Submission – Murray–Darling Basin Authority 2026 Basin plan review
The Academy recommends climate‑adjusted water limits, stronger monitoring and sustained research investment to safeguard the Murray–Darling Basin, as current settings risk accelerating ecological decline.
The Murray–Darling Basin is home to 2.4 million Australians, 40% of all Australian farms, and contains a variety of unique and delicate ecosystems.
In preparing this submission, the Academy has sought perspectives from experts in water quality, surface water hydrology, ecotoxicology, agriculture, geography, earth system science, and ecology, evolution and conservation science.
The Academy recommends that:
- adjustments to the Sustainable Diversion Limits should be considered due to impacts of climate change on the environmentally sustainable level of take, and that Sustainable Diversion Limit accounting should be independently peer reviewed
- sustained, coordinated, national investment is needed in climate science to inform evidence-based decision-making in the Basin
- water quality targets are aligned with contemporary guidance, a wider range of water quality parameters are monitored, and real-time monitoring techniques are expanded
- the high-priority scientific knowledge gaps identified in the Academy’s 2019 report are reviewed by the Murray–Darling Basin Authority as part of the 2026 Basin plan review
- the revised plan should ethically include First Nations people’s science and knowledge to inform Basin water management.
