Shared water challenges

We are working together on water challenges in the regions where we operate.

wetlands

We released our Water Stewardship Position Statement in FY2019, which outlines BHP’s vision for a water secure world by 2030, an aim consistent with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Water is a shared resource that connects our operations with communities, Indigenous peoples, ecosystems and other water users. The availability, quality and governance of water vary significantly by location, and water challenges are often best understood and addressed at a catchment scale. 

In our Water Stewardship Position Statement, we commit to set public, context-based business-level water targets that aim to improve our management of water and support shared approaches to water management within the regions where we operate. These targets are informed by our internal catchment risk assessments and Water Resource Situational Analyses (WRSAs). 

What is a Water Resource Situational Analysis (WRSA)? 

A Water Resource Situational Analysis is an independent, catchment-scale assessment of shared water challenges in the regions where BHP operates.  

Each WRSA is prepared by an independent third party using publicly available information and stakeholder input to describe the sustainability of water resources, governance arrangements, and the social, cultural, environmental and economic values of water within a defined catchment. 

WRSAs identify shared water challenges, their root causes, and opportunities for collective action. They are public‑facing documents and are enabled by, but undertaken independently from, BHP. Outcomes of WRSAs, alongside internal catchment risk assessments, inform the development of our context‑based water targets and actions to improve water stewardship. 

The WRSA approach

The WRSA process is led by an independent third party with experience in water governance, social research and stakeholder engagement. It typically includes: 

  • Desktop analysis of public information on water availability, use, governance and environmental conditions, including climate change projections 
  • Consideration of social, cultural and economic factors, including community water access and water dependent ecosystems 
  • Voluntary engagement with stakeholders to validate challenges, understand root causes and identify opportunities for collaboration 

Stakeholder participation is voluntary and engagement is conducted independently of BHP’s other stakeholder engagement processes. 

Indigenous peoples and water 

We recognise that current WRSAs may not fully reflect the culturally intrinsic relationships Indigenous peoples have with water, including connections to cultural heritage, traditions and lore. 

In a manner consistent with BHP’s Indigenous Peoples Policy Statement, we are working to strengthen how we engage with Indigenous peoples on matters of water and the broader environment in the regions where we operate. Consistent and meaningful dialogue will help to improve our understanding of Indigenous values for water and support opportunities to work together, including to co‑design environmental management approaches that respect Indigenous rights, interests and custodianship. 

We aim to build long‑term, shared understanding approaches for engagement and seek opportunities to support Indigenous groups to collect, store and share their water and environmental knowledge.  

Understanding catchment risks

In addition to WRSAs, our operated assets are required to identify and assess environment-related risks, including water-related risks at a catchment scale. This helps inform our understanding of the water-related risks and opportunities associated with our operations.  

These assessments consider catchment-scale water-related risks and opportunities associated with our operations and the wider catchment, and help inform risk management actions. Together with WRSAs, these risk assessments support our approach to setting our context-based water targets (CBWTs). This combined approach helps ensure our targets respond both to shared catchment-level challenges identified by stakeholders and to asset-specific risks within our control. 

For more information on how we manage water‑related risks, refer to our Nature and Environmental Performance webpage. 

Context-based water targets 

Targets that aim to address the shared challenges and opportunities within the catchments where we operate. 

Context-based water targets (CBWTs) aim to help address the water challenges shared by BHP and other stakeholders in the regions where we operate. They are informed by WRSAs, internal catchment risk assessments and stakeholder engagement, and reflect both shared catchment priorities and asset-specific risks within our control. 

Our CBWTs include:  

  • actions to address our own operational water performance 
  • actions intended to deliver collective benefit for catchments, communities and Indigenous peoples

The targets recognise that water challenges vary by location due to physical, social and cultural differences. For example, in regions where our water supply is predominantly sourced from desalinated sea water, marine protection and water‑use efficiency are key considerations, while in other regions water availability, quality or ecosystem health may be more material challenges. 

We released our first suite of asset-level CBWTs in FY2023 and have developed CBWTs for our operating assets, which are designed to apply through to FY2030 and include milestones that track progress towards the longer-term outcomes. Milestones are intended to provide transparency on progress and support accountability over time. 

We may release additional or updated targets in the future where appropriate to reflect changes in operating context, environmental conditions, stakeholder priorities or asset portfolio configuration. 

While quantitative targets are preferred where practicable, some actions, particularly those intended for collective benefit or involving complex, water-dependent ecosystems, may require building shared understanding before measurable outcomes can be defined. We will continue to review the relevance of CBWTs and associated milestones as collective understanding of catchments grows and internal and external contexts evolve. 

