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DRAFT Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan (LWMP) by Mallee Catchment Management Authority - Issuu
Draft Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan 2020â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29
Public Consultation Draft December 2019
Have Your Say The Mallee Catchment Management Authority is inviting feedback on this Draft Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan; a key regional planning document for the management of productive, sustainable irrigation in the Victorian Mallee over the next ten years (2020-2029). You can download a copy of the Draft Plan from the Mallee CMA website at www.malleecma.com.au, or contact us to request a printed copy be sent to you. T 03 5051 4377 E info@malleecma.com.au There are various ways for the people of the Victorian Mallee to get involved in helping to finalise the LWMP. You are welcome to: •	Make a submission online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ MalleeLWMP •	Meet with the project team as part of the consultation program •	Provide feedback in an email to: info@malleecma.com.au Public consultation will close at 4.30pm on Friday 31st January 2020.
Acknowledgements The Mallee Catchment Management Authority (CMA) acknowledges and respects Traditional Owners, Aboriginal communities and organisations. We recognise the diversity of their cultures and the deep connections they have with Victoria’s lands and waters. We value partnerships with them for the health of people and country. The Mallee CMA Board, management and staff pay their respects to Elders past and present, and recognise the primacy of Traditional Owners’ obligations, rights and responsibilities to use and care for their traditional lands and waters. A Steering Committee involving key regional partners was established to oversee the development of this Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan. The committee was chaired by Tony Martin, Mallee CMA Board member, and had representation from: the Mallee CMA Board, Mallee CMA Land and Water Advisory Committee and the Mallee CMA Aboriginal Reference Group; Lower Murray Water; Grampian Wimmera Mallee Water; Agriculture Victoria; the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning; and the Mallee CMA. The project was also supported by the management and staff of the Mallee CMA. The Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan was supported by the Mallee CMA, through funding from the Victorian Government.
1 Almond and orange orchards. 2 Centre pivot. 3	Private divertor pumps. 4	Irrigated agriculture next to the Murray River.
© Mallee Catchment Management Authority 2019 Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan 2020-29
All images supplied by Mallee CMA unless credited otherwise.
This document can be accessed at the Mallee CMA website: www.malleecma.com.au Publications produced by the Mallee Catchment Management Authority may be of assistance to you but the Mallee Catchment Management Authority and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purpose and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in any Mallee Catchment Management Authority publication.
Preface fhaiuhfiuah
With such an intensive industry reliant on water, it is essential that we manage it sustainably.
Our region has a long association with horticultural irrigation that predates the commonly accepted founders of irrigation, the Chaffey Brothers of the 1880s. Early explorers recorded observations of Aboriginal horticulture in the Murray-Darling Basin with accounts of planting, irrigating and seed harvesting. While the history of horticultural irrigation is long, the last 20 years have seen the modern-day irrigation area within our region more than double in size to over 80,000 hectares. The Victorian Mallee irrigation region produces approximately $1 billion annually in agricultural production, making our region one of the most productive in the State and the Murray-Darling Basin. This production is generated from less than 5% of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arable land, delivering substantial economic and social benefits. With such an intensive industry reliant on water, it is essential that we manage it sustainably. Critically, we must deliver water-efficient practices and effectively manage the risks to our environment, cultural heritage and the Murray River, to ensure the social licence to irrigate is maintained and supported, particularly in times of climate change and water constraint. Since the development of the community-driven salinity management plans of the 1990s, which established a far-reaching salinity management framework, our region has been at the forefront of salinity management. It is this framework which has improved Murray River water quality while supporting irrigation development, a task initially seen as optimistic. We have clearly shown that with careful management you can have both.
The Mallee Catchment Management Authority (CMA) recognises and seeks to maintain the momentum of previous plans through the development of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Draft Land and Water Management Plan. This draft plan has been developed by a project steering committee representing a crosssection of community and agencies. It looks to refine the salinity management framework and renew the effort to protect landscapes and water quality in the Murray River. It seeks to rehabilitate degraded floodplains impacted by irrigation and river operations. Importantly, it aims to support Aboriginal partnerships, mutual awareness and encourage the irrigation community to be forward-looking and resilient. Together with the Board of the Mallee CMA, I am pleased to release the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Draft Land and Water Management Plan for public comment. With your input, it will ensure public funds are targeted to actions that meet local priorities and align with government policy to build on past achievements and address future challenges. Our community plays an important role in delivering this plan and I welcome your valued input into its development.
