Resilience to hydrological droughts in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Grafton, R. Quentin; Chu, Long; Bino, Gilad; Williams, John

doi:10.1098/rsta.2021.0296

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…'Natural' water values are generally understood to be those supporting ecosystems functions, such as biodiversity and waterdependent ecosystems (Bark et al, 2011). From this perspective, good water quality (Cañedo-Argüelles et al, 2016) and unmodified stream flows (Grafton et al, 2022a) can be regarded as two desirable water 'values' that prevent ecosystem losses from salinisation and hydrological droughts. 'Human' water values can be regarded as those directly supporting basic human needs, namely through the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation (United Nations, 2021).…”

Section: Water Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Price and Value of Water: An Economic Review

Grafton¹,

Manero²,

Chu³

et al. 2023

Camb. prisms Water

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This review examines key economic concepts in relation to the price and value of water for the supply and demand of household water. It responds to a series of questions about water and how it is used. These include (1) Why water is (or is not) priced and valued (or not)?; (2) What are the key economic concepts for pricing water?; (3) How is water priced and how are water supply assets valued for full cost recovery?; (4) Who bears the costs and enjoys the benefits of water use?; and (5) When is the price of water expected to change? Examples are provided to demonstrate the universality of the economic concepts while highlighting how their application must be bespoke and account for different socio-economic contexts and bio-physical conditions where water is supplied and demanded. Impact statementWe demonstrate how key economic concepts have the potential, if effectively applied, to be transformational in relation to the who, what, where and when of how water is used globally. This opportunity arises because much of the world suffers from either too much (flooding), too little (hydrological droughts) or too dirty water that shortens and diminishes the quality of life of billions of people and degrades environments. Business as usual for water must change, given the projected increase in the world's population of about 2.5 billion over the coming decades, cascading risks from climate change with its myriad of interactions with water, rising global water use, declining aquifers in large food-producing regions, degrading riparian environment due to overextraction, and water pollution. Appropriately pricing and, separately, valuing water for economic efficiency and for more equitable and just outcomes, along with responses to longstanding water governance failures, offer potentially very large global benefits and would support the delivery of SDG 6, 'water for all'. '…(s)upplies and demands for water are not absolutely determined by natural forces and engineering requirements but rather are to be measured in terms of the economic balance of all needs and resources of the community…Where water is scarce and expensive (in terms of other resources that must be sacrificed to make more water available), it becomes justifiable to construct elaborate facilitiesto minimize intake, to recirculate quantities withdrawn, and to avoid uses that are consumptive'.

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Section: Water Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Price and Value of Water: An Economic Review

Grafton¹,

Manero²,

Chu³

et al. 2023

Camb. prisms Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Water volumes diverted by harvesting that escapes from channels and over levees onto riparian floodplains along Baaka and all its tributaries have not been fully calculated, but the annual average diversions are estimated at between 632 and 926 billion litres in the NSW catchments (Brown et al, 2022). In addition to unrecorded water harvesting, recorded annual water extractions averaged 862 billion litres over the period 2004–05 to 2019–20 in northern NSW MDB (Brown et al, 2022, Supplemental Table S4) and are in the order of 1,700 billion litres in total from all tributaries (Grafton et al, 2022b). These extractions have reduced Baaka’s stream flows at an accelerated rate over the past 20 years (Grafton et al, 2022b), contributing to widespread degradation of the ecosystem services along the river and its adjacent wetlands (Australian Academy of Science, 2019; Davies et al, 2010; Kingsford et al, 2017; Thoms and Delong, 2018; Thoms and Sheldon, 2000).…”

