The Water Act 2007 established the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to manage a large and complex portfolio of water entitlements to protect and restore environmental assets of the Murray-Darling Basin. Environmental water management on a scale created by the Murray-Darling Basin water reforms is unprecedented internationally. The management of a large water portfolio presents many opportunities and challenges in such a dynamic landscape – climatically, biophysically and politically. How we use and integrate science in the management of environmental water is critical to the success of the reforms.
Environmental watering in the Murray-Darling Basin occurs in a working river system alongside other water users and competing interests. Managing large volumes of water is a working river basin operated primarily for human and productive water needs, requires careful consideration to avoid 3rd party impacts and in doing so requires a shift in approach to the engagement and involvement of science. With an increasing understanding of watering requirements of ecosystems and the potential for whole of system watering actions, the management of environmental water to deliver environmental outcomes has needed to continuously and rapidly adapt.
Expectations from the community to demonstrate the effective use of environmental water to deliver ecological outcomes have increased with the making of the Murray Darling Basin Plan (2012) and the legacy of the millennium drought. Our ability to demonstrate and communicate the outcomes being achieved is dependent on scientifically robust and defensible science, as is our capacity to adaptively manage environmental water. The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder’s monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement framework along with the Long-term Intervention Monitoring program provide an ideal platform to build collaborative partnerships with scientists and the decision makers. Such partnerships will allow contemporary science to shape in real-time decision making, improving environmental outcomes both in the short and longer-terms – ultimately influencing policy approaches.