Sharyon Peart Board Chair Mallee Catchment Management Authority December 2019
Contents 1	Our vision, objectives and targets
2	About the plan
2.1	Purpose and scope of this Land and Water Management Plan	2.2	History of the Land and Water Management Plan	2.3	Achievements of the Land and Water Management Plan 2011-2019	2.4	New policy directions	2.5	Future changes, challenges and opportunities
3	Development of the Plan
3.1	Regional collaboration	3.2	Community engagement
4	Land and water management in the Victorian Mallee
4.1	Traditional land and water management	4.2	A short history of irrigation in the Victorian Mallee	4.3	Irrigation today	4.4	Irrigation values	4.5	Irrigation threats	4.6	Trends in river salinity management	4.7	The challenge of climate change
5	Delivery framework
5.1	Dealing with low and variable water availability and deliverability	5.1.1 Water Entitlement Volumes available from the Murray system	5.1.2	Water availability issues	5.1.3	Water deliverability issues	5.1.4	Increasing irrigation community involvement in actions to deal with low and variable water availability and deliverability	5.1.5	Water Entitlement Volumes in the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area	5.2	Ensuring sustainable water delivery methods to irrigated properties	5.2.1	Extraction Shares for irrigators who pump directly from the river	5.2.2	Delivery Shares for irrigators inside irrigation districts	5.2.3	Conditions on works licences and bore licences	5.2.4	Water Delivery systems	5.3	Increasing the uptake of best management irrigation practices	5.3.1	Ensuring the adoption of best management practices for new irrigation developments
5.3.2	Encouraging the adoption of best management practices on existing irrigation developments	5.3.3	Monitoring the effectiveness of water-use licence conditions	5.4	Protecting the quality of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water resources	5.4.1	Murrayville Bore Decommissioning Project	5.4.2	Independent review of salinity charges	5.4.3	The cap on annual use limits in the salinity High Impact Zone	5.4.4	Managing Accountable Actions under the Basin Salinity Management Strategy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; BSM 2030	5.4.5	Managing irrigation drains	5.5	Monitoring the cumulative effects of irrigation water use	5.5.1	Successful coordination of irrigation practices and cultural values	5.5.2	Understanding the cumulative effects of irrigation on Mallee landscapes	5.5.3	Reviewing the biodiversity outcomes of the Irrigation Development Guidelines	5.5.4	Protecting the environmental values of wetlands managed for salinity purposes	5.5.5	Ensuring healthy, productive and sustainable Mallee communities
6	Implementation	37
6.1	Action summary	6.2	Prioritising actions	6.3	Delivery partnerships	6.4	Monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement	6.4.1	Program logic	6.4.2	Monitoring	6.4.3	Evaluation reporting and improvement
28 28 30 30 31 31
7	Reference Materials	43 7.1	References	7.2	Acronyms	7.3	Glossary	7.4	Appendices	7.4.1	Recommendations of the review of the Mallee Irrigation Incentives Program	7.4.2	BSM2030 Maps of Accountable Actions in the Victorian Mallee
Part 1 Our vision, objectives and targets
The draft Victorian Mallee Land and Water Management Plan’s (LWMP’s) vision and objectives are designed to align with the Victorian Sustainable Irrigation Program (SIP) and give effect to the Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS). This approach ensures the overarching State program and regional priorities are central to the development, implementation and evaluation phases of the LWMP.
A forward looking, resilient and water use efficient irrigation industry maximising productivity from available water; An aware irrigation community avoiding or minimising negative effects on the region’s natural and cultural landscapes; and
The LWMP vision is:
An engaged irrigation community encouraged to be collaborative and innovative.
Healthy, productive irrigation communities actively avoiding or minimising environmental impacts. Table 1 below, gives guidance on how this vision will be achieved. The objectives within further define the strategic directions for land and water management in the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region while also helping to guide priorities for action.
A range of targets set quantitative measures for the region’s progress towards the vision and objectives over the life of the plan. Collectively, the vision, objectives and targets set out the plan’s program logic.
Table 1 | Program logic for the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan. VISION
Resource Condition Targets
Management Outcome Targets
Healthy, productive irrigation communities actively avoiding or minimising environmental impacts A forward looking, resilient and water use efficient irrigation industry maximising productivity from available water An increase in community involvement in actions to deal with low and variable water availability
An increase in target audiences’ awareness and understanding
Improve the community’s adaptability during low and variable water availability
An increase in target audiences’ skills and participation/ adoption
An aware irrigation community avoiding or minimising negative effects on the region’s natural and cultural landscapes
Increase in sustainable water delivery methods to irrigated properties
Cultural heritage values are maintained
Increase in uptake of best management irrigation practice and continual improvement of irrigation management on existing developments
Groundwater resources are managed for optimum benefits
An engaged irrigation community encouraged to be collaborative and innovative
Maintain protection of quality of irrigation region’s water resources through management of groundwater infiltration and drainage disposal
Recovery in landscapes impacted by irrigation induced salinity or offset areas established.
An increase in best management practices implemented
Monitor the cumulative effects of irrigation water use in the region in order to evaluate and report on those effects and to identify costeffective options for improvement Continued compliance with basin salinity obligations
An increase in community understanding and management of the impacts of irrigation on the region’s natural, productive and cultural landscapes
An increase in the uptake of biodiversity requirements integrated into regional and on-farm irrigation planning
Part 2 About the plan
The long history of irrigation throughout the world provides ample evidence that irrigation communities must constantly guard against the potential negative side-effects of waterlogging, land salinisation and water salinisation if they are to remain sustainable. Since the late 1980s, Victoria has evolved a series of salinity, and more recent land and water management plans (LWMPs), tailored to each of its major irrigation regions. They guide and evaluate government investment aimed at delivering sustainable productive irrigated agriculture. They also help agricultural communities adapt to reduced water availability, climate change, and global market forces. The plans to date have been remarkably successful in helping communities adjust to these changes, but LWMPs must continue to evolve to take account of changing community expectations, new knowledge, changes in technology and changes in irrigation practices.
LWMPs set out how irrigation regions across Victoria identify community requirements and prioritise actions to meet Government objectives, implement policy and comply with regulations. Victoria’s LWMPs are predominantly funded and overseen by the Victorian government through the Sustainable Irrigation Program. They are regionally developed plans that set out objectives and actions to deliver sustainable irrigation in Victoria’s catchment management areas. It is a partnership approach between regional communities, catchment management authorities (CMAs), rural water corporations and State government agencies including the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Agriculture Victoria (Ag Vic). This draft Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region LWMP is a sub-strategy of the Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS). As shown in Figure 1, the LWMP integrates with the Mallee RCS, with other Victorian programs and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2015–2030 (BSM2030).
Merbein Cluster Box.
Draft Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan 2020–29
SEPP (Waters) | CaLP Act | Water Act
BSM 2030
Identification of Regional Risks and Priority Actions
Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan
Figure 1 | The LWMP is integrated with other regional strategies and plans.
The Mallee LWMP provides the strategic framework for determining priority investment in works and measures to achieve the plan’s vision and fulfil its objectives. It: •	provides the accountability framework that ensures public funds are targeted to actions that align with government and local priorities; •	demonstrates how actions are delivering on agreed objectives and irrigation management priorities; and •	establishes how outcomes are monitored and reported to demonstrate the benefits of the program to the community and government.
