The Wentworth Group conducted a study to evaluate whether environmental water recovery has led to observable increases in river flows at two key sites along the Murray-Darling Basin. This summary report outlines the findings.

South Australia's Royal Commission into the Murray Darling Basin Plan has handed down its final report. The year-long investigation was prompted by allegations of water theft by cotton farmers in New South Wales.

This report makes findings on progress to date in implementing the Basin Plan and recommendations on actions required to ensure effective achievement of the plan's outcomes. Most of the recommendations involve incremental improvements to the current arrangements.

This report recommends that the Australian government support the recommendation of the Productivity Commission to separate the Murray Darling Basin Authority into two entities: the Murray-Darling Basin Corporation, and the Basin Plan Regulator, with the regulator established as a new statutory independent authority.

This report is the first in a series that highlights how the Murray–Darling Basin Plan has increased the flow of money and water to big agribusinesses and has increased the vulnerability of everyone else in the Basin– Aboriginal people, floodplain graziers, downstream communities and small irrigators.