Reform progress
Striking a balance between the consumptive use of water and environmental health is a key element of the National Water Initiative, which calls for:
- environmental and other public benefit outcomes for water systems to be identified with as much specificity as possible in water plans
- management practices and institutional arrangements to be put in place to achieve environmental outcomes
- accountable environmental water managers to be established and equipped with necessary authority and resources to provide sufficient water at the right times and places to achieve identified outcomes, including across state/territory boundaries where relevant
- cost-effective measures to provide water for environmental outcomes
- recovery of water for the environment in over-allocated surface and groundwater systems.
Progress
In the 2009 Biennial Assessment of progress against the National Water Initiative, the National Water Commission noted there has been progress towards achieving the goals of the NWI, but more work is needed and the pace of reform has generally been too slow to ensure the adequate protection of many water-dependent ecosystems.
In particular, the prolonged drought and potential impacts of climate change across southern Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin have led to a quantum leap in the magnitude of the challenges facing environmental water managers. In many water systems, the environment is disproportionately affected in times of low water availability. Environmental managers are now having to prioritise environmental assets and target watering to those assets. This is occurring under extremely challenging circumstances, while significant scrutiny of the ecological effectiveness of environmental watering is underpinning the need for good science and transparency in decision-making processes.