The NSW government has released a draft strategy to protect groundwater. 

Several New South Wales towns face the prospect of running out of water during drought times.

The state’s Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) has released a plan to try to protect these communities from reaching so-called “day zero”.

The Draft NSW Groundwater Strategy starts by acknowledging that the precious resource has been exploited. 

The document warns that 54 of the state's groundwater sources are “fully committed”, so there are no more licences available.

Additionally, 24 sources have been oversubscribed, meaning the number of licences issued “significantly” exceeds the extraction limit. 

“The water act that was in place prior to around 2000 really focused on making water available for commercial and town water supply needs without an enormous consideration of the environment,” says Mark Simons from the DPIE. 

The document warns that groundwater demand will rise by almost 300 per cent over the next 20 years. 

Currently, over 250 communities and almost 300,000 residents either partially or fully depend on groundwater.

“As a result of increasing population, and the need to provide food for the nation as well as that, we have the potential impacts of climate change [to consider],” Mr Simons said.

The experts predict that agriculture’s reliance on groundwater will rise by more than 20 per cent over the next two decades, while mining and extractive industries will use 13 per cent more over that period, despite a predicted decline in thermal coal production. 

Mr Simons says there is clearly a lot of demand. 

“We have some parts of the state where our groundwater resources are already heavily utilised and we will be maintaining that level of take, but there are also a number of systems across the state where usage is substantially less as a sustainable level,” he said. 

The NSW Government says it wants to re-define the sustainable use of groundwater, reviewing extraction limits and reducing the impact of large infrastructure projects on aquifers. 

“Where we know aquifers are vulnerable to pollution, high risk activities should be carefully managed or phased out, or even precluded in some circumstances,” the draft strategy states. 

“There does come a time at which we need to say we need to put limits on these kind of industries to make sure they're not having undue impacts on the groundwater systems and the groundwater processes,” Mr Simons said. 

Another concern is that the groundwater system's ability to replenish itself is at risk due to climate change. 

Underground aquifers are topped up by rainfall and surface water sources like rivers, creeks, and floods soaking into the ground, but the draft strategy warns that projected recharge will decrease by 15 per cent on average by 2060.