Assessing Conjunctive Use Opportunities with Stakeholders in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 145, Issue 5
Abstract
The management of global water resources is increasingly contested. Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) is an example relevant to many semiarid basins around the world. In the MDB, government has recovered substantial volumes of water to support environmental values, but irrigators and the industries and communities they support have opposed the objectives and process of water reform. Initiatives have been implemented to minimize the impact of these reforms on agriculture, but little attention has been given to opportunities that better integrate surface and groundwater resources [i.e., conjunctive use (CU)]. This paper presents a case study in the MDB where stakeholders worked together to identify, then assess, CU opportunities to increase agricultural production without compromising other values. The case study demonstrates the benefits of effective stakeholder engagement; that there are new CU opportunities worth investigating in the MDB; and that the framework used to facilitate the assessment is likely to have wider application.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the partner organization staff who participated in this research. In particular staff from five Victorian and nine New South Wales government, industry, or water management organizations who participated in the project workshops. We also thank the interviewees who generously contributed their expertise, and members of the Australian National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) for their contributions to feasibility assessments. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority funded the research reported in the paper.
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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 145 • Issue 5 • May 2019
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 20, 2017
Accepted: Oct 23, 2018
Published online: Mar 8, 2019
Published in print: May 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Aug 8, 2019
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