- Contents
- Chapter One Developing the Basin Plan
- Chapter Two Protecting and enhancing
water resources - Chapter Three Delivering water efficiently
and equitably - Chapter Four Using best-practice
financial, management and
governance systems - Financial statements
- Appendixes
- Murray-Darling Basin Commission:
final report - Glossary and Index
Overview
The Basin Plan will provide a single, consistent, integrated approach to managing the water resources of the Murray–Darling Basin. Its aim will be to protect and restore key environmental assets — rivers, streams, wetlands, forests, floodplains and billabongs — and key ecosystem functions which are essential to the life of the rivers and their surrounding landscapes, as well as to human activities and cultural values.
The plan will take into account the impact of this protection and restoration on individual communities, industries, regions and the wider economy, and will be developed using the best available scientific, social, cultural and economic knowledge, evidence and analysis. The proposed Basin Plan will be released for public consultation in mid-2010.
A detailed project plan was developed to ensure that the timeframes for preparation of the Basin Plan could be met. There was also intensive effort to recruit the skills and experience necessary to undertake this work. Concurrently, work started on major tasks, including engaging with key agencies to draw together environmental, social, cultural and economic information required to describe the Basin’s water resources and how they are used. A concept statement was produced to provide information on the key elements and overall approach for development of the Basin Plan.
The focus of work has been on a number of key areas:
- identifying key environmental assets and functions and determining their water requirements
- reviewing existing knowledge of environmental assets and functions to contribute to a comprehensive Environmental Assets Register for the Basin
- developing a comprehensive report to describe the current social and economic circumstances of the Basin and its communities
- identifying the key principles that will underpin the sustainable diversion limits (SDLs)
- securing the best available hydrologic and groundwater models and modelling capabilities to develop the modelling platforms that will assist in setting the SDLs
- developing the provisions in the Basin Plan for critical human water needs
- developing the water quality and salinity management plan, building on the platform of the National Water Quality Strategy and the Basin Salinity Management Strategy
- developing a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of the Basin Plan.