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The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is the River Basin
Organisation which manages the Murray-Darling Basin.Its vision is
to achieve a healthy working basin (social, cultural, economic and
environmental) through the integrated management of water resources
for the long term benefit of the Australian Community.Its mission
states: we lead the planning and management of Basin Water
Resources in collaboration with partner governments and the
community.
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First a few important facts about the Murray-Darling Basin. The
Murray-Darling Basin has a highly variable flow regime, as can be
seen from the graph on the top left of the slide. This includes
rivers that do not always connect and drain in inland terminal
lakes. The long-term annual flow discharge is 11km3 per year,
compared to 420km3 per year for the Ayeyardawy river. Most of the
flows come from the southern part, which contains many reservoirs
and is highly regulated. There are cycles of floods and drought,
which poses challenges for agricultural production, which forms an
important component of the basin: 50% of Australias irrigated
agriculture, includes annual crops like rice, cotton, but also
perennials like fruit & grapes, dairy, etc. Other dryland
agriculture includes floodplain grazing, wheat, canola, etc.The
landmass is 14% of total Australian landmass (1 million km2), and
contains 3 of its longest rivers: the Murray, the Darling, the
Murrumbidgee. The eastern border is the great Australian Divide, so
all these rivers turn inland and flow east, to drain in the
southern ocean not far from Adelaide. The Murray is highly
regulated and contributes to most of the annual flows. Apart from
agriculture, the Basin is also important for many significant
wetland sites, including 16 that are recognised internationally.
The Basin is home to over 2 million people. 18% of aboriginal
people also live in the Basin, which crosses 5 state borders and is
governed by Queensland in the north, New South Wales and the
Australian Capital Territory in the middle, and Victoria in the
south, with South Australia being the state west where the Murray
mouth ends in the ocean. The federal government also has
legislative power, but more about that later.
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From the beginning of last century, the fact that the Murray
river forms a state boundary meant that water use had to be shared;
this lead to the formation of the River Murray Commission (NSW,
Victoria, South Australia and the Commonwealth) for the operation
of the regulated river, and to ensure that Adelaide could receive
sufficient drinking water. Large scale clearing of the land for
agriculture lead to salinity problems emerging in the 1970ies. At
the end of the 80ies, the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC)
was created. This was the first true River Basin Organization which
included all the states and territories of the Basin, as well as
the Commonwealth (federal) government. This RBO operated along the
consensus model and was responsible for the establishment of many
salinity interception schemes. A toxic algal bloom, 2000 km long
lead to the realization that there was over-allocation of
irrigation and resulted in the cap on diversions (maximum limit)
and establishment of water markets, initially within the states
only, and since 1998 also between the states. The salinity strategy
was now revisited to extend across the entire Basin scale (2001).
In 2004, when the Millennium drought was starting to bite, the
National Water Initiative (NWI) was started for national scale
water reform. It was also the first step in water recovery for the
environment in the Murray (The Living Murray initiative, the
precursor to the Basin Plan). The NWI was followed by the
Commonwealth Water Act 2007 (giving the Commonwealth more
decision-making power for managing water in the Murray-Darling
Basin) and the establishment of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority
(a centralized RBO model). The MDBC was subsumed in the MDBA, and
the new RBO was charged with the development of the Basin Plan.
This plan became law in 2012, and is now being
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implemented until 2019.
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The agreement by the states to the Basin Plan and the
centralized decision making for its creation and implementation
required the law maker to recognize two reporting and
accountability mechanisms:1.The Basin Plan would be decided by the
Federal Minister for Environment/Water (green box top left corner),
to whom the Authority (and its MDBA office) is reporting directly
(Purple box bottom left). This mechanism is supported by a number
of advisory groups, which contain members from the states. Because
MDBA has a coordinating role, it is recognized that many aspects of
the Basin Plan require implementation by the states and this
consulting mechanism is therefore very important.2.The joint
programs, which were inherited from the MDBC (consensus model RBO)
continue to report to the Ministerial Council (Blue box top right
corner). During MDBC, this Council was the decision-making body,
but now the Council advises the Commonwealth Minister who has the
power to make final decisions (usually he only endorses what the
Council decides, but if the decisions conflict with the Basin Plan,
he can override them). The Basin Officials Committee has high level
representatives from each jurisdiction (Light blue box bottom
middle), and advises Ministerial Council. The Basin Community
Committee is an advisory group made up of representatives of the
communities living in the Basin (sandy coloured box bottom right).
They have no decision-making power.As the arrows suggest, there are
interactions and communication between most of these groups, but
formal reporting mechanisms are hierarchical in nature. The
advisory groups supporting both the Authority and also Basin
Officials Committee
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are not depicted in this diagram, to avoid too much
complexity.
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The roles and responsibilities of MDBA can all be grouped into
these five categories: planning and coordinating, regulating,
evaluating and review, operating the River Murray, enhancing the
knowledge base, including an educational role for the
community.
