Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy.

The Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy discusses threats to water availability and quality over the next 50 years, and outlines actions to manage the consequences of prolonged drought and climate change. The actions identified will be implemented and monitored over the next seven to 10 years.
The Strategy identifies 7 key topics and several specific actions of intervention. 1) Firstly successful management of shared water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin requires a recognition of community adjustment issues, the need for strong community engagement and protecting the rights of entitlement-holders; this entails improve negotiation with the Commonwealth to protect existing water entitlements, recognise that better environmental outcomes are not just about more water and that infrastructure investment can optimise the benefits, clarify roles and responsibilities in Basin water management and improve water-sharing arrangements in the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, including the establishment of a River Murray operating reserve to ensure river operations during droughts. 2) Secure water rights and ensure that water management arrangements systems are will be robust and clear during droughts and entitlement holders’ rights to water will be secure. This point concerns actions aimed at improving clarity and management of groundwater and unregulated water licences (Section 51 licences); register all new domestic and stock use in rural residential areas and establish ‘resonable domestic and stock’ guidelines, etc. 3) Entitlement-holders in the Northern Region will have improved choice and flexibility to help manage water-related business risks, through for instance the increase of system reserves to ensure distribution systems can be relied upon to deliver water when and where it is needed, even in severe droughts. 4) The Northern Region will have a profitable and resilient irrigation sector serviced by modernised water distribution system infrastructure and management system through investment actions and more technical actions such as improvement of salinity management to reduce the off-site impacts of irrigation, including initiatives aimed at facilitating changes in land management practices. 5) The river, wetland and floodplain sites of greatest significance to the community will be protected. 6) People in the Northern Region will continue to have access to safe and reliable drinking water through works in the distribution systems and updates in drought response plans. 7) The Northern Region will remain strong and prosperous by adapting to a future with less water.