The Murray-Darling plan explained

Sarah Clarke in ABC News (Australia): The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is due to release a landmark document on Friday outlining its plan to secure the long-term health of the Murray-Darling Basin. Here's an explanation of what it's all about.

The document being released on Friday October 8 is officially titled the Guide to the Proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It is the first part of a three-stage process to address the problems that have plagued the system for years. The plan aims to restore flows to key environmental assets in the Murray-Darling Basin.

It will set new limits for irrigators and other water users and establish where more water is needed if the system is to survive. The Federal Government hopes to achieve a balance between agricultural, industrial, human and environmental needs.

The Murray-Darling Basin covers more than 1 million square kilometres, or 14 per cent of Australia's land mass, stretching over parts of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. It's also the nation's most important food-producing region, heavily dependent on irrigation. The basin has been under enormous stress as a result of over-allocation, prolonged drought, natural climate variability and climate change.

As a result, a lack of water has played havoc with rivers, wetlands, forests and floodplains. State governments are to blame for allowing too much water to be taken out of the system. And the science indicates that there's no longer enough water in the rivers to keep the rivers alive….

The confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers in Wentworth, New South Wales, shot by Mattinbgn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license