Proposed Basin Plan consultation report

Climate change

143.Issue

Submissions expressed concern about the proposed Basin Plan’s approach to dealing with climate change. Submitters felt that the scientific case for action on climate change was too strong and that the proposed Basin Plan did not adequately consider this.

‘Climate change is likely to lead to reduction in the average level if future water availability. The proposed SDLs do not explicitly take into account future climate change, but accept the climate change risk sharing in current planning arrangements’

Some submitters also mentioned that leaving climate change adaptation to the states to handle independently would be likely to prove inadequate.

RESPONSE

MDBA agrees that climate change poses a significant risk to the availability of surface water in the Murray–Darling Basin, and the proposed Basin Plan incorporates this in its framework and SDLs.

Decisions set out in the proposed Basin Plan, and a starting point for the adaptive management framework, are based on what is known about the past (i.e. the historic climate sequence of 1895-2009). This sequence includes wide climate variability, including three prolonged droughts.

Importantly, the proposed Basin Plan’s adaptive management framework provides an opportunity for improvements in knowledge related to climate change to be taken into account.

The proposed Basin Plan also has mechanisms for continuous adjustment and adaptation:

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  environmental watering priorities will be determined every year with the State water agencies – and these priorities will be adjusted as a result of experience and new information, as well as seasonal predictions. 
  
• 
  the existing water allocation arrangements will be continued.  These arrangements have been developed over many years and allow for conservative annual adjustment in response to preceding and forecast conditions - a critical feature of sustainable water management in a highly variable climate
  
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  creating an unrestricted water market through the proposed Basin Plan trading rules.   An effective water market provides an important avenue for adaptation for Basin industries and communities in the Basin – both to the climate extremes of flood and drought, and to future climate change.
  

The Productivity Commission draft report, Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation³⁶, has reaffirmed that MDBA is on the right path. First, by addressing the current, and pressing, need for reform to address environmental problems already evident under our existing climate variability. And second by establishing a flexible and adaptive framework that allows new information to feed into future management decisions. The Productivity Commission report makes the point that where there is uncertainty, and where the up-front costs are high, there is likely to be a benefit to the community in deferring action until better information becomes available.

This is where we are now with water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. There is an urgent need to reform our use of water under the current known climate.

These reforms deliver direct community benefits from a more resilient environment, and help build adaptive capacity for responding effectively to future impacts.

The adjustments in consumptive water use set out in the proposed Basin Plan will buffer the environment from potential reductions in water availability.

The proposed Basin Plan contains arrangements for meeting CHWN along the River Murray System in extremely dry scenarios.

Groundwater supplies are not expected to be affected by climate change in the life of the first Basin Plan, but this resource will continue to be monitored throughout the life of the Basin Plan.

The Basin Plan will be implemented through water resource plans, which will be required to describe how water will be managed should climatic extremes occur, such as a prolonged dry period.

MDBA is committed to increasing knowledge of the effects of climate change on environmental water needs, water availability and other water requirements. This is being done in a number of ways, including through the South Eastern Australia Climate Initiative (SEACI). Further, a number of submissions, including that provided by CSIRO, provide valuable suggestions as to further work in relation to climate change analysis.  MDBA is committed to doing these analyses and continuing to explore this issue in consultation with Basin States, the community and scientific experts.  MDBA views ongoing discussion and analysis of this issue as highly important to developing suitable policy solutions. 

Between now and 2015, MDBA will undertake a thorough analysis of the implications of future climate change for the environmental outcomes being sought under the Basin Plan and the future availability of water for consumptive use.. Any new information and analysis will be considered in the 2015 review of SDLs. Subsequently, the Basin Plan will be reviewed at least every 10 years.

Coal-seam gas and other mining activities

144.Issue

Submitters were concerned about how the Basin Plan would treat coal-seam gas and other mining activities, with some expressing the view that extraction for coal-seam gas and mining should be limited by the Basin Plan. Others expressed the view that the WQSMP should address potential saline inputs to surface water from coal-seam gas and other mining activities.

RESPONSE

The Basin Plan has the role of setting a limit sustainable on the consumptive use of Basin water resources – not determining how this water is used.

State governments are responsible for approval and regulation of mining activities. The volume of water used by mining, including coal-seam gas mining, will need to be within the limits specified by the proposed Basin Plan. This includes any leakage from groundwater resources caused by mining activities.

Water resource plans required to meet sustainable use and management criteria will need to be developed. These plans will need to describe what action has been taken to comply with these requirements and, where necessary, include rules to ensure the impacts of groundwater take are sustainable. This will include considering the impacts on environmental assets, surface-water base-flow and hydraulic relationships between surface-water and groundwater systems.

States will be responsible for ensuring that any disposal of groundwater into surface-water systems is consistent with the Basin Plan, including in respect of the WQSMP, and ensuring flows are consistent with EWPs. MDBA will be responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance. The water resource plans will also have to consider the need for rules to prevent any unacceptable level of salinity or contaminants as the result of taking groundwater. In addition, if the outcome of this consideration is that rules are needed, then the water resource plan must include those rules. Further, state environmental authorities have strong legislative provisions in relation to discharges.

The Australian Government is investing $150 million to establish a new independent expert scientific committee to provide advice to governments and relevant coal-seam gas and large coal mining projects and to commission and fund water resource assessment for priority regions. The advice of the committee will be public and will be available to assist MDBA when it reviews and makes changes to the Basin Plan