The challenge
Protecting ecosystems in the Murray-Darling Basin
The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) manages the Commonwealth-owned water in the Murray–Darling Basin. It delivers water for the environment with the aim of improving outcomes for plants and animals across the Basin. We need to understand how this water for the environment is helping to maintain, protect and restore ecosystems and native species. This understanding helps the CEWH to manage their water holdings to achieve the best environmental outcomes across the Basin.
Our response
Improving and evaluating environmental outcomes
The Flow Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Program (Flow-MER) is a collaboration of people from several fields of research and many partner organisations. Flow-MER is providing the critical evidence to demonstrate environmental outcomes from the delivery of Commonwealth water for the environment across the Murray–Darling Basin. CSIRO leads Basin-scale evaluation and research, evaluating and improving our understanding of these outcomes. Our work is organised across 6 Basin Themes and 4 Cross-cutting Themes.
The 6 Basin Themes are:
The 4 Cross-cutting Themes are:
- Governance and reporting
- Modelling
- Data management and visualisation
- Stakeholder engagement and communication.
The Basin-scale evaluation reports on the outcomes of the delivery of Commonwealth water for the environment. The Basin-scale research program improves the knowledge underpinning the evaluation and provides understanding to improve when and where Commonwealth water for the environment is delivered.
The results
Supporting better water management
Every year, the Flow-MER Basin-scale Project evaluates the ecological responses to the delivery of Commonwealth environmental water. These evaluations report on the most recent water year and on cumulative outcomes since monitoring began in 2014.
The evaluations are:
- supporting legislative requirements under the Basin Plan
- informing adaptive management
- supporting environmental water managers.
The Basin-scale Project also conducts research through 13 projects funded between 2019 and 2024.
The research program is:
- leveraging research already being undertaken in the Basin
- informing the evaluation of outcomes of Commonwealth environmental water
- informing adaptive management of Commonwealth environmental water
- complementing science being undertaken across the Basin and integrating across the Basin and across Basin Themes.