Basin Salinity Management Program

Salinity in NSW

Salinity remains an issue across the NSW Murray-Darling Basin and presents significant economic, environmental and social challenges for the state.

Salt occurs naturally in the landscape, however changes in climate and land and water use can cause increased levels of salt to enter our creeks and rivers.  This can impact our ecosystems, agricultural production, drinking water and infrastructure.

Salinity is forecast to continue to increase over time and requires careful ongoing management to prevent a return to the highly saline conditions of previous decades.

Management of salinity across the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority and Basin states are working together to reduce and offset salinity issues across the Basin through a range of land and water management actions. This has led to the establishment of in-river salinity targets and the inclusion of salinity risk management into water planning and operational practices.

Ongoing and proactive salinity management and monitoring is necessary to ensure river salinity stays below agreed salinity levels and the Water Group’s Basin Salinity Management Program and its partners continue to work together on salinity management.

As part of these collaborative efforts, the Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2030 (BSM strategy) outlines a program of coordinated salinity management activities of which the NSW Government has certain roles and responsibilities.

About the NSW Basin Salinity Management Program

The Water Group’s Basin Salinity Management Program helps to ensure salinity in the Murray River does not exceed the agreed levels and managing the changing salinity risk from NSW catchments.

It is responsible for:

• implementing the NSW Government’s commitments under the BSM strategy
• meeting NSW’s obligations under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement
• integrating these requirements within the NSW water management framework.

Program scope

The program covers the whole of the NSW Murray-Darling Basin. However, the focus is on water use and inception activities posing a risk to the shared water resource (i.e., with a connection to the Lower Darling and Murray Rivers and their primary tributaries).

This includes existing or new activities such as irrigation development, river operations, water infrastructure, salt interception schemes and other salinity mitigation activities with the potential to have material impacts on salinity levels and targets.