Australian and New Zealand guidelines for fresh and marine water quality

The Water Quality Guidelines provide authoritative guidance on the management of water quality for natural and semi-natural water resources in Australia and New Zealand.​

The 2018 revision of the Water Quality Guidelines is presented as an online platform, to improve usability and facilitate updates as new information becomes available.

Access the Water Quality Guidelines.​

Significant improvements since the ANZECC & ARMCANZ (2000) guidelines include:

• an updated and expanded Water Quality Management Framework
• step-by-step guidance on typical applications of the Water Quality Management Framework
• strong emphasis on building conceptual models of water systems to demonstrate current understanding
• introduction of a weight-of-evidence process
• new and revised toxicant default guideline values
• revised method for deriving toxicant default guideline values
• new physical and chemical stressor guidance and default guidelines values for more regions
• improved information and guidance for cultural and spiritual values.