Queensland Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling is Australia's most significant river system. Its basin covers parts of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

Along with the Australian Government and other basin states, we are working to bring the basin back to a healthier and sustainable level, while continuing to support economic development and jobs in regional communities.

View a map of the Queensland Murray-Darling Basin (PDF, 754KB)

What's happening?

Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (Basin Plan) is the overarching plan to manage the basin as a whole and connected system. It was agreed to in 2012 by all the basin jurisdictions.

Read more on the Australian Government's water recovery program, including relevant dates to achieve targets.

Note: The Great Artesian Basin is not considered part of the Murray-Darling Basin water resources.

Implementation of the plan in Queensland

Under the Basin Plan, each Basin State and Territory government is required to prepare a water resource plan for each catchment identified in the Basin Plan. The water resource plans are submitted to the Australian Government for accreditation against the requirements of the Basin Plan.

Queensland has 3 fully accredited water resource plans:

These 3 water resource plans are made up of several documents. The Queensland Government delivers them using water planning instruments which include:

  • water plans (subordinate legislation under the Water Act 2000)
  • water management protocols
  • operations manuals
  • healthy waters management plans and supporting scientific assessments.

You can read more about these key water planning instruments for each plan area in Queensland.

Previous highlights

Northern Basin toolkit measures

We're working with the Australian Government and New South Wales Government to implement the Northern Basin Toolkit measures identified in the 2016 Northern Basin Review.

The Australian, Queensland and New South Wales governments have agreed on 6 environmental measures which are actions that need to be implemented collectively. They are:

  1. Targeted recovery of water.
  2. Protection of environmental flows.
  3. Event-based mechanisms to meet flow targets.
  4. Improved planning for environmental flows.
  5. Removal of constraints in the Gwydir catchment (New South Wales responsibility).
  6. Environmental works and measures to promote fish or broader ecological health.

You can read about these agreed measures in more detail in Appendix A of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Implementing Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin (PDF, 1.6MB).

What Queensland is doing

We have a range of activities underway to deliver on these toolkit measures and improve ecological and fish health.

Held Environmental Water (HEW) is water recovered and held by the Australian Government as a water entitlement for the environment. This helps to meet targets set in the Basin Plan called Sustainable Diversion Limits. In Queensland, we support HEW through our accredited water resource plans. For example, we protect HEW recovered upstream of Beardmore Dam through the Lower Balonne. In collaboration with New South Wales and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder Office, we have developed a way to track the volume of HEW passing the Queensland-New South Wales border.

To fulfil measure 6, we have submitted the following to the Australian Government:

Queensland is working on the Fish-friendly Water Extraction: Condamine-Balonne and Border Rivers project (FFWEP). The project works with irrigators to install screens to prevent fish and other aquatic life being pumped out of the river. This project is on track for completion by 29 May 2026. We have agreements in place with local installers for 12 fish screens on irrigation pumps. Five of these are installed.

View a complete list of the Northern Basin Toolkit measures projects, business cases and assessments.

Murray-Darling compliance

We are delivering on Basin Plan commitments to improve water measurement, monitoring, compliance and access to water information.

Activities in the Rural Water Futures program are improving transparent and sustainable rural water management. The program will publish an annual performance report.

To meet our commitments under the Australian Government's compliance compact (PDF, 1.4MB) we have:

Completed Queensland initiatives

Fencing the northern riverbanks

This major project installed over 500 kilometres of waterway fencing and off-stream stock watering points. By keeping stock out, the river and surrounding habitat can regenerate. This supports the recovery and protection of native fish.

In August 2023, some of the work at a First Nations property in the Cunnamulla region was captured on video when the former Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water and their delivery partner Southern Queensland Landscapes visited the site.

Watch the video to see how the fencing helps the Indigenous custodians care for their country.

"We have fenced this area and it's phenomenal the bird life here, the cleanliness of the water is just beautiful, you could swim in it and drink it, it really has made a huge difference."

David Grace, Condamine.

The program was administered by the former Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water and received $7.5 million from the Australian Government. Landholders invested an additional $3 million in the program which commenced in 2020 and was completed in 2023.

Read more information on the Fencing the Northern Riverbanks program.

Contact us

Contact your local business centre for more information on Queensland's Murray-Darling Basin.

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