Earlier this year the Menindee Lakes, which supply the region's water, were dry after experiencing the longest period of no inflows in 100 years.

Despite flooding rains in the Darling River catchment over summer, the lakes are only at 31pc of capacity and there are concerns about the longevity of water supplies amid possible changing weather patterns and reduced rainfall.

Yesterday the Water Minister, Nathan Rees, announced $650,000 of funding for the second planning stage of the Darling River Water Savings Project.

One of the options is to split the biggest lake, Lake Menindee, with a levee 16 kilometres long, to reduce evaporation by decreasing the surface area.

The shallow lakes can lose more than 700 gigalitres a year to evaporation when full, but the Darling River Action Group says trying to reduce evaporation is a waste of money because upstream irrigators are taking so much water.

A recent CSIRO study found that in the Darling River basin 39pc of surface water was being diverted and the best estimate was that by 2030 climate change would reduce average surface water availability 8pc.

Today Federal and State government leaders will meet to complete details of delayed plans to assist water flows in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Proposals have also been developed to secure water supplies from Lithgow to Condobolin in the Central West, with an estimated $180 million "integrated piping and dam network" linking the main towns and the Cadia and Northparkes mines, and possibly other mining proposals such as the Copper Hill project near Molong.

Eighteen months ago the large Cadia mine entered a series of agreements to buy water off councils and farmers to enable it to stay in production.

It has enough water to continue production only until the end of this year.

Orange Council's general manager, Gary Styles, said: "The proposal involves building a network of pipelines linking the towns and cities, to provide a degree of water security.

"With the variable rainfall, some areas have had rain, and others haven't. So we also want to link it with Wyangala and Burrendong dams."

Demand for water from the mining industry is an issue at Broken Hill as well, where more than $400 million in projects planned to be built over the next few years, data from Broken Hill Council shows.