The Murray–Darling Basin Plan (the Basin Plan) was put in place in 2012 to deliver a healthy working Murray-Darling Basin – the largest river system in Australia. Established under the Water Act 2007 (Cth), the Basin Plan was developed in response to increasing concerns about the overallocation of water in the Basin (it was put in place during the worst drought recorded, when inflows into the Murray River were at record lows) and a recognised need for a whole-of-Basin approach to manage the Basin’s water.

The Basin Plan sets the balance for water management – sharing available water between the environment, towns, irrigated agriculture and other industries, so the Basin’s rivers and groundwater can be sustainably managed. To do this, it sets out how much water can be taken from the Basin each year. This volume, or limit, known as the Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL) is designed to leave enough water for the rivers, lakes and wetlands in the Basin to improve environmental health. There is an SDL for the Basin as a whole, made up of SDLs for individual valleys and shared targets for connected systems.

The Basin Plan operates alongside the Murray–Darling Basin Agreement – a water management and sharing agreement between Basin governments with roots back to 1914 – and state-based water management arrangements.

Some progress has been made implementing the Basin Plan since 2018.

• Water resource plans – which set out how much water can be taken from the system and how it is managed – are now all in place in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT.
• Environmental water management frameworks are also in operation, and water recovered for the environment – and partnerships to deliver this water – have improved river flows, connectivity, and ecosystem and biodiversity outcomes.

The Basin Plan will not be fully implemented within the original timeframe or budget.

• Key supply measures (infrastructure works and rule changes that offset water recovery) will not be delivered
  and projects to ease constraints on river operations are progressing slowly: less than half of the 605 GL/y
  supply measure offset has been achieved.
• The program to recover an additional 450 GL/y of water via efficiency measures remains well short of its target (only 26 GL/y has been recovered). And 10 of 20 water resource plans in New South Wales, due in 2019, are still not in place.