A New South Wales government agency says it is in uncharted territory regarding management of the state’s water supply because of the drought. Water New South Wales said in previous years it had relied on modelling from past […]
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The widespread deaths of fish in the Darling River – with more predicted to come – has raised serious questions about the allocation of water between agriculture and the environment. Water-hungry crops like cotton and rice are also […]
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Delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been secured with state and federal governments agreeing to terms about how environmental water will be returned to rivers. Up to 450 gigalitres will be returned to the environment, provided it […]
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Australia Institute report find communities, graziers, small irrigators and native title holders are being left behind A new report looking at how the $13bn for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is being spent has found that big agribusiness is […]
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Diverting water earmarked for the environment to help drought-hit farmers would “absolutely” breach the federal Water Act, says David Papps, the former head of the Commonwealth Environment Water Office. Mr Papps was responding to Barnaby Joyce, the former […]
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A group of prominent scientists and economists have issued a stark warning to the nation’s politicians: the Murray-Darling basin plan is failing to achieve environmental goals and is a “gross waste” of money. The group of seven economists […]
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Given the outraged reaction from some state water ministers to the disallowance of an amendment to the Murray Darling Basin Plan, you would be forgiven for thinking that a heinous crime had been committed against farmers in upstream states. In fact, what happened […]
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It is disappointing to see disingenuous criticism of the exhaustive work the Murray-Darling Basin Authority conducted during the Northern Basin Review. I believe that this criticism has contributed to the decision of the Australian Parliament to disallow an […]
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In the frenetic last days of haggling between federal Minister for Water Resources David Littleproud and Labor counterpart Tony Burke to secure the opposition’s crucial support to change the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the new minister trotted out a […]
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After a long and contentious public debate, in 2012 Australia embarked on a significant and expensive water recovery program to restore the Murray-Darling Basin’s ecosystems. Despite general agreement that a certain amount of water should be reserved to restore […]
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More than five years after the Murray Darling Basin Plan was implemented, it’s clear that it is not delivering on its key objectives. The Basin Plan, at its core, is about reducing the amount of water that can be extracted […]
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The leadership has not taken a strong enough role in ensuring compliance, the report says. An independent panel has delivered a scathing assessment of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s leadership in managing the plan for Australia’s inland river system, warning the […]
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Drought in the Murray River doesn’t just affect the river itself – it also affects the ecosystems that live in the ocean beyond. In a study published in Marine and Freshwater Research today, we found that the very low […]
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The New South Wales regional water minister, Niall Blair, has quietly granted himself the power to approve illegal floodplain works retrospectively. A Wentworth Group scientist, Jamie Pittock, has accused the NSW government of actively undermining the Murray-Darling basin […]
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A recent expose by the ABC’s Four Corners has alleged significant illegal extraction of water from the Barwon-Darling river system, one of the major tributaries of the Murray River. The revelations have triggered widespread condemnation of irrigators, the […]
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There has been no overall improvement in the health of Australia’s biggest river system after five years of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP), scientists say. Key points: The MDBP governs the use of water from Australia’s largest […]
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Valentin Heimhuber won the MSSANZ Student Poster Prize at the OzEWEX2016 workshop, for his poster explaining the use of satellite data for assessing environmental flows. Valentin is undertaking his PhD research with the Geospatial Analysis for Environmental Change […]
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