Section: Baaka and Martuwarra: Infrastructure Voices And Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to unrecorded water harvesting, recorded annual water extractions averaged 862 billion litres over the period 2004–05 to 2019–20 in northern NSW MDB (Brown et al, 2022, Supplemental Table S4) and are in the order of 1,700 billion litres in total from all tributaries (Grafton et al, 2022b). These extractions have reduced Baaka’s stream flows at an accelerated rate over the past 20 years (Grafton et al, 2022b), contributing to widespread degradation of the ecosystem services along the river and its adjacent wetlands (Australian Academy of Science, 2019; Davies et al, 2010; Kingsford et al, 2017; Thoms and Delong, 2018; Thoms and Sheldon, 2000). This declining ecological health has had severe impacts on the health and wellbeing of river communities, and especially the Barkandji.…”

Section: Baaka and Martuwarra: Infrastructure Voices And Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two rivers – Baaka and Martuwarra, Australia: Shared voices and art towards water justice

Bates,

Chu,

Claire

et al. 2023

The Anthropocene Review

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Two of Australia’s iconic river systems, Baaka in New South Wales (NSW) and Martuwarra in Western Australia (WA), are described in a narrative that connects Indigenous custodianship, bio-physical features and art, and contrasts settler law with First Law to provide multiple ways of seeing the two river systems. Our narrative is a shared response to: (1) upstream water extractions that have imposed large costs on Baaka and its peoples; and (2) threats of water extractions and developments to Martuwarra. By scribing the voices of the two river systems, we have created a space to reimagine an emerging future that connects the past and present through the concept of ‘EveryWhen’, where First Law has primacy, and where art connects Indigenous knowledges to non-Indigenous understanding. Through a dialogue process with Indigenous knowledge holders, artists and water researchers, five action processes, or journeys, are identified to guide water decision making towards water justice.

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“…The lower reaches of the Tarim River have witnessed the widespread death of Populus euphratica forests due to perennial desiccation (Tao et al 2011;Yu et al 2016). In 2019, a dry spell in Australia's Murray River resulted in massive fish mortality (Grafton et al 2022). Similar cases involve transboundary rivers, such as the Nile (Ramadan et al 2021) and Euphrates (Ben-Hasan et al 2018), where upstream water reservoirs often precipitate water shortages in downstream countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing river disruption factors and ecological flow in China’s Liu River Basin amid environmental changes

Li,

Wang,

et al. 2024

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Water resources variability and availability in a basin affect river flows and sustain river ecosystems. Climate change and human activities disrupt runoff sequences, causing water environmental issues like river channel interruptions. Therefore, determining ecological flow in changing environments is challenging in hydrological research. Based on an analysis of long-term changes in hydrological and meteorological variables and interruption conditions in the semi-arid Liu River Basin (LRB), this study summarizes the controlling factors of river interruption at different temporal and spatial scales and proposes a framework to determine ecological flow under changing environments. Hydrological model and the monthly optimal probability distribution (MOPD) were used to determine the optimal ecological runoff of LBR. The results showed that from 1956 to 2017, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration in the basin showed no significant decreasing trend, but the streamflow significantly decreased, and the downstream interruption worsened, with an average annual interruption duration of 194 days at Xinmin Station from 1988 to 2017. The controlling factors of river interruption are: (1) soil and water conservation measures in the upstream significantly reduce the runoff capacity; (2) the operation mode of the controlling reservoir in the middle reaches changes from "all-year discharge" to "winter storage and spring release" to "combined storage and supply," severing the hydraulic connection between upstream and downstream; and (3) siltation in the downstream river channel coupled with over-extraction of groundwater increases the seepage capacity of the river. The monthly ecological flow of Naodehai Reservoir was determined by considering the monthly seepage losses after reconstructing the natural runoff using the SWAT model and determining the optimal probability distribution function for monthly runoff. The findings are important for downstream LRB ecological restoration and for determining the ecological flow of other river basins in changing environments.

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Resilience to hydrological droughts in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Cited by 14 publications

References 84 publications

The Price and Value of Water: An Economic Review

The Price and Value of Water: An Economic Review

A tale of two rivers – Baaka and Martuwarra, Australia: Shared voices and art towards water justice

Analyzing river disruption factors and ecological flow in China’s Liu River Basin amid environmental changes

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