Murray-darling Basin, Australia : Its Future Management

Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: Its Future Management is a much-needed text for water resources managers, water, catchment, estuarine and coastal scientists, and aquatic ecologists. The book first provides a summary of the Murray-Darling River system: its hydrology, water-related ecological assets, land uses (particularly irrigation), and its rural and regional communities; and management within the Basin, including catchments and natural resources, water resources, irrigation, environment, and monitoring and evaluation. Additionally, the recent major water reforms in the Basin are discussed, with a focus particularly on the development and implementation of the Basin Plan.

Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: Its Future Management then provides an analysis of the next set of policy and institutional reforms (environmental, social, cultural and economic) needed to ensure the Basin is managed as an integrated system (including its water resources, catchment and estuary) capable of adapting to future changes. Six major challenges facing the Basin are identified and discussed, particularly within the context of predicted changes to the climate leading to an increased frequency of drought and a hotter and dryer future. Finally, a ‘road map’ or ‘blueprint’ to achieve more integrated management of the Basin is provided, together with some ‘key lessons’ of relevance to others involved in the management of multijurisdictional river Basins.

Professor Barry Hart is Director of the environmental consulting company Water Science Pty Ltd. He is also Emeritus Professor at Monash University, where previously he was Director of the Water Studies Centre. Prof Hart has established an international reputation in the fields of ecological risk assessment, environmental flow decision-making, water quality and catchment management and environmental chemistry. He is well known for his sustained efforts in developing knowledge-based decision making processes in natural resource management in Australia and south-east Asia. Prof Hart is currently a board member of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and a non-executive Director of Alluvium Consulting Australia Pty Ltd. He is also Deputy Chair of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing of Onshore Unconventional Reservoirs in the Northern Territory, which commenced in December 2016.He has received several awards, including the Limnology Medal (1982) from the Australian Society for Limnology, the Environmental Chemistry Medal (1996) and Applied Chemistry Medal (1998) from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a Centenary Medal for services to water quality management and environmental protection (2003) and was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2012.

Dr Neil Byron was the Commissioner responsible for environment, agriculture and natural resource management issues in the Productivity Commission from April 1998 to March 2010. He presided over twenty-six public inquiries and directed the PC's environmental economics program. Since 2008, he has been an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Economics at the ANU then at the University of Canberra. In 2014/15 he chaired an independent review of Biodiversity Legislation in NSW which led to the drafting of a new Biodiversity Conservation Act. Neil is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. From 2008 to 2011 he was a non-executive Director of a plantation forestry company in New Zealand and has been a Director of Earthwatch Institute Australia since 2010.

Prof Nick Bond’s primary interests are in the effects of flow variability on riverine ecosystems, especially the landscape scale effects of floods and droughts. His research combines empirical field studies with innovative quantitative modelling approaches. He has extensive experience working on river management and environmental flow issues in Australia and internationally, and has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and numerous peer reviewed technical reports. His research focus is supported by active engagement with regional, national, and international water and natural resource management agencies to support evidence-based planning and decision making.

Dr Carmel Pollino is a Principal Research Scientist at Land and Water, CSIRO. She has 20 years of experience working on water issues in Australia and throughout Asia.

Carmel has a PhD in environmental science and a Masters in environmental law. She works across the science and policy interface, leading significant areas of research in Environmental Flows, Hydrology, Ecology and Integrated River Basin Planning. Carmel is the lead and also a contributor to global working groups on biodiversity, water and impact planning, and has published widely in these domains.

Over the last 24 years, Prof. Michael Stewardson’s research has focused on interactions between hydrology, geomorphology and ecology in rivers (http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person14829). This has included physical habitat modelling, flow-ecology science, and innovation in environmental water practice. Michael has participated in Australia’s water reforms through advisory roles at all levels of government. More recently, his research has focused on the physical, chemical and biological processes in streambed sediments and their close interactions in regulating stream ecosystem services. He leads the Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources Group in Infrastructure Engineering at The University of Melbourne (http://www.ie.unimelb.edu.au/research/water/).