NATIONAL IRRIGATORS’ COUNCIL
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
Advocating for the Australian irrigated agriculture industry
NATIONAL IRRIGATORS’ COUNCIL
Advocating for the Australian irrigated agriculture industry
Our role as an irrigation industry leader means we must be informed and inform our industry (Members, Partners and Supporters) of key research and their relevance to contemporary water policy. Many of these resources are available via our website covering the following key themes:
We publish our reviews of research and reports via our website, as part of ensuring accurate, factual and balanced understanding of water policy. These can often be critical reviews or endorsements. From time to time, we undertake in-house analysis on available data and research gaps.
NIC has asked the question - how much water is actually used in the Murray-Darling Basin? After 30 years of reforms to rebalance.
This key piece of information is needed to understand and review water management in the MDB, to understands where that balance is now
- between water diverted for human uses, and water not-diverted to remain in rivers. This goes to the original purpose of the Basin Plan.
The Report’s key finding is clear: just 23% of available water is diverted for human uses, leaving 77% in rivers, wetlands, and floodplains
to support the environment.
The NIC continues to monitor the Federal Government’s implementation of the additional Held Environmental Water (HEW) program under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and has released a second report, following our December 2025 analysis.
The 450 GL program has fundamentally changed since it was first conceived. The original budget has been exhausted, expected costs have
escalated significantly, the scope of the program has expanded, and new environmental evidence has emerged. Despite these material changes,
there has been no transparent reassessment of whether continued expenditure represents the most effective, efficient and economical
investment to achieve environmental outcomes and deliver benefits to the Australian economy [...]
NIC report reviewed the Federal Government’s purchases and found most have low environmental utility and cannot directly contribute to today’s environmental priorities in the Basin – despite costing taxpayers billions.“These additional water buybacks go beyond what was required to ‘bridge the gap’ to get Sustainable Diversion Limits in place for the Basin Plan,” said NIC CEO Zara Lowien “most of this additional water will not be able to be used as intended and unlikely to contribute to desired environmental outcomes”. [...]
Find out more about our community, and join our mission advocating for the Australian irrigated
agriculture industry.