Water Scarcity In Australia

Water scarcity occurs when there is insufficient water resources in quality or quantity for a regions demand (Boulton, 2014). This demand can be considered to include environmental, agricultural and human usage of water resources (Liu, Crossman, Nolan, & Ghirmay, 2013). Water resources are most commonly sourced from streams, reservoirs, groundwater and localised storage (e.g. storage tanks) (Pereira, Cordery, & Iacovides, 2009) . Water scarcity affects every continent and is in general increasing in prevalence and severity over time (Marshall, 2002).

Ensuring sufficient water supply throughout Australia has been major item of public and private interest since European settlement (Boulton, 2014). Since settlement, periodic droughts often create

Other factors including population grown, global warming, environmental degradation and competing water use interests contributed to an environment where reform was necessary (Costin et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2013). While water reform was first placed on the national agenda at the 1994 Council of Australian Governments (COAG), it was the COAG meeting in 2004 that lead to the establishment the National Water Plan for Water Security.

The National Water Plan for Water was the primary representation of government policy that lead to the Water Act 2007 (Howard, 2007).The National Water Plan for Water Security was a national policy response to address water security but carried specific recommendations concerning the Murray-Darling. This recognised that existing systems with The River Murray Waters Agreement was insufficient to address water scarcity and security issues into the future. The policy outlined the need to establish an independent group to manage resources that wasn’t driven by one particular state or party and considered the entire basins benefit. This policy took form in legislation in the form of the Water Act 2007. The Water Act 2007 established the MDBA with the power, including enforcement powers to ensure that water resources in the future

The Murray-Darling Basin has seen significant modifications in its natural flow regimes with controlling features, extraction and over allocation all creating a negative impact on the basins health and over allocation has historically resulted in poor environmental outcomes and an unnatural flow regime (Walker et al., 1986). The MDBA was created through policy and legislation in order to further environmental outcomes and address historical issues created by human intervention including over allocation to ensure future sustainable water use while maximising environmental outcomes(Liu et al., 2013). The current basin plan will help with the restoration and preservation of ecological function, diversity and connectivity of ecological systems and water quality (Pittock & Finlayson, 2011; Wong & Engineers, 2006; Zipperer, Wu, Pouyat, & Pickett, 2000). The implementation challenge of the current plan depends on a range of stakeholders, agencies and actors, requiring governments and their agencies, industry and communities to work together(M. D. B. Authority,