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Case Study 1

The Murray-Darling River Basin and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Australia

Management

Integrated

Management

Integrated

From Concepts to Good Practice

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Acknowledgments

This Briefing Note Series was prepared by Peter Mil-

lington, consultant, previously Director-General of the

New South Wales Department of Water Resources and

Commissioner on the Murray-Darling Basin Commission,

Australia; Douglas Olson, World Bank Principal Water

Resources Engineer and Task Manager for this Briefing

Note Series; and Shelley McMillan, World Bank Water

Resources Specialist.

Guy Alaerts (Lead Water Resources Specialist) and

Claudia Sadoff (Lead Economist) of the World Bank

provided valuable inputs.

The authors thank the following specialists for reviewing

the Notes: Bruce Hooper and Pieter Huisman (consul-

tants); Vahid Alavian, Inger Anderson, Rita Cestti Jean

Foerster, Nagaraja Harshadeep, Tracy Hart, Karin Kemper,

Barbara Miller, Salman Salman, Ashok Subramanian, and

Mei Xie (World Bank staff).

The authors are also deeply grateful to the Bank-Nether-

lands Water Partnership Program (BNWPP) for support-

ing the production of this Series.

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Name of Organization: Murray-Darling Basin

Commission

History of Establishment:

The Murray-Darling Basin Agreement replaced the

earlier River Murray Waters Agreement, which had been

in place since 1915. The Agreement was signed by the

governments of the Commonwealth of Australia, New

South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia in 1987. In

its initial form, it was an amendment – the final one – to

the River Murray Waters Agreement. Five years later, in

1992, a totally new Murray-Darling Basin Agreement was

signed, replacing the River Murray Waters Agreement.

The new Agreement was given full legal status by the

Murray-Darling Basin Act of 1993, passed by all the con-

tracting governments. Queensland also became a signa-

tory in 1996. In 1998, the Australian Capital Territory

formalized its participation in the Agreement through

a Memorandum of Understanding. The Agreement was

ratified by identical legislation that has been enacted by

the Parliaments of all the signatory governments.

Basin Characteristics:

The Murray-Darling Basin is the catchment for the

Murray and Darling Rivers and their many tributaries.

The basin extends over three-quarters of New South

Wales, more than half of Victoria, significant portions of

Queensland and South Australia, and includes the entire

Australian Capital Territory. Well over half the basin is in

New South Wales and almost a quarter is in Queensland.

As a large, very shallow drainage basin covering more

than 1 million square kilometers with only one exit

flowing out of Lake Alexandrina in South Australia, the

Murray-Darling Basin is an unusually complex biophysical

system (see figure 1.1).

1

2Figure 1.1. The Murray-Darling River Basin Area

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1,061,469 km2 encompassing parts of the states of New

South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland,

and the whole of the Australian Capital Territory

24.3 billion m3 annual basin runoff, 12.2 billion m3 annual

outflow from basin

2,000,000

The Gross Regional Product is approximately $US 6.2 billion.

Agriculture (wheat, barley, oilseeds, rice, cotton, horticulture,

dairying, sheep and cattle, pastures).

1. Alterations to the Basin Hydrology

A century of intensive and largely unsuitable land clearing

and cropping (arising from a tendency to copy European

farming practices in a foreign climate) and high water

diversions for irrigation have changed the hydrology of

the basin, creating far greater accessions to groundwater

and severe land degradation. As the groundwater table has

risen (much of which is saline), large amounts of salt have

either reached the root zones, crusted on the surface, or

drained back to river systems, creating much higher salini-

ties in the river.

2. Decline in Fauna and Flora and Crop Productivity

Accompanying the land and water resources degradation

has been a general decline in the basin’s fauna and flora;

crop productivity has also declined in some areas. There

are two main challenges. The first is to restore a balance

between resource utilization and protection, partly by

removing significant amounts of water from productive

use and returning these to the river systems. The second

is to develop land management and farming practices that

are more in harmony with the Australian arid climate yet

maintain the livelihoods of the rural communities.

Main Water Management Concerns:

Area:

River Basin Flow:

Population:

Economy:

Main Economic Activities:

4The river basin organization is a participative river basin commission comprising the national government, four states

— New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland — and one territory government (the Australian Capital

Territory) in equal partnership. There is a high-level policy and strategic decision-making Ministerial Council. An execu-

tive Board of Commissioners has delegated power from the Council to make urgent decisions in the interim periods

between the meetings of the Council and to oversee the studies, investigations, and business of the Commission. An ex-

pert technical office, controlled by a senior expert CEO, reports to the Board and undertakes the technical work in close

association with the state water-related agencies. A Community Advisory Committee reports directly to the Ministerial

Council and provides independent advice on any matter that is referred to it by the Council. The basin community is

therefore able to provide input and participate in the decision-making process, without having to be controlled/directed

by either the Board of Commissioners or the technical office.

Type of Organization:

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their own tributaries of the Murray River. Two issues

impact these rules. In declared drought years, the annual

share to the lower state is reduced and the overall avail-

able water is basically shared equally by the three states.

