Basin Plan trade-offs

1. Environmental Water Mike Young Executive Director, The Environment InstituteEmail: Mike.Young@adelaide.edu.au

2. Basin Plan trade-offs • Conveyance to and through Mouth only 9 in 10 yrs • Prepared to lose 25% of red gum forests • Most benefits from 3,000 GL to 4,000 GL are local and occur within region where purchases are to occur • States must comply with SDLs even if Commonwealth fails to buy enough water

3. Flood water Entitlements Entitlements Environment Environment with a fully-specified share Volume of water available Shared Water Water needed to ensure conveyance

4. Key Ecosystem Functions& conveyance How conveyance is defined matters

5. Institutional design tasks • Structural arrangements • How environmental water needs are defined • How environmental water entitlements are held • Strategic arrangements • Who manages • What options are available to managers • Who is accountable for performance • Tactics • How much flexibility can we give environmental managers? • Could set up Regional Environmental Trusts to take prime responsibility and be accountable for environmental water

6. Structural arrangements • How should the environment’s entitlement be specified? • Same as all other entitlements • Who should own the environment’s entitlement? • How much held centrally • How much held regionally or leased on long term basis to a region • What would a regional trust look like? • Unrestricted carry forward? • Current carry forward rules designed for irrigation industry (efficiency and equity) • Continuous accounting would mean less entitlements have to be purchased for the environment • Should the environment have to pay its way? • Much greater independence if trusts have to pay their way • Could be done by forcing them to sell allocations every year

7. How much water • Remember floodwater and conveyance water contributes to environmental outcomes • What type of outcomes do communities want? • A Heritage River • A Conservation River • A Healthy Working River • It may be possible to downsize (reconfigure) some parts of the system • The MDBA could use the SDL algebra to define a target portfolio of water entitlements to be secured for each region => an approach that works with the people in each region • The more innovative the institutional arrangements, the less the amount of water needed for the same environmental outcome

8. “Take” environmentally sustainable level of take for a water resource means the level at which water can be taken from that water resource which, if exceeded, would compromise: (a) key environmental assets of the water resource; or (b) key ecosystem functions of the water resource; or (c) the productive base of the water resource; or (d) key environmental outcomes for the water resource. • Water allocated to the environment by definition is not part of the “take”

9. Section 23 Water Act (1) A long‑term average sustainable diversion limit for the Basin water resources, for the water resources of a particular water resource plan area ...... must reflect an environmentally sustainable level of take. (2) A long‑term average sustainable diversion limit for the Basin water resources, for the water resources of a particular water resource plan area ... may be specified: (a) as a particular quantity of water per year; or (b) as a formula or other method that may be used to calculate a quantity of water per year; or (c) in any other way that the Authority determines to be appropriate.

10. Summary • Institutional arrangements matter • A regional approach may offer a way forward • In preference to volumes, the focus should be on the portfolio of entitlements that need to be secured • Need to always allow the purchase of water entitlements for the environment after all plans are in place! text

11. www.adelaide.edu.au/environment www.myoung.net.au