Progress on the CBWTs and milestones is described in the BHP Annual Report 2026, Operating and Financial Review 9.9 – Nature and environmental performance, and BHP ESG Standards and Databook 2026. For information on performance in previous years, refer to the past reports section of the BHP Annual Report webpage.   

BMA
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Context

The Water Resources Situational Analysis (WRSA) for the Central Queensland region describes the hydrological setting for the region and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. 

Targets

Footnote

1 Some water allocations at BMA are not made available for sale ‘in year’ and are retained for strategic contingency purposes as ‘carry over’. Unutilised ‘carry over’ is subject to ongoing assessment throughout the year as to what can be made available. At 30 June, any unused ‘carry over’ amounts are incorporated into the following financial years ‘in year’ water for the total river scheme’s announced allocations by the Resource Operator. 

Why these targets

BMA operates five metallurgical coal mines in the Fitzroy Basin in the Central Queensland region. The Fitzroy Basin is the second largest seaward draining basin in Australia. The river flows through the lands of 17 Indigenous groups, supports major agricultural and mineral activity and flows into the southern Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The Fitzroy Partnership for River Health, which brings together government, industry, and research representatives, provides an important platform for shared understanding (including via an annual ecosystem health report card) and collaboration. 

The WRSA recognised the lack of water for economic and social wellbeing and the need to support ecosystems as a key challenge shared by stakeholders in the region. We will implement initiatives to our water distribution and coal processing facilities so that we can make more use of mine-affected water, reduce our take of regional water supplies, and improve our water efficiency. This will mean we use less water for each tonne of product produced. As our water supply is dependent on rainfall, significantly less rainfall than median conditions may impact our ability to reduce operational water sourced from water allocations. 

The internal improvement measures will allow us to return some of our allocated water each year so that others in the region can use it, supporting our commitment to improve access to water. 

The FY2024 baseline upon which the FY2030 CBWT milestone is based has been reset to remove Blackwater and Daunia. 

Progress on target implementation

BMA’s FY2024 short-term milestone was achieved in FY2024 and again in FY2025. 3.05 GL of water allocations was traded on the temporary water trading market in FY2024, and a further 4 GL traded in FY2025. 

Context

The Water Resource Situational Analyses (WRSAs) for the High Andes of the Tarapaca and Antofagasta region and the coastal zones of Bahia de Mejillones and Bahia San Jorge, all in northern Chile, describe the hydrological setting for these regions, and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. We added an addendum to our Andean aquifers and San Jorge Bay WRSAs in FY2025 after stakeholder consultations were initially delayed due to social unrest in Chile. This addendum, which reflects the participation of various actors, presents the updated shared challenges and opportunities for collective action for the Altoandina macrozone in the Tarapacá and Antofagasta regions and for San Jorge Bay, all in northern Chile.  

Targets

 

Why these targets

Escondida and Pampa Norte (which includes the Spence and Cerro Colorado mines) have three copper mines in the arid Andes of northern Chile, and ports and desalination facilities in the coastal zone that lies west of the mines. Cerro Colorado entered temporary care and maintenance in December 2023. 

We aim to remove our operational reliance on groundwater from arid areas and support the recovery of wetlands impacted by groundwater withdrawal. Since 2015, we have reduced and ultimately ceased our withdrawal of groundwater for operational use by Escondida1 and it is now supplied by desalinated ocean water that is generated using renewable energy. Spence will replace water supplied from groundwater with water from coastal desalination by FY2028.  

The use of desalinated ocean water is growing in northern Chile and there are now more than 20 major desalination plants along this coastline. Desalination facilities are not known to have broad regional effects but the cumulative effects of this rapid growth on marine ecosystems are not yet clear. Target 2 will minimise BHP’s use of marine water and contribution to the cumulative effects.      

Both WRSAs identified that the environmental threats and resilience of the high Andes and coastal marine regions need to be understood better. We will continue to research the water and ecosystems in these regions and will share our knowledge on these and the effectiveness of management methods where it may contribute to the health of these natural systems. 

Progress on target implementation

Pampa Norte’s FY2024 milestone was achieved in FY2024 and again in FY2025. 

Cerro Colorado ceased extracting water from the Lagunillas borefield for operational use in December 2023. Some extraction was maintained to support replenishment of the Lagunillas wetland, which has continued in FY2025, with approximately 625 ML extracted and reinjected. 

A small amount of terrestrial water (~22 ML during FY2025 or approximately 60 kL per day) has been supplied to the Cerro Colorado site for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene purposes by a local water utility since Cerro Colorado entered temporary care and maintenance in December 2023.  