Secondly, as water use over the last decade has risen to

such a level that the health of the basin’s resources is

now severely declining, the unfettered right for Victoria

and New South Wales to use their tributary water has

been capped or limited by new policies agreed to by the

Ministerial Council.

There are very specific clauses in the Agreement that

allow for formal processes for notification, consultation,

and evaluation of new projects, and provide the rules and

measures upon which projects will be evaluated.

4. Communication and Participation

This can be considered the cornerstone of MDBC activi-

ties since the Commission was reconstituted as the MDBC

in 1987. There are extensive awareness programs at all

levels – schools, towns, cities, farmer and user groups. In

addition, water and land users and other stakeholders are

included in all the sub-basin natural resource planning

and management activities that occur in the 15 or so sub-

basins that collectively make up the Murray-Darling Basin.

5. Monitoring and Assessing Sustainability

There is a very extensive set of performance indicators

that assess basin “health and productivity issues” under

three resource areas — irrigation, dryland farming, and

riverine ecosystems. In addition, there are resource

targets set for each of the 15 sub-basins (covering salinity,

water quality, river system flow regimes, and catchment

biodiversity). The progress of the planning and manage-

ment in each of these sub-basins in achieving these

targets is continually monitored.

1. Conceptual and Institutional Issues

The MDBC is a very mature basin organization, having

existed in one form or another for about 90 years. Its

agreement allows it to be largely autonomous within the

“coordinating, integrating, planning” bounds of its charter.

Nevertheless, the Ministerial Council has the final deci-

sion-making role. All decisions must be unanimous. At

times, this means that the member-state governments, as

opposed to the ministerial representatives on the Council,

may have to make the most difficult decisions.

2. Systems for Water-related Data

The MDBC Agreement includes clauses that specify how

data and information will be collected, managed, and

shared. The Commission can collect data and undertake

resource inventories itself or it can request a member-

state to do so, under an agreed cost-sharing arrangement.

Similarly, hydrologic and socioeconomic models – of which

there are many — can be developed by the Commission

or by the states and utilized for basin-wide projects. Most

importantly, robust processes exist to ensure the integrity

of these models. There is also a data and modeling com-

mittee and all members must agree before any modeling

component or parameter is changed.

3. Basin-wide Policies and Strategies

The MDBC Agreement allocates water to the lower three

states in the Murray-Darling Basin that border the Murray

River. Through a very specific set of clauses, the most

downstream state is guaranteed a fixed annual amount

(except in drought years) by the two upper states that

border the Murray River (Victoria and New South Wales).

In return for guaranteeing this annual volume, these two

upper states can share equally what remains from the

Murray itself, plus can use all the water they wish from

5

The mandate of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission is

“to promote and coordinate the effective planning and

management for the equitable, efficient and sustainable

use of water, land and other environmental resources of

the Murray Darling basin.” Its role and functions there-

fore include policy and strategy setting, coordination,

managing each state’s water shares/allocation, financing

investigations, planning and on-the-ground activities that

are aimed at implementing basin-wide policies, operation

of infrastructure on the main stem of the system, auditing,

reporting, monitoring basin sustainability, and research.

The MDBC is staffed by about 100 persons and they are

closely linked to and complemented by the staff in the

various state agencies through numerous working groups

(see figures 1.2 and 1.3 for organizational arrangements).

Tasks of the Organization and Staff Complement:

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Figure 1.2. Governance of the Murray-Darling Basin

COMMUNITY

Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial CouncilMinisters holding land, water and environment portfolios in each contracting government

(Australian Government, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland)*

Murray-Darling Basin CommissionIndependent President, commissioners/deputy commis-

sioners representing each contracting government (senior executives From land, water and environment agencies)*

Community Advisory CommitteeChairman, state representatives and a

Range of representatives relevant to natural resource management

AustralianGovernment

Department of Agriculture,

Fisheries and Forestry

Department of Environment and Heritage

New South Wales

Department of Infrastructure, Planning and

Natural Resources

NSW Agriculture

Environment Protection Authority

Victoria

Department of Sustainability and

Environment

Department of Primary

Industries

Goulburn-Murray Water

South Australia

Primary Industries and Resources SA

Department of Water, Land and

Biodiversity Conservation

South Australian Water

Corporation

Department for Environment and

Heritage

Queensland

Department of Natural

Resources and Mines

Environmental Protection

Agency

Department of Primary Industries

Austalian Capital

Territory

Environment ACT

ProjectBoards

River Murray Water Advisory

Board

Water Policy Committee

ICM Policy

Committee

Finance Committee

Working Groups

Commission Office: technical and support staff

Water Business Basin Sustainability

Principal government agencies

* Participation of the Australian Capital Territory is through a memorandum of understanding.

Figure 1.3. Organizational Chart for MDBC Technical Office

8

Chief Executive

NaturalResources

River Murray Water

SecretariatCorporateServices

CommsUnit

ICMBusiness

River MurrayEnvironmentManagement

Rivers & Industries

The LivingMurray

InformationServices

HumanResources

Finance & Admin

More information on the MDBC can be found at http://www.mdbc.gov.au/

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9

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All rights reservedFirst printing February 2006

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