Water Wednesday - Murray Darling Basin Plan: Striking the right balance The Water Research Centre in conjunction with Australian Water Association SA Branch presented Water Wednesday on 29 February 2012. This special joint Water Wednesday forum featured a presentation from Professor Barry Hart, an independent member of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, on the Draft Basin Plan which is currently out for public review.

1. Water Research Centre
Water Research Centre
The Environment Institute
AWA SA Branch/Adelaide University
“Water Wednesday”
Murray Darling Basin Plan: Striking the
Right Balance
Chair: Justin Brookes
Slide 0 Life Impact The University of Adelaide

2. Water Research Centre
Water Research Centre
The Environment Institute
AWA SA Branch
Technical Seminar
Seminar sponsors
Slide 1 Life Impact The University of Adelaide

3. Water Research Centre
Water Research Centre
The Environment Institute
Prof Barry Hart
Monash University
Murray Darling Basin Plan:
Striking the Right Balance
Slide 2 Life Impact The University of Adelaide

4. The MD Basin Plan - Striking the
Right Balance
Prof Barry Hart
MDBA

5. Why the need?
• Significant changes to hydrology
– Less flooding (overbank flows)
– Changes to seasonal flow regimes
• Overallocation of water resources
– Particularly severe in southern basin
• Degradation of environment
– River red gums dying
– Fish populations reduced
– Waterbird number reduced
– Algal blooms
– Water quality degradation - salinity
– Murray mouth closed
• Increased threat to agricultural production

6. Hydrology of the Basin
Northern Basin
Southern Basin

7. Balancing the equation
Consumptive
42%
Murray - 58%, 42%
Darling - 28%, 72%
Environment
(58%)
(Baseline - at 2009)

8. Basin Plan - purpose
• Objective
– to develop and implement an integrated water
resource Plan for the whole Basin
• Basin Plan seeks to rebalance the system
– more water for the environment, but
– minimise impacts on irrigators and local
communities
• MDBA’s task
– set the bounds (Sustainable Diversion Limits -
SDL) and work with the States and local
communities to implement
• MDBA only has powers to do part of the
reform, but ……

9. The Basin Plan
The Basin Plan must include:
• Sustainable diversion limits (SDLs) =
Ecologically Sustainable Level of Take
(ESLT)
• Water resource plan accreditation
• Environmental Watering Plan
• Water Quality & Salinity Management
Plan
• Water trading rules
• Monitoring and Evaluation program

10. What are we aiming to achieve?
A healthy working Basin
• critical drinking water needs can be met
• rivers are connected to creeks, billabongs and
floodplains
• healthy ecosystems supporting a wide variety of
plants and animals
• sufficient flows to flush nutrients and salt through the
system
• sustainable growth in food and fibre production
• long-term confidence for businesses and communities
• ‘fit for purpose’ water quality
• a free market for trading water

11. What we wish to achieve

12. Four stage process
2010 2011 2012 2012-2019
The The
The propose Basin Implement
Guide d Basin ation
Plan
Plan
• information
• information • adoption
• formal
• feedback
submissions
Review in 2015

13. Reports

14. The Task

15. Decision-making process
Environment (Science + Judgements)
• Define the MDB environment we want to protect
• Define what we want it to be (objectives)
• Determine how much water needed to achieve this (EWR)
Balancing
Implications
• Social and economic
• Environmental
Environmentally sustainable level of take (ESLT)
= Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL)
(more than just a volume)

16. Defining the environment
• Largely done in the Water Act
• Key environmental assets
- wetlands, floodplain forests, rivers, estuary (Coorong)
- largely specific areas, locations
- judgements required to define which are ‘key’ assets and
how much water they need
• Key environmental functions
- Largely ecological processes
- primary production, fish migration, triggers for breeding,
material transport
- judgements required in relating functions with flows
• Ecosystem services
- Not considered yet

17. How much water is needed?
Key environmental assets
• Too many to assess all (selected 2000+ KEAs)
• Selected 18 to act as indicators - these are
- hydrologically representative
- have good information base on them
• Most indicator assets are wetlands or floodplain
forests (require high flows largely through overbank
flows)
• High flows make largest contribution to volume and
therefore largest influence on ESLT

