Institutional Overview from an Australian Perspective –With Particular Reference to the Murray-Darling Basin - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 306

Figure 1. The Murray-Darling Basin
The Murray-Darling Basin (Figure 1) is a major catchment of 1.06 million square
kilometres in south-eastern Australia, covering almost 15 per cent of the continent.
The climate of the basin is varied, with cool humid eastern uplands, temperate in the
southeast Mallee, inland subtropical northern areas and hot, dry arid and semi-arid
country in the far west. Temperature, precipitation (Figure 2) and evaporation are highly
variable, impacting on the water resources in the basin.
The Murray-Darling Basin contains two major river systems by world standards: The
Murray River is 2,530 kms in length, and the Darling River 2,740 kms. Despite their
length, their river flows are globally small and extremely variable (Table 1). As a result,
Australian dams are about six times larger than those of Europe for the same mean annual
streamflow.