Environmental Water Allocation Forum

On the 28th and 29th May, Land & Water Australia, National Water Commission, Murray–Darling Basin Authority and the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts jointly hosted an Environmental Water Allocation Forum in Canberra.

The forum brought together scientists, managers and policy makers from across the country to share their knowledge and discuss future needs and directions for the management of water for the environment. The forum included discussion of environmental water allocation in regulated and unregulated systems, policy and other instruments for achieving environmental water allocation, and the linking of environmental water allocation to the broader context of regional water plans.

It also included a review of current knowledge and best practice, and explored the knowledge gaps, and future research priorities for environmental water management and allocation. The forum was held as part of Land and Water Australia's Environmental Water Allocation Program.

This program supports researchers working with water managers and regional communities to build upon the knowledge required for managing our rivers and waterways in a healthy state, and recognises the need for more effective use of water resources to achieve the multiple of objectives of viable agriculture, industries, communities and ecosystems.

The Environmental Water Allocation Program looks at both:

• Better managing developed systems - where there is pressure to balance environmental and consumptive uses, such as in the River Murray, we need to demonstrate and improve the ecological outcomes produced from environmental allocations; and
• Understanding undeveloped ecosystems -where there are ecosystems which could come under threat from increasingly altered flow regimes.  Currently there is little knowledge of the flow needs of these ecosystems, and thus little capability to design effective environmental allocations. The ecosystems of concern include ephemeral and monsoonal rivers, groundwater dependent ecosystems and estuaries.

More information on the Research Program, and the outcomes of the Forum, are available here.