Groundwater Regulation, Compliance and Enforcement: Insights on Regulators, Regulated Actors and Frameworks in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

Compliance and enforcement is a major issue for groundwater management. Yet it remains untheorised and underexamined. This chapter drills down into Australian compliance and enforcement efforts, which have been on a significant reform journey over the last two decades, oscillating between being an under resourced, low priority water reform task, to taking primacy within national and state water reform frameworks. The chapter begins by developing an analytical framework for studying groundwater compliance and enforcement. Using a case study of the state of New South Wales, the chapter examines the experiences of a government regulator and the compliance and enforcement experiences of water users. It concludes with a summary of challenges and policy implications for groundwater compliance and enforcement regimes.