Assessing demands for irrigation water in North Queensland

Irrigation underpins approximately one-third of the value of Queensland's agricultural production. There have been calls for further development of water infrastructure in northern Queensland to enhance the production of sugar cane, horticulture, aquaculture and other crops. One of the steps in assessing potential new developments is to establish which groups have demands for additional water, and how sensitive they are to price. Surveys are one mechanism that can be used to gauge this information. Surveys to assess water demands have been carried out in the Mackay and Atherton Tablelands regions and the results are reported in this paper.