Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Its Future Management
Volume 1 in Ecohydrology from Catchment to Coast
2021, Pages 389-429
Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Chapter 18 - The way forward: Continuing policy and management reforms in the Murray–Darling Basin

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Abstract

The major water resource policy and management reforms that have occurred in Australia's Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) over the past 30 years have made a good start to ensuring the MDB is a healthy and sustainable working Basin into the future. This is particularly true of the Basin Plan and the $A13 billion being invested to recover water for the environment. Many emerging and major challenges remain to achieving this goal over the next 30 years, to 2050 and beyond, particularly given an increased frequency of drought and the hotter and dryer future climate the Basin is facing.

In this chapter, we identify and discuss six desirable changes to the current Basin Plan, including further adjustments to sustainable diversion limits (SDL) and revisions to environmental objectives related to the Basin Plan because of climate change; addressing emerging water quality issues; improving environmental water management; strengthening the links with management of the Lower Lakes, Coorong and the coastal zone; improving monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management; and strengthening compliance arrangements. The scheduled 2026 review of the Basin Plan provides the opportunity to implement these changes at the Basin scale.

Additionally, we have also identified three further reforms aimed to achieve a more integrated Basin Plan, including implementation of effective integrated catchment management; ongoing engagement of all stakeholders—including rural and regional communities, Aboriginal people, and irrigation industries—in well-designed, independent processes of deliberative decision-making and policy codesign; and effective integration of water policy development with linked policy areas, including climate change adaptation, regional development, and agricultural transitions. We proposed three key elements required for this integration process to be successful:

  • Vision—A clear statement of why an integrated approach to managing the Basin would be beneficial.

  • Better decision-making processes—The vision and a ‘road map’ for implementing the integration could be developed via an initial independently convened deliberative process involving all stakeholders and state and Commonwealth government representatives.

  • Leadership from state and Commonwealth ministers (e.g. water, agriculture, environment, and regional development) to provide an appropriate authorising environment for the deliberative work need to develop a widely accepted vision.

We also draw out some ‘key lessons’ of relevance to others involved in the management of multijurisdictional Basins.

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