Australian Water Management Review Vol 1 2010 | Page 16

Re-shaping water
resource management
in the Murray–Darling Basin
For the first time in Australia’s history
there is now a single body responsible for
overseeing water resource planning in the
Murray-Darling Basin.
This has come about through a number
of significant water reform decisions and
was motivated by the growing realisation
that the health of the Murray-Darling Basin
is in serious decline.
The Water Act 2007 (Water Act)
introduced key reforms for water
management in Australia. It established
the Murray-Darling Basin Authority
(MDBA) with the functions and powers,
including enforcement powers, needed
to ensure Basin water resources are
managed in an integrated and sustainable
way, and in the national interest.
The Water Act requires MDBA to prepare
the Basin Plan, a strategic plan for the
integrated and sustainable management
of water resources in the Basin.
The Basin Plan will set legal limits
(sustainable diversion limits) on the
amount of water that can be taken from
the Basin’s rivers and groundwater
systems. It will also include an
environmental watering plan to ensure
that enough water is allocated to the
environment for the maintenance of
ecosystems.
All signs are indicating that the new
sustainable diversion limits will be lower
than the current limit.

Water Management Review 2010

Why was water reform needed?

In less than a century, water extracted
from the Murray-Darling Basin has
increased five-fold, from 2,000 GL a year in
the 1920s to over 10,000 GL a year today.
A century of regulating the rivers for
transport and irrigation has also had an
impact by generally confining river flow
to within the banks and reducing the
frequency of flooding. The temporal
pattern of flows has also been altered with
peak flows now received in December to
February each year, compared to preregulation peak flows, which were usually
in spring.
The average inflows into the Murray have
shrunk from 24,000 GL a year to 1,300 GL
and the system continues to suffer from
the lowest three years of inflows in 108
years of records. The 2006-07 water year
was the driest on record with an historic
low inflow of 130 GL. This was followed in
2007-08 by the third driest, and in 2008-09
by the seventh driest years on record.
The continued drought, the impacts of
climate change and population growth
have added to the pressures on the river
systems and in 2002 the Murray stopped
flowing to the sea.
The first environmental report card on the
ecological health of the Murray-Darling
Basin, the Sustainable Rivers Audit (20042007) which covered 96,000 km of rivers
and streams, found long-term degradation
in most of the Basin’s valleys and that 20

At a glance
The Murray–Darling Basin
incorporates Australia’s
three longest rivers and
stretches from Queensland’s
channel country through
NSW to the Australian alps,
Victoria’s north-east and the
Riverina, and on into South
Australia’s Riverland and
the Coorong at the mouth
of the Murray. It contains
30,000 wetlands including
many internationally
significant sites.
The Basin covers an
area of over 1 million
square kilometres or 14%
of Australia and is home
to over 2 million people
with a further 1 million
people outside the Basin
relying on its water. There
are about 40 Aboriginal
nation groups in the Basin.
Export earnings are over $9
billion a year and the Basin
supports 39% of Australia’s
agricultural production,
worth $15 billion.