The release of the 2025 Basin Plan Evaluation marks the most comprehensive assessment of the Basin Plan to date. One Basin CRC’s experts call for future actions to focus on local restoration actions, not just water recovery.

The Murray–Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA’s) Basin Plan Evaluation plays a critical role in tracking and communicating progress against outcomes set in the Basin Plan, first established in 2012. The 2025 Evaluation is a significant step in the broader Basin Plan Review, and will inform the Basin Plan Review which is planned for delivery in late-2026. Read more here.

One Basin CRC’s CEO Professor Michael Stewardson, Adaptation and Innovation Program Lead Professor Neville Crossman, Research  Director Professor Seth Westra, with Griffith University’s Professor Samantha Capon, have responded to the Evaluation with a call for the future Basin Plan to have clear targets for environmental outcomes, not just water recovery, and further support local restoration activities.

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Making the most of local integrated solutions to restore the Murray-Darling Basin and transition to a drier future

Mike Stewardson, CEO of One Basin CRC and University of Melbourne, Neville Crossman, Program Leader, One Basin CRC and Flinders University, Sam Capon, Griffith University, and Seth Westra , Research Director, One Basin CRC and University of Adelaide

Introduction

The 2025 Murray-Darling Basin Plan Evaluation this week demonstrates much has changed in Australia’s largest river system since the Plan came into effect in 2012.

The Plan has delivered a major reallocation of water from what were unsustainable levels of consumptive use to the environment. Its new Sustainable Diversion Limits are being met, and the scale and sophistication of environmental water management is substantially improved. 

But despite this good progress, the Evaluation provides a mixed report card in terms of environmental outcomes. While ecological decline has been successfully halted in many sites, sustained basin-scale ecosystem restoration is yet to be achieved, native fish populations in poor condition across the Basin. 

Further, the social and economic impacts of water recovery, while relatively benign at larger scales, have been felt locally with reduced food and fibre production relative to conditions without the Basin Plan.

The Evaluation will be a key input to the Review of the Basin Plan to be delivered to the Commonwealth Water Minister in 2026. First legislated in 2012, the Basin Plan was established to recover water for the environment and safeguard the long-term health of the river system, while continuing to support productive agriculture and communities. 

Under the Basin Plan and earlier reforms such as Water 4 Rivers and The Living Murray, about 28% of water previously diverted for agriculture, towns and industry is now being used by the environment.

This water is being delivered as Environmental Flows by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, actively timing flow delivery when it is needed, and reporting outcomes based on a Basin-wide program for monitoring environmental outcomes.

Despite good progress in recovering environmental water and delivering environmental flows, much remains to be done, especially with the increased recognition of climate change. More intense and frequent extreme climate events and an average 20%-30% less streamflow (up to 50% in some rivers) are expected by mid-century.

With climate change and water demand putting growing pressure on water resources, the Basin Plan next needs to focus on locally tailored land and water management efforts that sustain ecosystem function and support irrigation-dependent communities. In this article, we describe why these local actions are required, including the need for clarity on integrated Basin Plan outcomes to support local partnerships. 

Why we need to include a local approach for Basin Restoration

To date, the Basin Plan has sought to improve river health by recovering water from consumptive use and delivering targeted environmental flows, largely implemented through centralised government-led programs. Direct buybacks of water licences, mostly from irrigators, account for around two-thirds of the water recovered for the environment under the Basin Plan.

Buybacks are the simplest and most cost-effective way to recover water but are controversial because of their social and economic impacts . Much of the remaining water has been recovered through investment in more efficient water supply infrastructure, with water savings reserved for environmental use. Environmental flow delivery decisions are also largely in the hands of government agencies.

While these measures are generally understood to be the most cost-effective way of achieving aggregate environmental benefits across the Basin, they will only achieve their full potential if they are complemented by local river restoration measures.

Environmental water alone will not be enough to restore the basin’s rivers which have been degraded by changes in rivers channels, vegetation and water quality along with the introduction of barriers to fish movement and pest plants and animals. 

A recent study identified nine priority actions to restore Australia’s inland river and groundwater ecosystems. Local restoration actions include revegetating riparian zones; retiring riparian farmland; modifying barriers to fish movements; and installing modern fish screens on irrigation pumps. 

