Are environmental water requirements being met in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia?

Context In implementing the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, jurisdictions have defined environmental water requirements (EWRs) for sites along Basin rivers. EWRs are the flows (frequency, magnitude, duration, and timing) required to achieve environmental outcomes; they are derived from flow-ecology relationships by using best available scientific knowledge.Aims To assess EWR achievement across the Murray-Darling Basin over a 43.5-year period (1 July 1979 - 31 December 2022) that included periods of drought as well as widespread flooding.Methods By using a published EWR assessment tool, we analysed the achievement of EWRs for small fresh, large fresh, bankfull and overbank flows for 23 sites.Key results At 65% of stream gauge sites assessed, most EWRs evaluated had not been met. We also compared analyses of different time periods, namely, a 43.5-year period, and a 10-year period since the Basin Plan was legislated. This highlighted some improvement in EWR achievement for the small fresh EWR.Conclusions and implications Despite some improvements, the continued lack of achievement in meeting EWRs is likely to be a major contributing factor to the ongoing poor health of channel, wetland (including Ramsar wetlands) and floodplain ecosystems across most of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. Environmental water requirements (EWRs) are the flows required to keep aquatic ecosystems healthy. We explored whether EWRs had been met across aquatic ecosystems in the Murray-Darling Basin over the past four decades, finding that at 65% of assessed sites they had not been achieved. The most recent decade since Basin Plan legislation has seen some improvement in EWR achievement for small freshes, possibly reflecting active environmental watering. However, across most rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, poor health of channel, wetland (including Ramsar wetlands) and floodplain ecosystems remain.