Declining future flows predicted in the Murray-Darling Basin

Doctor Bill Young
Director, Basin Plan Modelling
Knowledge and Information Branch
Basin Plan Division
Murray-Darling Basin Authority

Bill presented a timely summary of the recent Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields project, which examined past, present and future run-off in the 23 sub-catchments of the Murray-Darling Basin. His presentation emphasised the fact that declining rainfall is having greatest effect in south-eastern areas in Australia, which are the primary source zones for the Murray-Darling Basin. Bill also emphasised the need for care in using average figures, which can give a false sense of relatively low impacts across the Basin, but hide the disproportionate effect on downstream areas. He also pointed out that current sharing arrangements assign a disproportionate cost in water deprivation to the environment.