This talk will raise two key issues that will need to be addressed in the next Basin Plan. The first is a policy position focused on how best to protect environmental water as climate change bites. The current Basin Plan (2012) policy is to continue pre-existing protections of water entitlements in the event that water resource availability is diminished due to climate change. This has ramifications for non-entitlement environmental water. We will discuss other policy positions that could potentially alter the way this situation is addressed by providing for different models for sharing the water resource between consumptive and environmental uses under a changing climate.
The second issue to be covered is related to the response of the Basin’s water-related ecosystems to climate change. Current predictions are for a warmer and dryer climate in the future in the Murray-Darling Basin, which will result in changes to the Basin’s ecosystems. This will raise major challenges for researchers in better defining these changes and possible adaptation actions, and for the community in defining what type of water-related environment they want for the Murray-Darling Basin under a drying climate.