2.1	Purpose and scope of this Land and Water Management Plan The purpose of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region LWMP is to identify community requirements and prioritise actions to meet Government objectives, implement policy and comply with regulation. To achieve the LWMP vision and comply with the purpose calls for planning that builds on past achievements, considers key threats and opportunities, accounts for government directions and partners with community. Developed in partnership with regional stakeholders, the LWMP will be implemented over a ten year timeframe (2020-2029) with a five year review to evaluate performance and inform the next iteration in 2030. The LWMP covers all irrigated areas and all areas affected by irrigation in the Mallee CMA region. As shown in Figure 2, it includes areas where new irrigation
development is likely, and the areas potentially affected by irrigation. In short, it covers a 25 km strip along the Murray River (on the Victorian side) and the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area. It is important to note however, that while the LWMP strives to protect the quality of the associated water resources, it does not include the management of those resources. That work is done at the state level and is done in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (the Basin Plan) and the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area Local Management Plan.
Figure 2 | Area covered by the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region LWMP.
2.2	History of the Land and Water Management Plan The LWMP 2020-29 recognises and builds on the achievements of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region LWMP 2011-2019, the 2006 Draft Victorian Mallee Salinity and Water Quality Management Plan and the Nangiloc-Colignan, Sunraysia and Nyah to the South Australian Border Salinity Management Plans, which were released in the 1990s. The original salinity management plans of the 1990s focussed on addressing the causes of salinity and establishing the Victorian Mallee salinity management framework, which is still the basis for the current approach. The LWMPs of the 2000s focused on
irrigation, water use efficiency, modernisation and continuous improvement. This plan maintains the momentum of previous plans. It strives for continuous improvement in the adoption of best management practices for irrigation. It refines the salinity management framework by updating salinity models and reviewing salinity offsetting charges. It renews efforts to mitigate or offset the environmental impacts of irrigation and river operations. It helps meet Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s obligations under the BSM2030. It refocuses support for Aboriginal partnerships and encourages the irrigation community to be forward looking and resilient.
2.3	Achievements of the Land and Water Management Plan 2011 – 2019 The previous LWMP set out to increase community awareness of, and involvement in, regional actions to deal with low and variable water availability. While some irrigators remain confused about some aspects of Victoria’s water entitlement framework, irrigators at large have become increasingly sophisticated in using the water market to deal with low and variable allocations. Irrigators have an ongoing responsibility to keep themselves informed about the water market and their carryover options. Water corporations and DELWP support them by providing information to assist in keeping abreast of water market developments and options. As will be discussed in more detail in Section 2.5, a key challenge is how to respond to the difficulties involved in delivering water to all Victorian Mallee irrigators during sustained heatwaves. The LWMP 2011-2019 was successful in ensuring the continued coordination and monitoring of irrigation development through the implementation of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines. It helped to ensure continual improvements in water use efficiency for irrigated horticulture through increased community awareness and providing incentives to encourage the adoption of technologies that increase irrigation efficiency and decrease salinity. This objective is ongoing, but the priorities for this LWMP have been informed by a range of other investigations including a review of the Mallee Irrigation Incentives Program (MCMA 2018a) and An Assessment of Irrigation Best Practice in the Victorian Mallee (Hornbuckle & Ballester 2019). The LWMP 2011-2019 also sought to maintain improvements in river salinity and groundwater levels by meeting obligations under Federal and State Water
Grapes grown in Sunraysia.
legislation and Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2001-2015. A 2015 review of drain flow and groundwater monitoring data found that the past plans were extremely successful in managing and minimising the impacts of irrigation and drainage in the region. A number of key targets and objectives have been achieved, including: •	reducing drain flows and salt loads; •	increasing the uptake of efficient irrigation practices; and •	guiding new irrigation development to areas where river salinity impacts are minimised. While the basin salinity management obligations are being met, and the past plans were very effective in reducing salinity, the threat remains. Highly saline groundwater levels are still above river level at a number of locations, which drives groundwater and salt towards low areas in the landscape, floodplains and the Murray River thereby causing ecological degradation and river salinity. During the life of the last LWMP, BSM2030 superseded the Salinity Management Strategy 2001-2015. That resulted in the future salinity impacts of environmental watering being managed at the basin scale rather than the regional scale envisaged by the previous LWMP. Similarly, all other aspects of environmental watering are now covered through the Mallee Waterway Strategy 2014-22. The LWMP 2011-2019 helped to improve community awareness of natural and cultural assets, their values and the threats posed by irrigation. There is more work to be done in this regard, but as will be discussed in the next section, there are new policy directions and clear advice to help ensure this comes into practice.
2.4	New policy directions This LWMP should be understood in the broader context of the planning framework that applies throughout Victoria. Since the LWMP 2011-2019 was completed, the Victorian Government has provided new policy directions and clear advice on what it wants to achieve through its water and environmental policies and legislative changes. These are reflected in: •	Water for Victoria: Water Plan; •	Water and Catchment Legislation Amendment Act 2019 •	Victoria’s Climate Change Framework; •	Victoria’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan; •	the State Environment Protection Policy (Waters); •	Victoria Waterway Management Strategy; and •	the Guidelines for Preparing Land and Water Management Plans. These planning directions are augmented by a new concept for Victoria’s environment protection laws – the General Environmental Duty – which is set to transform environment protection regulation. The General Environmental Duty states: “A person who is engaging in an activity that may give rise to risks of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste must minimise those risks, so far as reasonably practicable.”
The new state-wide planning directions help guide the LWMP to: •	Respond to climate change by building climate resilience into irrigation farming systems; •	Mitigate or offset salinity impacts of irrigation; •	Improve productivity to optimise the returns from irrigation water use; •	Improve water quality and minimise salinity risks in Mallee landscapes; •	Increase Aboriginal and irrigation community understanding and management of irrigation risks; and •	Support a healthy environment, a prosperous economy and thriving communities. These state-wide planning directions have influenced and are reflected in this LWMP’s objectives, targets and programs. The LWMP also seeks to be adaptive and capable of responding to external pressures. Rather than focussing only on performance against targets, the annual progress reports will also include a description of the changes brought about by external factors such as the Basin Plan, commodity prices, and storage inflows. This will enable the five-year review process and the LWMP renewal process to be flexible and to adjust its recommendations in line with emerging risks.
