Catchment management across borders in the Murray-Darling Basin

The Australian national government is now introducing a new policy and management framework in the Murray-Darling Basin. Backed by a funding package of over $12 billion Australian over 10 years, it is attempting to replace the previous institutional arrangements with a comprehensive Basin Plan that will take account of all issues, current and emerging. This involves not only a shift in responsibility for high-level policy to the national government from the states (which will still be responsible for implementation) but also an attempt to make management sustainable from a basin-wide perspective for the first time. Previous approaches to the reform of river management in the region accepted historical levels of development despite increasing criticism that they depended on a level of extraction that was eroding environmental conditions and resource security. The policy change is being widely resisted by irrigation-based communities, however. This paper describes the contents of the Basin Plan, explains the principles upon which it is based and discusses the possible outcomes of the often heated national debate. It also comments on the benefits to be gained from the comparative analysis of large river basins for researchers and policy practitioners.