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Our Water Resources

Some common misconceptions:

 

These CSIRO and MDBC statistics show the true situation.

 

2.   Flow Variation: The rivers in the north of the Basin are extremely variable in their flow patterns. If it were not for the building of dams and weirs during the late 20th century most of the northern rivers would spend the majority of the time dry, reducing the possibility of permanant habitation and greatly reducing permanant agricultural production of any type.

3.   Delivery Efficiencies: This table illustrates the extent of the natural losses occurring in the rivers of the MDB and the amount each stream contributes to flows at points downstream.

It is apparent that streams in the Darling system losses are much greater than the southern connected streams. This is accounted for by the periodic and episodic interval of flows, the longer distance for water to travel, the naturally porous geology and high evaporation rates due to high summer temperatures.

 

4.  Storage Infrastructure: This shows that in the southern basin all water storage infrastructure is publically owned. In the northern basin the storage capacity is much smaller, public storage is a smaller proportion and in some valleys, non-existant. Privately owned storage capacity is a major feature of the northern basin because of the episodic interval between flows and the much greater variability in flow volumes.

5. Relative Levels of Water Use: This chart shows the median percentages of water extracted from the streams in the Basin.

6. Environmental Health: Table from the Summary of The Murray Darling Basin Commission Sustainable Rivers Audit May 2008.

This table ranked all rivers in the basin on the basis of the health of the riverine environment studied between 2004 to 2007. Border Rivers is ranked second overall behind the Paroo, which has practically no extraction for irrigation..

This result reflects that even during an extreme drought period, our water planning processes and farm management practices are delivering the results required of them in terms of environmental health.

			Condition
Rank	Valley	Ecosystem Health	Hydrology	Fish	Macro-invertebrates
1	Paroo	Good	Good	Moderate	Moderate
2	Border Rivers	Moderate	Moderate to good	Moderate	Moderate
2	Condamine	Moderate	Moderate to good	Moderate	Poor
3	Namoi	Poor	Good	Poor	Poor
3	Ovens	Poor	Good	Poor	Poor
3	Warrego	Poor	Good	Poor	Poor
4	Gwydir	Poor	Moderate to good	Poor	Poor
5	Darling	Poor	Poor	Poor	Poor
5	Murray, Lower	Poor	Poor	Poor	Poor
5	Murray, Central	Poor	Moderate	Poor	Poor
6	Murray, Upper	Very poor	Moderate to good	Extremely poor	Moderate
6	Wimmera	Very poor	Poor	Poor	Very poor
7	Avoca	Very poor	Moderate to good	Poor	Very poor
7	Broken	Very poor	Moderate to good	Very poor	Poor
7	Macquarie	Very poor	Moderate to good	Very poor	Poor
8	Campaspe	Very poor	Moderate	Extremely poor	Poor
8	Castlereagh	Very poor	Good	Very poor	Poor
8	Kiewa	Very poor	Good	Very poor	Poor
8	Lachlan	Very poor	Moderate to good	Extremely poor	Poor
8	Loddon	Very poor	Moderate	Extremely poor	Poor
8	Mitta Mitta	Very poor	Good	Extremely poor	Poor
9	Goulburn	Very poor	Poor	Extremely poor	Poor
9	Murrumbidgee	Very poor	Poor to moderate	Extremely poor	Poor