Australia Test 24
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The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is the Commonwealth agency responsible for the integrated management of water resources across the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's most important agricultural region, working with basin state governments under the framework established by the Water Act 2007 and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to ensure the sustainable use and management of water for the long-term benefit of the environment, communities, and industries that depend on it. The Basin Plan, which came into force in 2012 following an extensive scientific assessment and consultation process, established sustainable diversion limits that cap the amount of water that can be extracted from rivers, streams, and groundwater systems across the basin, balancing the needs of irrigated agriculture, which accounts for the majority of consumptive water use, with the environmental water requirements needed to maintain the ecological health of rivers, wetlands, and floodplains. Environmental water management involves strategic decisions about the timing, volume, and location of environmental water releases from Commonwealth and state environmental water holdings, with the MDBA providing operational planning and coordination to maximise the ecological benefit of available environmental water in partnership with the Commonwealth and state environmental water holders. Water markets in the basin allow the temporary and permanent trade of water entitlements and allocations between users, with the MDBA overseeing the market integrity framework and the water registers that record ownership and transactions in water rights. Compliance and enforcement of the water sharing rules under the Basin Plan involves the MDBA working with state water management agencies to monitor water extractions, investigate potential breaches of extraction limits, and take appropriate enforcement action where violations are identified. Long-term water resource planning, including assessment of the impacts of climate change on future water availability in the basin, is an ongoing function that supports adaptive management of the water resource.