2.5	Future changes, challenges and opportunities This LWMP focuses on the changes, challenges and opportunities that the Victorian Mallee irrigation region is likely to experience over the next ten years. In order to show how the identified issues are connected, this plan groups them together for ease of understanding into five subsections: 1	Dealing with low and variable water availability and deliverability; 2	Ensuring sustainable water delivery methods to irrigated properties; 3	Increasing the uptake of best management irrigation practices; 4	Protecting the quality of the region’s water resources; and 5	Monitoring the cumulative effects of irrigation water use.
Considering water deliverability issues
The sequence of these sub sections, in essence, follows the water downhill from the storages to the pumps that divert the water for delivery on farms, from the pumps to the irrigated crops, and then from the crops down through drainage systems, and groundwater recharge, into the river or into Mallee floodplains where there is a growing awareness of the level of salt accumulating in the landscape and the need for action.
The Victorian Minister for Water issued a direction to Lower Murray Water and Goulburn-Murray Water to refer all Murray River Work (extraction) Licence applications in the lower Murray River to the Minister for assessment for a 12 month period from June 2019. In light of this, this LWMP considers how to address the limits to water delivery below the Barmah Choke, while also considering how to account for delivery capacity under the new irrigation development guidelines. This is done in ways consistent with how water corporations are managing delivery shares within irrigation districts. The aim is to support irrigators’ access to water when they need it.
The LWMP addresses Victorian Mallee irrigators’ concerns about water deliverability issues in the context of continued horticultural expansion in the Mallee regions of NSW, South Australia and Victoria. It also considers how best to adapt to drought and climate change risks by building irrigator resilience. Similarly, it considers risk from irrigation requirements of total mature horticultural plantings and how it may exceed the total volume of water available at 100 per cent allocations. In this context, it also considers how to minimise or avoid the risk of non-compliance with the regulations governing water use.
Minimising environmental impact of water diversions The environmental impacts of water diversion are also considered. For example, the LWMP looks at opportunities to minimise the impacts on fish populations from irrigatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; suction lines. It seeks to ensure that the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines regarding works licences remain relevant and contemporary. Ongoing reviews of work licences conditions will help to minimise their environmental footprint and to address cultural heritage and environmental obligations. They will also help to maintain irrigatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; social licence to operate by reassuring the general community that irrigation diversions in the Victorian Mallee are being well managed. The LWMP 2020-2029 also ensures that the irrigation development guidelines regarding water-use licences remain relevant and contemporary. In doing so they ensure that Ministerial Water-use Objectives, Standard Water-use Conditions and Policies for Managing Wateruse Licences in Salinity Impact Zones or any Ministerial Determinations made in relation to salinity are reflected in licence conditions. Compliance with water use licence conditions needs to be maintained so that irrigators can continue to assure the broader community that their activities make an important contribution to the economy while minimising or avoiding environmental impacts. This is particularly important with regard to compliance with individual Irrigation and Drainage Plans. The cumulative impacts of increased water use in the Victorian Mallee will also be monitored in order to consider whether there is any need to modify or amend those conditions. Establishing a resilient irrigation community The LWMP builds on contemporary knowledge to support irrigation modernisation, productivity improvements, climate change adaption and irrigator awareness of opportunities and challenges. The aim is to build a resilient irrigation community in a potentially changing climate and to ensure seasonal adjustment processes for the annual use limits on water use licences remain relevant and contemporary.
salinity management framework. In part, gaining this improved understanding and addressing impacts will involve maintaining and upgrading groundwater monitoring, and irrigation drainage monitoring assets. Realising biodiversity benefits The opportunities that spring from previous work in land and water management are also being pursued For example, the biodiversity buffers and offsetting works that have accompanied each new irrigation development since 1994 need to be better understood as a network of potentially connected corridors. Doing this will help to optimise those biodiversity benefits associated with new irrigation developments. Recognising and understanding cultural heritage values Under this LWMP, communication materials and cultural awareness training materials related to Indigenous cultural values, as well as Native Title and the protection of cultural heritage will be further developed for irrigation areas. Collaborative arrangements between irrigators and the First People of the Millewa Mallee, Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation as well as other Traditional Owners, will continue to help recognise cultural heritage values in accordance with existing obligations. Maximising the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s productivity Finally and importantly, all these biophysical changes, challenges, and opportunities need to be understood in the context of healthy, productive and sustainable Mallee communities. For example, every effort must be made to coordinate and streamline regulatory activities to minimise costs while enabling sustainable and productive irrigation enterprises that empower innovation. Irrigation best management practices that improve returns to the community must be enabled and supported.
Addressing landscape salinity impacts At a broader regional scale, it is important to better understand the risk of waterlogging and its effects on biodiversity, particularly in private diversion areas where this is not as well understood or actively managed through district scale drainage systems as it is in irrigation districts. Similarly, it is important to better understand, monitor and mitigate or offset salt accumulation in the landscape particularly on floodplains due to irrigation and changed river operations. The ability to address landscape salinity impacts, including floodplain impacts, is, therefore, being built into the
Part 3 Development of the Plan
3.1	Regional collaboration
3.2	Community engagement
This Draft LWMP is the result of close regional collaboration. It was developed by a Steering Committee comprising representatives from the Mallee CMA Land and Water Advisory Committee, the Mallee CMA Aboriginal Reference Group, Mallee CMA, Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water (GWMW), Lower Murray Water (LMW), DELWP and Agriculture Victoria. Input was also sought, where required, from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and Goulburn-Murray Water.
The Mallee CMA is now seeking broader community input and feedback to inform the final Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan. This draft provides an opportunity for the community to help determine what needs to be done to support the continued role of productive and sustainable irrigation in the Victorian Mallee. The Mallee CMA welcomes and encourages the involvement of as many members of the community as possible in helping to shape the final LWMP. The draft LWMP will be open for public consultation until late January 2020, and, subject to the feedback received, the aim is to release a final LWMP in mid 2020.
