Review of Cap operations - Murray Darling Basin Commission

Review of the Operation of the Cap

The Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council commissioned a comprehensive review of the operation of the Cap on water diversions from the Basin's rivers. This review, completed in August 2000, focused on how the Cap can be refined to better meet the needs of the Basin. The key conclusions and recommendations of the review which were adopted by Ministerial Council at Meeting 29 on 25 August 2000 are shown below.

the Cap should be maintained;
the Cap has been an essential first step towards achieving a balance between environmental needs and consumptive use, although there is no certainty that the current level of the Cap represents a sustainable level of diversions;
the Cap has provided benefits through ensuring security of supply at a valley level and providing a framework within which water trading and related reforms could be developed;
the lack of final Cap arrangements in Queensland, and to a lesser extent the ACT, represents a potential risk to the Initiative and these arrangements need to be resolved urgently;
all forms of water use should be included in the Cap, such as diversions from floodplain and overland flows, farm dams and tree plantations, as they are recognised and can be quantified;
groundwater should be managed on an integrated basis with surface water within the spirit of the Cap;
intra-State equity issues outside the jurisdiction of the Commission should be dealt with by the particular Government concerned;
a high priority should be given to the finalisation of the compliance tools (computer simulation models) to determine Cap compliance;
a Sustainable Rivers Audit should be developed and implemented; and
Schedule F should be modified in line with the outcomes of the Review and subsequent Commission consideration of the issues raised.

Archived Reports about the Review of the Operation of the Cap including project documentation, Submissions to the Review, Four Companion Papers to the Overview Report and reports received from partner Governments and the Community Advisory Committee and other stakeholders are available here:

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