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.
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 pre-regulation 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 (2004-2007) which covered 96,000 km of rivers and streams, found long-term degradation in most of the Basin's valleys and that 20 of the Basin's 23 river valleys were in poor or very poor health.
A report for The Living Murray program found that 70% of river red gums in the Koondrook Perricoota Forest (the second largest river red gum forest in the world) were stressed, dying or dead, largely due to the drought, combined with 12 years of no flooding.
Salinity levels have increased and algal blooms have increased in frequency in line with the increased frequency of periods of low river flow.
In 2007 the CSIROs first inventory of sustainable yields of all surface and groundwater systems within the Basin revealed that consumptive water use in the Basin had reduced the average annual stream flow at the Murray mouth by 61% and that water failed to reach the river mouth 40% of the time, compared to 1% prior to regulation of the river. CSIRO concluded that without changes to the water sharing arrangements in the Basin, climate change would likely lead to irreversible ecological degradation.
Planning for a future with less water?
A proposed Basin Plan will be released in mid 2010 to allow for extensive consultation with stakeholders. The first Basin Plan will be completed in 2011 and approved by the Minister for Climate Change and Water, after which it will be regularly reviewed and updated.
Basin states and the ACT will be consulted in the preparation of the Basin Plan including through the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Basin Officials Committee. To ensure a smooth transition for water users the Basin Plan will honour existing water plans for the life of those plans. The South Australian, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Queensland plans expire in 2014 and Victoria's in 2019.
The states and the ACT will continue to determine how water is allocated and used in their own jurisdictions through the development of water resource plans, but these must be consistent with the Basin Plan.
The Australian Government has also funded a ten year plan Water for the Future, managed by the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, to secure water supplies to assist agriculture to adapt to changed weather patterns, as well as to improve river health.
An important component of this program is buying back water from willing sellers and using it to meet core environmental needs. The program also includes funding infrastructure towards more efficient irrigation to help reduce the amount of water that is lost each year through leakage and evaporation.
In the long term these new arrangements and the Basin Plan aim to address the historic overallocation of the river systems and secure the future of the Basin, and of the many communities which rely on it for social, cultural and economic survival.
For further information or to find out how to comment on the proposed Basin Plan contact engagement@mdba.gov.au or phone our free number 1800 230 067.
