Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Water sharing principles were initially established under the River Murray Waters
Agreement. The principles take into account the variable flow, the storage capacity and
demand on the River Murray:
Upper states equally share flow at Albury;
Upper states retain rights to develop downstream tributaries;
South Australia ensured a nominated set of monthly and annual flows (effectively the
first commitment on available water resources);
Continuous water accounts maintained, upper states have flexibility in annual use
subject to priority of commitment to South Australia.
These water sharing principles are still fundamental to the way the waters of the River
Murray and tributaries are shared.
The construction phase
From 1914 to the 1970s the focus on increasing water diversions for irrigation
resulted in the building of structures to regulate the Murray River.
Hume Dam (now 3,038 GL), completed in 1936, was the second largest dam in the
world at the time. The barrages between the lower lakes and the mouth of the Murray
were completed in the 1940s to reduce salt water intrusion, stabilise the river level,
concentrate releases in times of low flow and maintain a pool of water; and Dartmouth
Dam (3,906GL) was completed in 1979 — the last major storage to be built (Figure 3).
These storages meant that the Murray-Darling Basin can now store one and a half times
its average annual flow.
By 1980, the Murray River was a highly regulated river with almost $2 billion of
infrastructure and a complex series of rules for its operation to serve both the extensive
irrigation development in each state and provide water for communities. However,
questions about the health of the basin were starting to be raised at this time.
Integrated catchment management phase
By the late 1970s there was a growing awareness of water quality problems,
especially with salinity, which resulted in the jurisdictions agreeing to adopt a more
'whole of basin' approach. In 1992 the River Murray Agreement was re-negotiated and
extended to become the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, with Queensland joining and
the ACT participating through a Memorandum of Understanding. This provides the
process and substance for integrated management of the Murray-Darling Basin. Each
signatory jurisdiction to the agreement has passed its own complementary legislation.
Legislative arrangements
The Murray-Darling Basin Agreement
The Murray-Darling Basin Agreement sets out the objectives, functions and
composition of the new arrangements and the procedures to be followed for natural
resource management, water distribution, asset management and financial contributions
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