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ABSTRACT
Management of water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin has historically focussed on water security and the allocation of water for users with competing needs. This focus was reflected in the seminal paper on multiple risks to shared water across the basin by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation 15 years ago. That paper captured key concerns that were at the forefront for decision-makers, managers and policy-makers who were, at that time, experiencing the early impacts of the Millennium Drought. Water quality, then, was secondary to the issues of water security. Across the following years, new water quality risks have emerged along with a more nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between climate, floodplain/catchment vegetation, hydrology, and water quality. Critically, this improved understanding applies to the systemic shocks of extreme events, such as the 2020 bushfires and hypoxic blackwater events, as well as the variability, duration and volumes of natural and regulated river flows. In this paper, we explore the key water quality issues that currently face the Basin, and reframe water quality as an integral rather than incidental component of the risks to shared water in the Basin, with the associated implications for policy development that this implies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sara G Beavis
Dr Sara Beavis is an environmental geologist whose research explores the impacts of natural and anthropogenic processes on water quality and water security, and the implications this has for water management. She has worked in both the public sector and academia on issues relating to coastal and inland acid sulfate soils; salinity; farm dam proliferation; and eutrophication in the Murray Darling Basin. Current research across Asia and Oceania includes assessing rivers that are impacted by both large scale and artisanal small scale mining, river extraction industries, and/or climate change and variability.
Vanessa NL Wong
Assoc Prof Vanessa Wong’s research explores the spatial and temporal interactions between soils, sediments and water at a range of scales. She is interested in the role of soil-surface water-shallow groundwater processes ranging from the micron scale to the landscape scale in landscape function, and how these occur in a range of environments. Her work includes Assessing the effects of land degradation processes like increasing salinity, sodicity and acidity, and assessing acid sulfate environments.
Luke M Mosley
Assoc. Prof. Luke Mosley leads a biogeochemical research group at the University of Adelaide. He completed his PhD on the aquatic geochemistry of catchments and estuaries at the University of Otago, New Zealand. For over a decade, Luke was a Principal Scientist (Water Quality) at the Environment Protection Authority in South Australia. The focus of this role was assessing and managing water quality risks in the lower reaches of Australia’s largest and most important river system, the River Murray. He has recently completed a large research project assessing nutrient dynamics in the Coorong, the estuary at the end of the River Murray, for the South Australian and Commonwealth Governments.
Darren S Baldwin
Prof Darren Baldwin is an aquatic biogeochemist who is interested in how natural and human-induced perturbations affect the way energy and materials move through aquatic ecosystems, and how those changes impact on the functioning of those ecosystems. He is currently an adjunct research professor in the School of Agricultural, environmental and Veterinary Sciences as Charles Sturt University and the Principal of the consultancy Rivers and Wetlands.
James O Latimer
Dr James Latimer is an early career academic at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society in the field of biogeochemistry. He completed his PhD on nitrogen dynamics in agricultural systems at the Fenner School and CSIRO in 2021. James teaches environmental chemistry at ANU, exploring how chemistry can be used to improve land management decisions in a range of environmental contexts. His research focuses on nutrient and element fluxes through systems, commonly analysing soils, waters and rocks in agricultural, native, urban and industrial landscapes.
Patrick Lane
Patrick Lane is a Professor of Forest Hydrology in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne. His research interests include the ecohydrology of natural and disturbed forests, streamflow dynamics and erosion processes. He has a particular interest in the effect of fire and climate variability on forest functioning and hydrology.
Aparna Lal
Assoc. Prof Aparna Lal’s research focuses on how the physical environment, broadly defined, impacts human health and well-being. her projects combine public health surveillance with remote sensing, and land and water quality monitoring data to quantify, monitor and understand the processes that shape disease patterns. She uses a wide range of techniques to examine research questions, with a focus on spatial models and temporal approaches to predict disease patterns in response to environmental change.