Legislation for ICM: advancing water resources sustainability?

摘要

Victorian water resources regulation was founded on a system split between numerous authorities, divided according to water source and with separate consideration of land and water. Under this system, environmental water needs were either disregarded or subordinate to the requirements of agriculture. Integrated catchment management is now seen as the key to healing past fragmentation and upholding environmental water needs to ensure sustainable water resources management. This article discusses how law supports and gives legal meaning to the theory and practice of integrated catchment management. It asks whether the contribution of law to integrated catchment management advances water resource sustainability and investigates whether the legal structures underpinning catchment management are in need of reform.