Issues in managing a large river at a Basin scale

This report documents the state of knowledge of the secondary, or indirect, impacts of climate change and prioritises topics for investigation in the MD-WERP climate adaption theme.

Science and research

MD-WERP theme	Climate adaptation
MD-WERP theme 1 project	Climate adaptation synthesis and integration
Research lead	Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, Deakin University, CSIRO
Authors	Rebecca Lester, David Robertson, Joel Bailey and Lara Palmer
Author contact details	Rebecca Lester David Robertson
Date of publication	2023
Report full title	Issues in managing a large river at a Basin scale
Keywords	Murray–Darling Basin; climate change; water management; hydrology; catchment scales; community involvement; First Nations participation; adaptive management; uncertainty; integration
Summary of output	Australian Government agencies are required to manage the Murray–Darling Basin as a whole, considering future climate change and facilitating adaptation to ensure a healthy, working Basin. This presents challenges and opportunities, given the scale of the Basin, the plurality of uses and value that exist within and the uncertainties associated with what the future may hold. This issues paper identifies current strengths, challenges and opportunities associated with Basin-wide management and then proposes a framework for Basin-wide monitoring and management to foreshadow future Commonwealth capability expansion.
Key findings / recommendations	To address some of the challenges and opportunities, as well as build on the existing strengths, this issues paper proposes a framework for management at a Basin-scale. Current strengths include the quality of hydrological knowledge in the Basin and the ability to understand responses at annual or seasonal timeframes. Current challenges include the plurality of values held by different stakeholders, issues of scale, variability and dealing with high degrees of uncertainty regarding what the future holds and how the system will respond and the ability of historical monitoring programs to provide fit-for-purpose knowledge to guide future decision making. Key opportunities exist to integrate knowledge across historical disciplines and to partner with other agencies across lines of influence. To enable these opportunities to be realised, this report proposes a framework to integrate different values and assess likely future change, as well as the efficacy of different possible adaptation options.
Target audience	Water managers, researchers, Australian Government, state governments, water and environmental consultants

Report
Publication title	Published	File type	File size
Basin wide management framework: Issues in managing a large river at a Basin scale	23 Nov 2023	PDF	1.51 MB

Published date: 19 May 2025