Water market update for the Murray-Darling Basin

摘要

At the beginning of 2010, the northern sections of the Murray-Darling Basin in New South Wales and Southern Queensland experienced very heavy rainfall, which led to localised flooding and a significant volume of run-off that has flowed into the Darling River. Figure 1 shows a map of the rainfall received in December 2009 and the arrows demonstrate the direction of the floodwater flow down the Darling River. This run-off steadily flowed down the Darling over the six weeks to 22 February, assisted by good rainfall along the system, during late January and mid-February. Run-off flows have been entering the Menindee Lakes storage. On 15 January, Waterfind's general security allocations in the Lower Darling were raised to 100%, and the trade between theLower Darling and Murray systems was opened. On 19 January, South Australian Premier Mike Rann and New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally jointly announced that lOOGL of water that had flowed into the Menindee Lakes from the floods in the northern Murray-Darling Basin was going to be delivered to the Lower Lakes.