Discussing pump sites used for irrigation on the Murray River.
Part 4 Land and water management in the Victorian Mallee
4.1	Traditional land and water management The Victorian Mallee region has been occupied for tens of thousands of years by Aboriginal people. In fact, the regional geographic term Mallee comes from an Aboriginal word â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;maliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; meaning water, which was extracted from the roots of mallee trees during times of reduced water availability. The region is recognised nationally and internationally for the diversity and uniqueness of its natural and cultural landscapes. In particular, the sheer abundance of cultural sites, stories and song lines which are of deep spiritual significance to the oldest living culture in the world. Traditional Owner groups of the region continue to have an enduring connection to lands, skies, waters, plants and animals. The Traditional Owner groups of the region include, but are not limited to: Latji Latji; Wadi Wadi; Wamba Wamba; Tati Tati; Jari Jari; Kureinji; Nyeri Nyeri; Ngintait; Ngarkat; and Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Yupagalk, and Wergaia. At the time of publishing, there were two Registered Aboriginal Parties in the Mallee CMA Region. The Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation in the southern Mallee covers an area that encompasses part of the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area. The First People of the Millewa-Mallee Aboriginal Corporation in the northwest of the region covers an area encompassing the Murray River irrigation areas north and west of Nangiloc.
We also acknowledge the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in the Mallee whose traditional land may be outside the Mallee Region and those whose families have lived in the area for many generations, who are not part of a Traditional Owner group, yet have a strong interest in caring for Country. Victorian Government agencies and organisations in the Mallee have a proud history of working with Traditional Owners and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community to implement a range of plans, projects and programs to improve and protect our natural and cultural resources. This plan continues to promote collaboration between the irrigation community, Traditional Owners and the wider Aboriginal community in the Mallee to protect cultural heritage values and support productive, sustainable and resilient irrigation communities. Our Local, State and Commonwealth Governments, as well as other bodies and agencies, will partner with Registered Aboriginal Parties, Traditional Owners and the Aboriginal Community to ensure that our rich Aboriginal culture and heritage is protected and celebrated, and that Aboriginal traditional ecological knowledge is recognised and can contribute to the success of this LWMP.
4.2	A short history of irrigation in the Victorian Mallee Modern irrigation in the Victorian Mallee region was established by William and George Chaffey at Mildura in 1887. Government sponsored irrigation districts followed in Merbein (1910), Nyah (1910) and Red Cliffs (1921). The final government-sponsored irrigation district, Robinvale, was developed in 1947.
The first groundwater bore was drilled in Murrayville in 1929 to provide the township with reliable water. Deep well pumps were installed on several properties in the early 1950s to irrigate small dairies, most of which stopped operating in the late 1960s. In the early 1990s irrigation expanded considerably with 515 hectares of
potatoes being grown under centre-pivot irrigation and 30 hectares of olives under drip irrigation. In 2018 potatoes accounted for 1,670 hectares, field crops 660 hectares and olives 45 hectares. Successful private diversion began at Nangiloc in the 1920s, but it started in earnest when electricity was brought to that area in 1957. It expanded rapidly during the 1960s and 70s.
The biggest wave of irrigation development began with the introduction of water entitlement trade in 1994. Since 1997, when the first of the triennial horticultural crop reports was conducted, the total irrigated area in the Victorian Mallee has more than doubled.
4.3	Irrigation today Irrigation in the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region extends along the Murray River from Nyah to the South Australian border (see Figure 2). It encompasses the: •	pumped irrigation districts of Mildura, Merbein, Red Cliffs, Robinvale and Nyah; •	private diverters – those families and corporations operate their own pumps and water delivery systems on the riverfront between Nyah and the South Australian border; and •	groundwater-based irrigation developments around the town of Murrayville.
The major irrigated crops in the region are shown in Figure 3. Almonds, 99 per cent of which are grown by private diverters, have become the single largest crop by area and by water demand. While almond plantings continue to expand in the private diversion areas, inside the irrigation districts there has been a resurgence of irrigated grapevines – mostly table grapes. The total area covered by water-use licences along the Murray was 81,150 hectares in 2018, up from 40,325 hectares in 1997 (and 76,245 hectares in 2015). The total licensed area around Murrayville in 2018 was 2,375 hectares, up from 585 hectares in 1997.
Other Permanent Plantings
Figure 3 | Major irrigated crops in the Victorian Mallee by area (%), 2018.
4.4	Irrigation values The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the Gross Value of Irrigated Agricultural Production in the Victorian Mallee irrigation Area at $964 million in 2017/18. This was 20 per cent of the total for the whole of Victoria. The other large contributors were Goulburn-Broken ($1,328 million), North Central ($777 million) and Port Phillip and Western Port ($770 million).
Even though irrigation only accounts for around two per cent of the arable land mass in the Mallee CMA region, it accounts for 53 per cent of the Gross Value of Agricultural Production, with dryland agriculture accounting for 47 per cent based on 2017/18 data.
Fruit and nuts (excluding grapes) accounted for 49 per cent of the value of irrigated production in the Victorian Mallee, while grapes accounted for 35 per cent and vegetables 6 per cent.
4.5	Irrigation threats At 2,190 millimetres per year, mean annual evaporation recorded at Mildura Airport is in the order of seven and half times greater than the mean annual rainfall of 288 millimetres per year. In such semi-arid environments, salt accumulates in the landscape. This is because the salt dissolved in river and rainwater becomes more concentrated as the water is transpired by crops or evaporated from the soil surface.
Sustainable irrigation depends on salt being leached away from crop rootzones. To do this, some water must be applied in excess of crop water requirements to achieve rootzone drainage. Ideally, rootzone drainage should be kept to a maximum of five to ten per cent of total applied water. Unless it is properly managed, whatever water is applied in excess of crop requirements can cause waterlogging, salinity and nutrient pollution problems.