The study estimates annual capital and operating costs of these local measures to be around $2.9B/year if they were to be completed over the next 30 years. After two decades of focus on water recovery, attention now needs to be given to accelerating these local actions in any amendment of the Basin Plan. 

An integrated approach will be needed to account for Basin Plan outcomes 

A key innovation required to enable local restoration actions as part of the Basin Plan, is an accounting framework for tracking Basin Plan outcomes that integrates impacts from local restoration actions and environmental flow delivery. 

An integrated accounting framework is important because it will direct investments in Basin restoration towards the most beneficial measures and enable learning regarding what works most effectively in different situations. It will also underpin consistent outcomes reporting which is key to holding those involved in Basin Plan delivery to account. 

The primary Basin Plan performance measures are currently related to the volume of water recovered for environmental use, and volumes delivered. While these aggregate measures are important, complementary actions such as local ecological restoration works have been largely overlooked because they do not contribute to these flow-based outcomes. Environmental outcomes for the Basin Plan are poorly defined and not enforceable by legislation, providing limited value for tracking progress and accountability.

The next Basin Plan should target environmental outcomes that boost the stock of natural capital and ecosystem services from local restoration measures and environmental flows, measured through improvements to ecosystem accounts. Such ecosystem accounting tools for planning and measuring multiple benefits of restoration already exist, although research is urgently needed to make these tools both locally relevant and fit for purpose for the Basin Plan.

This approach is not new. The Basin Plan already allows for river and floodplain engineering works that directly enhance benefits of environmental flows (e.g. by holding water at a higher level and for longer periods in floodplain wetlands) to offset water recovery targets. It’s now time to expand the Basin Plan to allow for a much wider range of local on ground ecosystem protection and restoration actions.

Local Partnerships and Integrated Planning will Deliver Local Restoration Measures

Clear outcome targets that integrate effects of local restoration measures and environmental flows will allow greater autonomy for local organisations to design and implement restoration actions and to report their contribution to basin plan outcomes. 

Local partnerships are needed to deliver these local restoration measures because most of the basin’s riverine wetlands, and much of the floodplain area, are on private property, including within the Basin’s irrigation districts. 

Works to restore vegetation or other environmental conditions at these critical habitats will only occur with landholders and traditional owners. Irrigator involvement is needed to place fish screens on private irrigation pumps or retire farmland. There is a growing interest and some early experience in using private irrigation channels to deliver environmental water which also requires local partnerships.

Local leadership in the design of restoration actions can leverage other investments in these regions which will be required to support their transition to a drier future. 

Options to integrate local restoration measures with other regional projects such as infrastructure development and drought resilience building will be more acceptable through local integrated planning. Integration of restoration projects within other climate adaptation projects will also create opportunities for co-benefits and co-investment across initiatives. This is a starkly different to the top-down approach to environmental water recovery to date. 

With a broader lens, the Basin Plan is one pillar of a sustainable transition underway across the Basin. Other contributing programs include “closing-the-gap” for First Nations people, implementing best management practices for land and water stewardship on private properties, planning climate resilience, and creating new regional economic development opportunities such as renewable energy infrastructure projects, circular economies that reduce waste, and nature positive markets. 

While Commonwealth and State Governments typically silo investment in these activities through different agencies and departments, these activities occur on the same land, involving the same organisations, and with the same workforce. At the local level, NRM agencies, communities and Indigenous groups already recognise that these should be integrated components of each region’s sustainable transition – local organisations and communities need to be better resourced and incorporated into Basin Plan implementation.

Conclusion

While the environmental water recovered under the Basin Plan and earlier reforms will be crucial to prevent significant biodiversity loss and environmental degradation under a future with less water, other local restoration actions are also needed. 

A business-as-usual approach in which the Basin Plan remains unfocused on these actions would leave responsible NRM agencies struggling to complete these vital local measures with limited funding, resources and accountability to deliver Basin-scale outcomes.

Integrating local restoration actions into the Basin Plan using an ecosystem accounting framework, while at the same time boosting resources to NRM agencies to contribute to Basin Plan implementation, would elevate the importance of these local efforts and facilitate their implementation across the Basin.

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An edited and reduced version of this article was published in The Conversation on July 24^th, and can be read here.