The review role includes conducting formal legislated reviews, such as the recent Northern Basin Review in 2016 and a 10 year review of the Basin Plan due in 2026, along with yearly Basin Plan Annual Reports.
We undertake other assessments of Basin Plan operations and implementation when a need is identified.
Five years after the Basin Plan was legislated we’re conducting an evaluation of its social, economic and environmental outcomes to assess its effectiveness across the Basin and to see if anything else needs to be done to achieve the Basin Plan’s aims.
This evaluation, or report card, will use the Northern Basin Review findings along with new social and economic research we’ll undertake in 2017 into the experiences people in about 30 southern basin centres have had in relation to the plan. The community-level information will be combined with analysis of Basin, catchment and industry outcomes.
We'll be looking to answer questions like:
- Is implementation of key Basin Plan components on track?
- To what extent have the intended purposes, objectives, targets and outcomes been achieved?
- How has the Basin Plan contributed to changes to environmental, social and economic conditions?
- What, if any, unanticipated outcomes have resulted from the implementation of the Basin Plan?
- How could we better achieve intended purposes and objectives through refining remaining Basin Plan implementation efforts?
The report card will look at the effectiveness of the on and off-farm infrastructure programs, as well as the impacts of water purchase and reduced water availability for production — along with the environmental outcomes.
The Water Act gives us sufficient scope to check that the Basin Plan is on track and that we're seeing the outcomes we expected to see — environmental, economic and social.
Information from the evaluation may be used to inform the future implementation of the Basin Plan, be used by communities and industries to help them adjust to the many causes of change they face, and inform governments about whether the effects of the Basin Plan differ from those expected when the Basin Plan was developed.
We will be holding information sessions in the southern basin from March this year to progress this work and we’re already talking with industry and community leaders about the evaluation.
The Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism process that is currently underway is about getting equivalent environmental outcomes with less water and less economic impact, by making environmental watering more efficient, improving river management practices, or overcoming some of the physical barriers to delivering water in the system.
This process will reduce the volume of water recovery that is still needed in the southern basin. The Sustainable Diversion Limit will need to be changed in the Basin Plan.
The MDBA is working with all Basin jurisdictions to progress these projects that are due for finalisation this year.
– Attributable to MDBA Chief Executive Phillip Glyde
ENDS
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