Figure 4 | A schematic representation of the causes and effects of rootzone drainage. (Source â&#x20AC;&#x201C; AWE 2015: RISI Review)
As demonstrated by Figure 5, improvements in irrigation management over the past 30 years have decreased subsurface drainage flows to the river, to the floodplain and to inland drainage basins. They have also decreased the groundwater mound under the older irrigation areas, and this, in turn, has decreased saline groundwater flows to the river and the floodplain.
The task for this LWMP is to drive the improvements necessary to keep drainage and rootzone drainage as low as possible well into the future.
Figure 5 | Mildura, Merbein and Red Cliffs Irrigation Districts a) Average annual salt loads and average monthly flows from sub-surface tile drains, and b) Percentage of total irrigated area watered by irrigation method. (Source â&#x20AC;&#x201C; DELWP 2019 Victorian Irrigation Drainage Program).
4.6	Trends in river salinity management Since the original community driven salinity management plans were put in place, the trend over time, from Swan Hill to Lock 6, has seen a decrease in river salinity and an improvement in water quality (see Figure 6). Within that trend, spikes in salinity are generally seen following major floods, such as 1993, 1999, 2011 and 2016. Floods recharge the saline groundwater aquifers
connected to the river and dissolve salt accumulated on floodplains. As river levels recede after the flood, the recharged groundwaters recede more slowly and dissolved salts in surface waters drain to the river. Groundwater levels remain above river levels, forcing the saline aquifer to flow slowly towards the floodplain and the Murray River discharging salt.
Legend Darling River
Lock 6 Wentworth
EC@25oC (ÂľS/cm)
Salinity (EC) over time
Mildura D/S
NSW Murrumbidgee River
VIC Murray River
Figure 6 | Changes in Murray River salinity impacts over time.
The background Murray River salinity levels are maintained in a similar way by rootzone drainage. The water that moves past rootzones adds to groundwater levels and forces more salt into the river. A large decrease in salinity can be seen during the Millennium Drought of the early 2000s where there was reduced irrigation supply and substantial investment in improved irrigation efficiencies. This led to a lowering of groundwater levels. Post the Millennium Drought the trend towards reduced salinity continued, reflecting the benefits of the improved more efficient irrigation practices. The Mallee (NSW, Vic and SA) is recognised as the greatest salinity threat to water quality in the Murray Darling Basin. As demonstrated in Figure 6, salinity
levels increase as water advances downstream. This is because the Murray River as it advances downstream has progressively carved through the impeding clay layer to expose the river to the saline regional aquifer below. Over the 25-year period shown in Figure 6, the area of irrigation has more than doubled in the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region. Whilst irrigation development has expanded rapidly, its salinity impact has been more than offset by targeted actions including support for more efficient irrigation methods (see figure 5), salt interception schemes, encouragement of development in low impact zones and a co-ordinated rigorous development assessment process using best practice irrigation development guidelines.
4.7	The challenge of climate change The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) describes the climate zone of the Victorian Mallee region as having hot, dry summers and cold winters. BoM identifies the region as lying within a seasonal rainfall zone characterised by a wet Winter and low Summer rainfall. The future climate of the Victorian Mallee is projected to be warmer than it is today. By 2030, average annual temperatures are expected to be around 0.6 to 1.3oC warmer, with a higher frequency of hot days and longer duration of warm periods. This change will present significant challenges to irrigated horticulture. While average annual rainfall totals are not expected to be significantly different, rainfall characteristics are expected to change by 2030, with a shift towards
Flooded agriculture from rain event, Red Cliffs, 2011.
more rain in the warmer months rather than Winter and Spring. Increasing intensity of rainfall events is leading to a high percentage of run-off, resulting in less soil moisture retention. The frequency and duration of drought periods are also expected to increase, and projected changes to temperature and rainfall may result in greater irrigation supply requirements to meet crop water demand and cooling. Recent examples of weather extremes in the Mallee include the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Millennium Droughtâ&#x20AC;? which had severe impacts on the region between 2002 and 2010; and the La Nina rains of the 2010/11 summer that followed the drought and caused significant flooding and widespread property damage. The Murray River also experienced a minor flood event in 2016 in the Victorian Mallee region.
Part 5 Delivery framework
5.1	Dealing with low and variable water availability and deliverability Irrigators in the Mallee are concerned that continued horticultural expansion in the Mallee regions of NSW, South Australia and Victoria is increasing the risk that river operators will be unable to deliver water to them in a timely fashion during heatwaves. They want to understand the limits to water availability, and therefore the limits to expansion, and how they will be enforced. There is also concern around the risk of drought and low water allocations in the face of climate change.
of the total volume of water entitlements available for irrigators to use in the Mallee regions of NSW, South Australia and Victoria. Water moves between these regions as a result of the interstate water market that operates in the southern-connected Murray-Darling Basin. That market is framed around trading rules, which governs the trade between different trading zones (Figure 7). The zones are defined in terms of the physical connections between different zones and how freely water can travel through those connections.
5.1.1	Water entitlement volumes available from the Murray system The volume of water available for irrigation along the Murray in the Victorian Mallee is ultimately a function
Figure 7 | Trading zones in the southern Murray Darling Basin. (Source: https://www.mdba.gov.au/managing-water/water-markets-trade/ interstate-water-trade)
The Mallee regions of NSW, South Australia and Victoria are treated as being freely connected with each other, but they are seen as being relatively isolated from upstream areas because there is a limit to how much water can be delivered below the Barmah Choke without incurring water losses and causing environmental damage. The total volume of high-reliability water entitlement available for irrigation use in each of the Mallee trading zones is shown in Table 2. Apart from that total (1,239 GL), some water will continue to be available as an Inter-Valley Transfer (IVT) from the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee Rivers. The Goulburn IVT account can be up to 200 GL at any one time, but the first 100 GL is already counted as Zone 7 water as a legacy of “exchange rate” trade of entitlements from the Goulburn to the Murray in the 1990s. That leaves a minimum of 100 GL extra. A total of 300 GL or more
has actually been transferred from the Goulburn IVT in recent years, but increasingly this is seen as having environmental risks for the Lower Goulburn which prompted the Victorian Minister for Water to issue a direction to water corporations requiring them to refer all work licence applications in the lower Murray region to the Minister for assessment from June 2019 for 12 months. The Murrumbidgee IVT account has also in the past supplied significant volumes to the Murray River, most notably at the height of the Millennium Drought (20022010). However, increased plantings of horticultural crops and cotton on the Murrumbidgee means it is unlikely to supply much to the Murray in the future. Nonetheless, the Murrumbidgee IVT can have a maximum of 100 GL in it at any given time.