18. Indicator Lower Balonne River
Floodplain System
Gwydir Wetlands
Assets Narran Lakes
Booligal Wetlands
Lachlan Swamps
Great Cumbung Swamp
Lower Murrumbidgee Wetlands
Macquarie
Marshes
Lower Darling
River System
Hattah Lakes
Riverland – Chowilla
Floodplain
Mid Murrumbidgee Wetlands
Coorong, Lower
Lakes and Murray
Mouth
Wimmera River Barmah Millewa Forest
Terminal Wetlands
Edward Wakool River System
Lower Goulburn River Floodplain
Gunbower Koondrook Perricoota Forests

19. How much water is needed?

20. Barmah-Millewa - Targets & Flows

21. Barmah-Millewa - Targets & Flows

22. Achievement of targets
Delivered under current
operating conditions
Needs trib inflows or
unregulated flows
Not all years
River operations constraints
Only achieved with large
unregulated flows (floods)

23. Environmental water
• Within each catchment
• Two components:
- Local requirements (to water the assets and
functions in that catchment)
- Downstream requirement (to water assets and
functions in downstream parts of the river)
• Example - Goulburn
- Local - for river channel and lower Goulburn
Floodplain
- Downstream - contribution to River Murray assets
and functions

24. Reports

25. Balancing
Socio-economic
Key Hydrological
assessment
ecological asset sites
assets (18)
Ecological
water
requirements
SDL
(EWR)
Key Hydrological
ecological function sites
functions (88) System
constraints

26. Social and economic affects
• Long term, Basin scale
– small economic affect
• Short term, local scale
– small communities with high reliance on
irrigation will be most at risk

27. How much more e-water needed?
Current thinking:
Basin wide - 2,750 GL/y (long-term average)
eWater Recovery:

28. Indicative rebalancing
2,700 GL/y North South
33% 25% 44%
8,100 GL/y
Additional
environmental
water
16,800 GL/y
67% 75% 56%
5,100 GL/y

29. Planned vs Held e-water

30. Strategies to adjust
Irrigators
• Commonwealth buy-backs ($3.1 bill)
• Irrigation modernisation ($5.9 bill)
GAP
Communities/businesses
• Lost water = $ lost to towns/regions
• Debt levels high due to drought
• Mitigating impacts - gov’t assistance?

31. Implementation
• Major rural reform - will take time
• The Basin Plan as part of a Plan for the Basin
• Will need a ‘whole of government’ response to
minimise impacts on local communities
• States and community will be vital part of the
implementation through developing and
implementing regional water resource plans
• Need less focus on the SDLs and more on
how the extra water is used

32. Opportunities
• Time extension to 2019 provides opportunity
• In 2012 the Basin Plan will recommend
‘indicative SDLs’ for each catchment and the
Basin
• This is within a ‘constrained’ system
• Opportunities to address some of these
constraints (with potential changes to SDLs)
• Opportunity to progress towards more
contemporary river management

33. Constraints
• Operational constraints
- Change river operating rules (currently focused on
consumptive water delivery)
- Optimise storage management
• Policy constraints
- Modify storage carryover rules
- Water sharing plans - alter to better protect environmental
water during droughts
- Remove state-based policies that impact of environmental
outcomes
• Physical constraints
- Remove/modify infrastructure that impede high flows
- Purchase easements to allow high flows to be delivered
- Adopt engineering works and other innovative solutions

34. • An adaptive plan
More buybacks
• Address some constraints
• More modeling & science Final SDL
Indicative • Environmental works
SDL
Consumptive water
1200 GL/y
850 GL/y recovered
recovered
Gap
Environmental water

35. 10 Key Points
• Vision is for a healthy working basin
• Basin Plan is next step of the journey
• We have a robust starting point
• It’s more than just a volume of water
• Progress will be reviewed in 2015
• Savings from the ‘rules review’ will see SDL adjusted
• Northern basin is different to southern basin
• One size does not fit all - catchments are different
• How water is recovered will affect social & economic
impacts
• Localism is critical

36. Summary
• Development and implementation of the Murray-
Darling Basin Plan – major rural reform
• Significant reductions in current diversion limits
required
• Commonwealth investment (ca. $9 billion) should
‘purchase’ all the water required
• But still need a ‘whole of government’ response to
minimise impacts on some local communities
• Many opportunities to progress towards more
contemporary river management by addressing many
of the current constraints
• This is a ‘journey’ we have just begun

37. Water Research Centre
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38. Water Research Centre
Water Research Centre
The Environment Institute
AWA SA Branch/Adelaide University
“Water Wednesday”
Event Close & Networking
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