Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
runoff. Faced with continued evidence of environmental decline, governments
entered into a new additional agreement (the Living Murray Agreement)
in 2003 to jointly fund a program to 'recover' water lost to evaporation, or
purchase water used for irrigation, and use it instead for iconic wetlands.
The millennial drought from 2003 to 2010 forced a further institutional
rethink, as for the first time in many decades water shortages threatened the
water supply of many towns and cities, irrigation water was unavailable, and
iconic wetlands already lacking resilience due to degradation, faced complete
destruction. Emergency measures were applied that over-rode long standing
water sharing arrangements. In January 2007 the then Prime Minister of
Australia announced an investment of $10 billion and an intention to seek a
total change in institutions in the Murray-Darling Basin, with states trans-
ferring their powers to the Commonwealth to allow the Basin to be managed
by a single water authority. After nearly a year of negotiation, a political change
in Commonwealth government, and most states objecting to transfer powers
to the Commonwealth, a new Commonwealth
Water Act 2007
came into force.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission was dissolved and replaced with
a new Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) reporting solely to the
Commonwealth government. While states retained their constitutional
powers to manage water, aspects of the Australian constitution related to
trade and international obligations were used to allow the MDBA to prepare a
Murray-Darling Basin Plan with the legal power to require actions within the
states. The first Basin Plan became effective in early 2013, but preparation of
the Basin Plan was highly controversial. Proposals for large long-term reduc-
tions in diversions across the Basin for environmental purposes were met with
hostility by irrigators and rural communities. The whole interstate water
sharing debate, relatively quiet for nearly a hundred years, was re-ignited,
with the most downstream state, South Australia, pressing for more sizeable
reductions, and upstream states arguing for less because of economic impacts.
Assessments of environmental water needs, and social and economic impacts
of reductions, were hotly disputed. The final Basin Plan addressed tensions
to some extent by associating achievement of most reductions with invest-
ments to reduce 'losses', and deferring final implementation until 2019,
during which time further review of the reduced diversion limits, and further
negotiations about implementation are to occur.
Associated with the recent institutional changes, a role that has evolved is
that of the environmental water manager. Under the Commonwealth
Water
Act 2007
a Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is established
as a statutory role to manage the Commonwealth's environmental water
entitlements to protect and restore the environmental assets of the Murray-
Darling Basin, as well as outside the Basin where the Commonwealth owns
water. States have similar entities that manage water owned by the state
governments for environmental purposes.
What has been learned from the Murray-Darling experience? Institutional
arrangements need to evolve over time to cater for changing circumstances
