In late 2010 the environmental water provisions of a number of river systems in south-west Western Australia were temporarily reduced in response to reduced rainfall, with the winter of 2010 being the driest on record.
Given that water availability is likely to decline in the future (based on predictions from climate modelling), a potential management option may be to link release volumes to the volume of water flowing into the dam (i.e. mimicking nonregulated flows). This option is likely to result in releases from Stirling Dam stopping during dry periods, given that the Harvey River upstream of the dam has experienced periods of no flow during the past 10 years.
