Seasonal determinations in both the Murray and Broken water storages rose according to the latest update from the resource manager for northern Victoria Mark Bailey.

In the Murray system, high-reliability water shares (HRWS) increased to 94%, up from 89% in a previous update. In the Broken system, seasonal determinations lifted to 34% HRWS, up from 31%. The Campaspe system has 100% HRWS, and low-reliability water shares (LRWS) rose from 25% to 33%. In the Goulburn, Loddon and Bullarook systems seasonal determinations remain unchanged.

Resource manager Mark Bailey said increases in the Broken, Murray and Campaspe systems were due to a combination of higher inflows and lower evaporation from storages than expected. This has left more water available to allocate. Bailey said flows into major storages are tracking between the dry and extreme dry inflow scenarios in the outlook.

Dry conditions have led to higher demand in northern Victoria with Goulburn-Murray Water (GM-W) already delivering more than 250,000ML of water to irrigators. This compares to 83,600ML delivered at the same point in the past five seasons. 

GM-W river operations manager Andrew Shields said outflows to meet downstream demand for irrigation and environmental water were much higher than flows into dams.