River rights: reliable ways of testing decisions about environmental flows are needed to begin diverting water back from irrigation. (The Wentworth View).

Ecos, April, 2003

Australia is the world's driest inhabited continent, yet Australians are the highest users of water per capita in the world. Our demand for water is so great, that more than a quarter of our river systems are close to, or have exceeded, sustainable extraction limits.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Murray-Darling Basin, where more than 80% of the total flow from the combined river systems is diverted for industry and domestic use. Irrigation accounts for 95% of this.

Dams and weirs have dissociated Murray-Darling floodwaters from the floodplains, and altered the magnitude, frequency, seasonality, duration and variation of flows. Algal blooms, native fish losses and explosions in carp populations are increasing.

If nothing is done,...