Footnotes:

1 Small quantities of groundwater are extracted for pit dewatering and to recover seepage from tailings, to enable safe mining and support environmental control. This water is used for operational consumption.

Context

The Northern Goldfields Water Resources Situational Analysis (WRSA) describes the hydrological setting for the region and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. 

Targets

Why these targets

Western Australia Nickel (WAN) includes two nickel mines in the Northern Goldfields region of Western Australia. The region is semi-arid and characterised by low vegetation and extensive salt lakes. Some 11.5 per cent of the permanent population are Indigenous peoples who maintain strong cultural connections to the waters of their country. Mining is the main industry in this area. 

The WRSA identified water resource sustainability and the appropriate use of the variable water qualities in the Northern Goldfields as key shared challenges. The WRSA also recognised that a framework for Indigenous people, industry, government and other stakeholders to co-manage water resources was a key step to address the future challenges. This framing informed the selection of the original target and milestones associated with the ‘action for collective benefit’, with BHP working with regional stakeholders to build the knowledge base of water resources.  

Since the release of the WAN CBWT and associated milestones, the Tjiwarl Aboriginal Corporation (AC) has established a Northern Goldfields catchment regional water working group. The Tijwarl AC has also entered into an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the Western Australian Government, which includes the establishment of the Tjiwarl Water Study and Tjiwarl Water Plan. WAN transitioned into temporary suspension in December 2024. We intend to review our FY2030 context-based water target following the outcome of the review of the decision to temporarily suspend WAN, which is expected by February 2027. 

Progress on target implementation

The intent of WAN’s FY2024 short-term milestone was achieved in FY2025. BHP WAN representatives participated in, rather than facilitated the establishment of, the Northern Goldfields catchment regional water working group, which was established by the Tijwarl Aboriginal Corporation (AC). The first meeting that BHP participated in was held in February 2025. Following the changes in internal and external context outlined above, and to continue to meet the intent of the FY2024 milestone, WAN intends to contribute data to the Tjiwarl AC to inform the Tjiwarl Water Study.  

Context

The Water Resources Situational Analysis (WRSA) for the Central and Northern Arid Lands of South Australia describes the hydrological setting for the region and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. 

Targets

Why these targets

Copper South Australia operates Olympic Dam, a copper mine and processing facility in the Arid Lands region of South Australia. The only permanent waters in the Arid Lands are groundwater from the Great Artesian Basin aquifer (GAB) and the mound springs (named for mineral deposits around their mounts) formed by seeping groundwater. Broad lakes also form temporarily after occasional large rainfall events. Several Indigenous groups maintain their enduring connection to the lands and waters of the region. Pastoralism, mining and petroleum extraction are the main industries.  

Target 2 states that we will contribute to the understanding and direct protection of the mound spring ecosystems in our own landholdings and more broadly. Helping others with these key activities is an important opportunity for collective action recognised in the WRSA. 

In FY2025, BHP reviewed the suitability of the existing Olympic Dam WRSA and CBWTs for their applicability to the broader Copper South Australia asset. The incorporation of Carrapatena and Prominent Hill has not introduced new material water-related risks into our Copper South Australia asset. Therefore, it has been determined that the focus of this asset’s CBWTs will remain on the Great Artesian Basin and the existing Olympic Dam WRSA and CBWT are appropriate to apply to the broader Copper South Australia asset. 

Progress on target implementation

Copper South Australia’s FY2024 short-term milestone was achieved in FY2024 and again in FY2025. Daily abstraction from Wellfield A remained below 5 ML/d throughout FY2024 and FY2025. 

Copper South Australia’s FY2025 milestone was also achieved. Protection on BHP pastoral lease includes stock-proof fencing, feral animal and weed inspections and control programs. Fencing activities included completion of fencing at the Gosse and Emerald Significant Environment Benefit areas, and the active spring within Jacob Springs group. 

BHP contributed A$300,000 to the off-lease Lake Eyre Basin Riparian Vegetation and Springs Project, a partnership with the South Australian Arid Lands Landscape Board. 

Context

The Pilbara Water Resources Situational Analysis (WRSA) describes the hydrological setting for the Pilbara region and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. 

Targets

Why these targets

Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO) is an integrated system of four processing hubs and five mining hubs, connected by a rail system and port facilities in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Wherever WAIO operates in the Pilbara, it does so on the traditional lands and waters of Indigenous peoples. The Pilbara has seen considerable growth in resource development activity, which includes a large increase in groundwater abstraction for mine dewatering – a key challenge identified by the Pilbara WRSA. BHP will aim to minimise our effect on the groundwater resource by prioritising at least half of WAIO surplus water to be used beneficially, for example, by returning it to nearby groundwater aquifers. This will involve the building and operation of large water distribution networks and Managed Aquifer Recharge borefields, subject to required external approvals. 

