-Darling.