Table 2 | Water entitlements available for irrigation below the Barmah Choke (not including those held by environmental water holders). Water entitlements available for irrigation below the Barmah Choke
Total Volume available at 100% allocations (GL)
Victorian Zone 7 High Reliability Water Shares
South Australian Zone 12 entitlements
NSW Zone 11 High Security Licences
NSW Zone 14 High Security Licences
Subtotal (for all entitlements available for irrigation in trading zones below the Barmah Choke)
Goulburn IVT (not including 100 GL legacy of “exchange rate” trade)
In the long run, total horticultural plantings below the Barmah Choke should hover around the area that can be sustained at 100 per cent allocations against the high reliability water entitlements available for irrigation use below the Barmah Choke. The best available information about total horticultural plantings below the Barmah Choke dates back to 2015 when the MDBA commissioned a report on total plantings in the Mallee regions of NSW, South Australia and Victoria. TCA and Frontier Economics (2017) used
those figures to estimate that, at maturity, the irrigation requirements of those 2015 plantings would be 1,136 GL (page 177).1 Put differently, that is 79 per cent of the total volume of 1,439 GL. Building on that work, in 2018 the Victorian Government released a fact sheet projecting future growth based on the observable trends in irrigation development. As outlined in that work, anticipated horticultural demands will outstrip water availability by 2027 (Figure 8).
https://www.water.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/52123/Social-and-economic-impacts-of-the-Basin-Plan-in-Victoria.pdf
Figure 8 | Projected total horticultural demands compared with the water entitlement volumes below the Barmah Choke (Source DELWP 2019)
More horticultural crops have been planted since then, and it is possible that this limit will be reached sooner, if it has not already been met. For example, the 2018 Mallee Horticultural Crop Report records a 4,345 hectare increase in permanent plantings in the Victorian Mallee between 2015 and 2018. This alone would push the total requirements close to 1,200 GL, and there have been more plantings since. Unfortunately, comparable records are not available for the NSW and SA Mallee regions, but in recent years plantings in NSW have started to outstrip
those in Victoria. Understanding the risks associated with continued horticultural expansion depends on a detailed understanding of existing plantings and their mature irrigation requirements. Given that 186 GL of Zone 7 High Reliability Water Shares were still tied to land in the Torrumbarry Irrigation Area in 2018, and that water use in that district in the same year was 278 GL, it is clear that the competition for water is going to intensify in the future.2
1.	Investigate the relationships between Mallee crop plantings and water availability. Communicate any identified risks.
DELWP, Ag Vic
2.	Develop Victorian Mallee Crop Reports on a regular basis to support planning and management.
3.	Encourage the development of a whole of Mallee irrigated landuse crop report.
2 Updated Trends in Northern Victorian Water Trade 2001-2018, DELWP, 2019 accessed on 11 June 2019 at https://waterregister.vic.gov.au/images/documents/Water	Market-Trends-Update-2018_web.pdf
5.1.2	Water availability issues As outlined in the Mallee Natural Resource Management Plan for Climate Change, in early 2015 the CSIRO and BoM released updated national and regional assessments of projected future climate changes, compared against the climate of the 20-year reference period 1986-2005, over the remainder of the 21st century. One of the regions they assessed was the Murray Basin. According to that assessment, there is high confidence that in the Murray Basin in 2030, natural climate variability will remain the major driver of rainfall differences from the climate of 1986–2005. In other words, climate change is not expected to strongly influence changes in annual or seasonal rainfall totals between now and 2030. However, by 2090, under both a low and a high emissions scenario, there is high confidence that cool season rainfall will decline. There is medium confidence that warm season rainfall will remain stable. The intensity of heavy rainfall events, however, is projected to increase (high confidence). There is medium confidence that the time spent in drought, and the frequency of extreme drought, will both increase over the course of the century under a high emissions scenario. Total horticultural plantings in the Victorian Mallee have increased since 2008/2009 when allocations against high-reliability water shares on the Murray hit a record low of 35 per cent. In the event of a drought with a sustained period of allocations well below 100 per cent, horticulturalists below the Barmah Choke would be dependent on allocation purchases from above the Choke (assuming the Choke trading rule is relaxed, as it was in the Millennium Drought) and from within the Goulburn IVT. This will be insufficient to meet their total needs. Consequently, much more horticultural land is likely to be dried-off than was the case in the Millennium Drought.
Whether or not there would then be a return to plantings sustained by 100 per cent allocations would depend on irrigation developers’ attitudes to risk. It would then be clearly understood what the risks were. Equally those developers with plantings in other parts of the world may see their Australian plantings as an important hedge against the risks of drought in those other areas. Therefore, they might knowingly return to such planting levels. It is important to note that while the BoM’s capacity for long term forecasts has improved, predicting the intensity and duration of droughts is imprecise. Nonetheless, as outlined above, the frequency and duration of drought periods are expected to increase with climate change. Even without a drought, if the total horticultural plantings were to require more than 100 per cent allocations to sustain them, it would be important to have strong compliance measures to ensure that total use did not exceed available allocations. As recent incidents in the northern Basin have shown, significant non-compliance corrodes the social-licence to operate, upon which all irrigators depend. Developers are responsible for their own risks if they choose to plant crops without owning the water entitlements necessary to sustain them. The people who own water entitlements are free to choose whether they use the allocations against those entitlements on their own crops or if they sell them on the water market. Irrigators must not use more water than their allocation accounts allow, and the broader community must be assured that irrigators are only using water that they are authorised to take. Water Corporations’ past investments in a telemetry network to monitor actual water use in real time provides a strong foundation to provide that assurance. This now needs to be backed up by a compliance and enforcement strategy that is consistent with the Basin Compliance Compact.