The Pilbara WRSA also revealed that stakeholders recognise shared access to the data held across many water-involved organisations in the Pilbara is a vital step for sustainable water resource management. We will work with interested groups to develop a data sharing platform that supports broader collaboration for developing a shared understanding of current and emerging water catchment challenges and solutions. 

Progress on target implementation

WAIO’s FY2024 short-term milestone was achieved, following the initiation of a collaborative scoping study for a regional water data sharing solution. BHP funding has been committed to support shared environmental analytics incorporating a catchment scale integrated groundwater database in the Pilbara and the associated FY2026 ‘Action for collective benefit’ target and milestone are on track. 

WAIO's short-term milestones tied to the ‘Action to improve BHP's water performance’ target are tracking behind schedule due to delays experienced in preparing for and submitting external approvals. Nonetheless, achieving the FY2030 target remains on track, mostly due to optimisation of the current surplus water schemes and actual dewatering volumes being below those estimated based on predicted modelling that was reasonably conservative at the time the targets were set.  

Context

The Hunter Region Water Resource Situational Analysis (WRSA) describes the hydrological setting for the Hunter River catchment and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. 

Targets

Why these targets

New South Wales Energy Coal (NSWEC) operates the Mt Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia. The mine is nearing the end of its life and BHP has announced it will close in 2030.   

The Hunter River catchment is the largest in New South Wales and includes a complex network of rivers, streams, wetlands and extensive groundwater systems. Flows in the catchment have been highly modified by human activity, including several dams installed for water supply, flood mitigation and power generation. The catchment supports important ecological features and processes, including the Ramsar-listed Hunter Estuary Wetland at the mouth of the Hunter River (120 kilometres downstream of Mt Arthur). 

The CBWT for NSWEC is informed by the state of mining and by a key finding of the Hunter River WRSA that the poor condition of riverbed, riverbank and riparian vegetation along the Hunter River is seen by stakeholders as a critical water-related challenge. We will determine priority areas along a 10 kilometre stretch of the Hunter River and complete targeted restoration to help improve ecosystem connectivity and stabilise creek banks and riparian zones along the river. 

Context

The Cobre Valley Watershed Action Plan describes the hydrological setting for the Cobre Valley catchment and the shared water challenges and opportunities recognised by people of the region. This report was not financially supported by BHP but had similar objectives to the WRSAs supported by BHP in other areas. 

Targets

Why these targets

Legacy assets manages 21 non-operating sites across four states in the United States and four provinces in Canada. These sites were acquired through mergers and acquisitions and mostly focused on the production of copper, zinc, uranium, tin and gold. Most of these sites finished production decades ago.

This CBWT focuses on the Globe-Miami area of Arizona where there is a long history of mining, beginning in the 19th century and continuing to this day. Legacy assets manages four closed sites in this area: Miami Unit, Copper Cities, Old Dominion and Solitude. A key management activity is the ongoing diversion, storage, movement and treatment of water to maintain the quality and quantity of regional water resources. 

The CBWT was informed by stakeholder priorities identified in the Cobre Valley Watershed Action Plan, a 2022 report by the Cobre Valley Watershed Partnership which was not financially supported by BHP but had similar objectives to the WRSAs supported by BHP in other areas. 

Legacy assets will increase the amount of water diverted around disturbed areas and improve design of water storage/management infrastructure, allowing it to flow directly to creeks and washes downstream of the sites. This water would otherwise be captured for treatment and some would be lost to evaporation or seepage. The progressive reduction of the mining footprint, in this case through its effects on water, helps closed sites to become more stable. 

Footnotes for all tabs:

All targets and milestones refer to the end of the quoted year. FY refers to the Australian financial year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June.

All baselines are subject to adjustment for any material acquisitions and divestments, and to reflect progressive refinement of relevant methodologies, for example in water reporting.

Surplus water is groundwater abstraction to allow mining below the water table that is surplus to operational water use requirements.

Beneficial use is water used in ways that contribute to environmental resilience, social benefit or economic growth. For example, water returned to aquifers to reduce pressure on regional groundwater resources; or transfer of surplus water to another operational use to avoid or reduce the need for additional natural water resources.

Threatened ecological communities are those nationally listed threatened ecological communities determined by the process under the Australian Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.