Note that MDBA has on the one hand a regulating role, on the
other it coordinates and collaborates with the states. There is a
healthy tension between the two, but there are other Authorities
within Australia that have similar dual roles. Also it evaluates
the effectiveness of Basin Plan implementation. While these roles
and responsibilities are part of the Basin Plan, there are
underpinning activities funded by joint programs that are
supportive of these objectives. They include the salinity and water
quality management strategy, joint management of significant assets
(The Living Murray program), hydrological modeling, etc.
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The Basin Plan is one policy tool that is embedded in the
broader national water reform (but one of the most important
ones).The MDBA works together with a number of other Commonwealth
Agencies, and provides one tool (Basin Plan) for implementation in
a suite of reform activities (management tools), which include
water markets, water accounting and nationally accredited water
resource plans.Data collaboration exists with Geoscience Australia
(spatial data, including remote sensing), the Bureau of Meteorology
(rainfall, runoff, hydrometric and water quality data), CSIRO and
universities (modeling and research). Some of this data sharing is
enshrined in legislation.MDBA also works with catchment management
authorities (these operate at the smaller regional scale, below
state level), but mostly through the state governments. Working
with communities includes localism; this means having a dialogue
with local communities to invite them to contribute their knowledge
on water issues to plan for sustainable water management
solutions.
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The Basin Plan, established as a result of the Water ACT 2007
has five key components and a number of smaller
components:Environmental watering plans (one year time frame) and
Basin-wide watering strategy (5 year time frame) - Chapter 8Water
resource plans (to be developed with the states; 5 year time frame)
Chapter 10Water quality and salinity management plan Chapter 9Water
trading rules Chapter 12Critical human water needs Chapter
11Monitoring and Evaluation Chapter 13
Other Chapters in the Basin Plan are:Chapter 1
IntroductionChapter 2 Basin water resources and the context for
their useChapter 3 Water resource plan areas and water accounting
periodsChapter 4 Identification and management of risks to Basin
water resourcesChapter 5 Management objectives and outcomes to be
achieved by Basin PlanChapter 6 Water that can be taken
(sustainable diversion limits)Chapter 7 Adjustments of SDLs
(sustainable diversion limits)
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Adjustment of SDL takes up a lot of hydrological modeling
resources, as well as constraints management (these tasks will be
completed in the next two years.
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The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has two funding
streams:1.Joint program funding (contributions by all
jurisdictions): This was established when the RBO was still a
consensus-based model (MDBC), and was inherited and reviewed when
the new RBO was established. It includes ongoing management
activities that existed before the Basin plan such as salinity
interception, joint management of significant assets (The Living
Murray program), and River Murray operations. Some of these
activities were abolished as part of the review, because they were
seen as now being carried out under the Basin Plan (the other
funding stream).2.Commonwealth funding: this federal funding is to
guarantee the creation and implementation of the Basin Plan.Both
funding mechanisms are tied to the governance arrangements (see
Slide 4); they are in place for the long term, but the amounts are
decided annually as part of a four year planning cycle, and they
can be changed depending on available budgets.
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Achievements.Despite a set back with the release of the guide to
the Basin Plan, when there was significant community backlash due
to insufficient engagement at the time, it has now been legislated
and is on track for being implemented. The focus on community
engagement has included concerns on social-economic implications of
returning water to the environment, and MDBA is working actively
with stakeholders to make sure they are not disadvantaged as a
result.The change from consensus based model to centralized model
has been successful, and state governments now recognize the need
for a Basin-wide plan to manage the rivers.ChallengesDespite the
successes, there is ongoing concern about what the benefits will be
of returning water to the environment, given the significant
investment of water buy-backs. It will take time before the
outcomes will be observed, and the benefits can be demonstrated,
because there are always response time-lags between watering events
and ecological responses. This is the social licence mentioned in
the slide: community acceptance of the value of improved ecological
condition.Once the Basin plan is implemented, there will be a need
to continue coordination, management and monitoring functions. But
the question will be if these functions are sufficient to maintain
the MDBA or whether they can be taken over by the Federal
Department of Environment. We will need to get clarity into what
are the enduring responsibilities of the Authority and make sure
funding will
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be secured long term.
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The river Basin Organisation in Australia was created for
governance purposes and the sharing of the river between multiple
state jurisdictions. Because water is scarce in Australia, it was
necessary to manage it in the most efficient way; this has lead to
creating water markets and other innovative management
mechanisms.In the 1990ies, the focus of water management was
inclusive of land management practices, and the boundary between
terrestrial and freshwater management was smaller. With the
Millennium drought (2002-2012), the focus was increasingly shifting
towards water and freshwater ecologies only, because this was the
highest priority. One could question is this is fully integrated
water management, because the effects of erosion, sedimentation and
nutrient run-off is also related to land use. Revegetation for
example is not considered at the Basin scale, but could make a
significant contribution to a more sustainable management.On the
other hand, the consensus model which was used at that time often
lacked ambitious targets, because every jurisdiction had to agree
to it. Now, with the jurisdictions having signed on to federal
legislation (centralised model), the decision lies with the federal
minister, and the Basin Plan has much more ambitious management
targets.
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