Introduction The Murray Darling Basin is the large catchment which covers 14% of Australia – Over one million square kilometres. It is located across four states – Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. The area consists of the catchment for the Murray and Darling rivers and many tributaries with many high-value natural resources. The extensiveness of the wetlands support and maintain the health of the river system, which made the Murray Darling Basin the Australia’s most important agricultural area for both crop and livestock. As a result, the basin produces over one-third of Australia’s food supply. From above sentence, it seems that the area is enriched with healthy natural resources and ecosystem. However, during 2001 to 2009, the irrigation in this area has increased by a large number causing the low inflows in river systems. The low inflows including the climate change has resulted in the drought across the basin, followed by other environmental problems such as a degradation of biodiversity or an increase in salinity level of land and water, etc. Not only the environmental is destroyed but also the economic in the area which then causing the social impact. To resolve this issue, the government has established the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) in 2007 to address this problem and given a task to develop and implement a “Basin Plan”. However, for the current status, “The Proposed Basin Plan” has created the raging debate among the concerned stakeholders. This report will explain the issues from the beginning; the reason why Murray Darling Basin becomes an issue in the first place, as well as the key arguments for the issue. The Basin Plan The main element of the Basin Plan is to develop a long-term Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs), which defines the amount of surface and groundwater that can be taken from the Basin. The main objective in related to the basin plan is to develop the healthy environment across the Murray Darling Basin, productive economy, and strong social community through cost effective management. The Basin Plan procedure consists of 4 stages; The Guide to Proposed Basin Plan, The Proposed Basin Plan which these two stages are developed by MDBA, The Basin Plan which will be adopted by Commonwealth Minister of water, finally the Plan will be implemented and reviewed by MDBA Figure 1: Stages in developing the Basin Plan Key Factors Diversion of Water – This variable is related to the Basin Plan’s Sustainable Diversion Limit. It defines the amount of water that can be taken from the basins for both surface water and ground water. Water usage – Is one of an important to address the problem of the Basin. Main water usage for this area is use as a human consumption and agriculture which is the main activity to drive an economic in the area. Crop/Live Stock productivity – Main income of the Basin area, these variables are in connection with environment and economic issues. Environmental Health – The consequence of the activity and environmental effects across the Basin. Economic Growth – Defines an income from agricultural activities from the Basin. Social Impacts – consists of four elements; Social connection which defines the activities and relationship among the people, Employment, Trust and Faith in Government, and Health and wellbeing. Water Trading – The buying and selling of water access entitlements across each area of the basin. The Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) For the Causal Loop Diagram shown, it is divided the problems into 3 main issues which the Basin plan need to achieve; Environmental issues are indicated in red lines, Economic issues are indicated in blue lines, and social impacts are indicated in green lines. Consider the Diversion system shown in the diagram, higher the water catchment level, higher the diversion of water from the catchment, causing the higher water usage across the basin then reduce the water catchment level (The Balancing Loop, B3). From the high usage of water in addition with climate changes have resulted in an increase of drought around the basin area which will reduce the crop productivity and also adds up the water usage (Balancing Loop B1), the drought also decrease the livestock production and also adds up the water usage (Balancing Loop, B2). The increase in water usage also results in more irrigated area for agriculture which will reduce the water total flow then higher the water salinity and lower biodiversity then cuts off the environmental health. Lower water salinity Lower the human health and also crop productivity. Moreover, the effect of more irrigated area of non-native plant will result in higher water table lever which will cause the waterlogging that will damaged the roads/buildings and biodiversity then environmental health reduction. Higher water table level also result in higher land salinity which will affect the crop productivity. Another effect from the rise in irrigated area is more nutrients runoff then more contamination in river affecting the water quality and increasing in Blue-Green Algae which will damage the biodiversity thus reduce the environmental health. These issues are main environmental problems that become an issue in the first place. “However, the Proposed Basin Plan also attracted the criticism as followed, since the Plan was developed based on the Water Act 2007 (Cth), the objective is to improve and balance the environment, economic, and social aspects. However, MDBA seems to set the priority over the environmental issues first (Loop B1, B2, B3, and as stated above). From the MDBA’s analysis found that the reduction of water diversion in an acceptable range would optimise the environmental health but will reduce the economic in some area, then the MDBA commented that it was a difficult task to balance all aspects. This comment came in public and other parties’ disagreement that the plan should have focused on economic and social impacts as well. In case of South Australian Government argued that the plan was not so effective since the diversion limit could not solve the all environmental problem and also doesn’t meet the economic and social requirements since MDBA didn’t use the best available science to analyse”. Other party that disagree this plan was National Farmers Federation, reducing the water usage would reduce the crop and livestock productivity. New South Wales Government also stated that other than the Plan doesn’t use the best available, it also imbalance the effect of environment, economic and social, and water trade between states should be more effective. Also South Australian and Victorian users stated that the Plan was not complied with the Water Act for the balancing all aspects reason. On the other hands, ACT Government is the only Basin state that supported the Plan. From the diagram, it shows that higher irrigated area, higher crop productivity which in turn increase the economic growth and irrigated area rise (Reinforcing Loop, R1). Moreover, higher livestock production would result in higher the economic growth. These factors are the economic aspect. For the social aspect economic growth are interrelated with employment, the higher economic growth the higher employment in the area which in turn support the economic growth (Reinforcing Loop, R2). The result of more employment in the area would result in more social activity (or social connection) and builds more trust/faith in the government. The people’s health and wellbeing in the basin area is affected by both social connecting and environmental health in the same direction. Therefore, if MDBA doesn’t consider enough about these 2 aspects it would reduce the economic growth as a whole thus more social impact in negative way – Reducing the water diversion in improving environmental health would somehow reduce the production of crop and livestock thus it reduction in both economic and more social impact. Conclusion Although balancing the improvement in environmental, economic, and social aspects across the Murray Darling Basin is a challenging task. MDBA should have studied for more factors related in the system and collect more comments and recommendations from all stakeholders across the basin in researching the other factors that would optimise these aspects. Finally MDBA should continue to look and put effort on best available science that would address and solve the problem.

Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) References: 1) Daniel Montoya, 2002, The Basin Plan: Legal Debates and Developments. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/key/TheBasinPlan:legaldebatesanddevelopments/$File/The+Basin+Plan+-+legal+debates+and+developments.pdf . [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 2) Murray-Darling Basin water issues – Parliament of Australia . 2012. Murray-Darling Basin water issues – Parliament of Australia . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook43p/murraydarlingissues . [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 3) The raging Murray-Darling debate: an overview | Rooted. 2012. The raging Murray-Darling debate: an overview | Rooted. [ONLINE] Available at:http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/10/08/the-raging-murray-darling-debate-an-overview/ . [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 4) WATER: Farmer anger over latest Murray-Darling Basin plan (Patrick J. Byrne). 2012. WATER: Farmer anger over latest Murray-Darling Basin plan (Patrick J. Byrne). [ONLINE] Available at:http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5209 . [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 5) Irrigation - Murray Darling Basin - Case Study. 2012. Irrigation - Murray Darling Basin - Case Study. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/irrigation/images/mdb_case/mdb_ag_stats.html. [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 6) Gail Winkworth, 2008, Murray Darling Basin Initiative Focused Literature Review, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic, University. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/151278/Final_LITERATURE_REVIEW_September.pdf . [Accessed 21 September 2012]. 7) JOHN QUIGGIN, 2000, Environmental economics and the Murray–Darling river system, Australian Research Council Senior Fellow, Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Australian National University. [ONLINE] Available at: http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:11024&dsID=jqmurr01.pdf . [Accessed 21 September 2012].