Australia’s water industry was not missed in this week’s budget announcement.

The Federal Government unveiled a 10-year, $2 billion concessional loans scheme on Tuesday night, aimed at helping state and territory governments build dams, pipelines and make efforts to recharge aquifers.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said the funding will “catalyse new investment”, expanding the existing National Water Infrastructure Development Fund with the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Agriculture and Water Minister Barnaby Joyce says the loans will provide a “financial incentive to states to invest in, or cultivate partnerships with the private sector, to construct the vital water infrastructure required to support the growth of our regional economies”.

Some of the backers of big water projects in northern Australia say the scheme that is being expanded is already overly-bureaucratic, and does little to help private companies gain access.

Just last week, the National Audit Office slammed the existing concessional farm loans programs (administered by both the current government and its Labor predecessor), saying they are poorly designed, badly managed and have no evaluation process.

Many will be hoping the new National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility runs differently.

The $2 billion scheme will be centrally administered by the Commonwealth, loaning funds to state and territory governments, but not private sector proponents.

Government jurisdictions will propose their own projects, to be funded from a single national pool of money.

Even though the criteria for the loans have not been determined, the government still claims will be delivered by the start of the 2016-17 financial year.

In other water-related budget measures, the national natural resource management program has been granted $22.6 million over three years.

The budget contains $100 million for “mapping mineral, energy and groundwater potential in northern Australia and South Australia”.

It also includes another $9.5 million in Commonwealth grants for states to do feasibility work for new water projects.

But the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder faces an uncertain future, with funding for its operation reduced by 91 per cent from 2017-18 onwards (from $11.7 million in 2015-16 to $1.4 million in 2017-18).

Similarly the Murray-Darling Basin Authority faces uncertainty, with federal funding halved from 2017 (from $84.7 million in 2016-17 to $37.3 million in 2017-18).