4.	Investigate the impact of climate change and supply constraints on water availability in the Mallee.
DELWP, Water Corps & Ag Vic
5.	In collaboration with regional partners, develop and maintain strategies to address priority water availability issues.
Water Corps, DELWP & Ag Vic
6.	In collaboration with regional partners, consider responses to the unauthorised take of water in the development of a compliance and enforcement strategy.
Water Corps & DELWP
5.1.3	Water deliverability issues It takes around 25 days for irrigation water released from the Hume Dam to arrive in Mildura. By contrast, weather forecasts are most reliable for a seven-day outlook. Therefore, river operators must forecast expected demands based on climatic data which are adjusted for their expectations about whether they are operating in a wet, average, or dry year. They also consider actual usage in previous years, after allowing for seasonal conditions, and increasingly they are allowing for the maturation of recently planted crops. Nonetheless, despite all those considerations, if it turns out that there is heavy rain in Mildura at the time the irrigation water arrives, it will not be diverted for irrigation. In those circumstances, river operators will endeavour, if possible, to capture the unused irrigation water in Lake Victoria, where it can be redirected for other purposes, including downstream irrigation. If this is not possible it may mean a reduction in overall allocations in the next year, or a missed opportunity to increase allocations in the current year. If Lake Victoria is full and it cannot serve this role, the river operators must decide whether or not to err on the side of caution. On the other hand, if a heat wave has developed while the irrigation water is on its way to Mildura, the risk is that there will not be enough water in the river to meet total demands when it arrives. In this situation, as the weather forecasts become clearer, river operators will start to use the surge capacity available to them from the mid-river storages including Lake Boga, Kangaroo Lake and Kow Swamp. They will also draw down Euston Weir, which, during the irrigation season, may be surcharged by up to 200 mm to provide extra storage capacity. River operators also call water out of the IVT accounts to make up for any shortfalls in supply.
The continued expansion of horticultural plantings in the Mallee regions of the three states has concentrated irrigation demand into the summer months and shifted water use further away from the major dams. Delivery shortfalls occur when there is not enough channel capacity through the Barmah Choke to supply all downstream demands from the Murray River when demands increase unexpectedly without enough time for additional water to be released from dams to users. This usually occurs during an intense, extended heatwave. A shortfall occurred in March 2002 resulting in water use being temporarily rationed in an effort to share the available water fairly between all users. During a 16-day heatwave in January 2018, river operators scrambled to meet demands in the Victorian and NSW Mallee; substantial draw down occurred in weir pools, even though rationing was avoided. The challenge of supplying peak demand is likely to become more difficult because peak irrigation demand is likely to continue to increase as existing horticultural plantings mature and new permanent horticultural plantings are established in the Mallee regions of Victoria, NSW and South Australia. Moreover, a substantial increase in the temperature reached on the hottest days, the frequency of hot days, and the duration of warm spells, are all projected with very high confidence in the climate change assessments. Having learnt from their experiences in 2018, river operators in 2019 started moving water down the river earlier in the season. However, according to the communique issued by the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council in late 2018, this hampered their ability to deliver environmental water in spring. Further adjustments to the operating rules are therefore expected.
7.	Work with the MDBA to investigate the likelihood and consequence of delivery shortfalls, and communicate those risks to affected parties.
DELWP & Ag Vic
5.1.4	Increasing irrigation community involvement in actions to deal with low and variable water availability and deliverability Irrigators dealing with the risks of low and variable water availability or deliverability need information, tools and skills if they are to make informed decisions in managing those risks. The information and prices revealed through the Victorian Water Register are an important part of those calculations.
Similarly, tools such as carryover will also help irrigators to manage variability (provided they understand the upside and downside) of the risks of using those tools. DELWP and the water corporations have ongoing roles in helping irrigators to evaluate their options before making decisions. The risks of delivery shortfalls are less well predicted or understood by river operators, irrigators and communities. The last time they were experienced was 2002 and much has changed in the intervening 17 years.
Such risks will play out differently for different extraction points along the river and are further compounded due to extraction on the NSW and Victorian sides of the river. The issues involved in sharing these risks and rationing if necessary are discussed in more detail in section 5.2. Local knowledge will be a vital component in thinking through the best possible approaches.
The makeup of the irrigation community has changed in recent years and this may affect how problems are resolved in the future. It is possible that delivery shortfalls may never occur, but caution dictates that river operators and water corporations must continue working with these communities to provide information, to listen to concerns and to collaborate on management approaches.
Mallee irrigators have a strong history of working together when necessary to share understanding and to develop fair ways to deal with difficult problems.
DELWP & Water Corps
9.	Improve community capacity to adapt to low and variable water availability.
Mallee CMA, Ag Vic & Water Corps
10.	Engage irrigators to identify options and develop solutions to manage delivery shortfalls.
DELWP, River Operators with support of Water Corps
Increase community understanding of the risks associated with low and variable water availability due to drought and changes in water supply and demand issues.
5.1.5	Water entitlement volumes in the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area Water availability in Murrayville is managed through the Murrayville Groundwater Management Area (GMA) Local Management Plan. The groundwater resource is in an aquifer that has limited or no natural recharge. In effect, it is â&#x20AC;&#x153;fossilâ&#x20AC;? water, trapped underground over the course of geologic time. Because the resource is shared between Victoria and South Australia, its use is subject to the Groundwater (Border Agreement) Act 1985, which provides the mechanism for managing, sharing and protecting
the groundwater resources in the designated area established by the agreement. The Border Designated Area is a 40-kilometre wide strip centred on the border of South Australia and Victoria, and divided into several management zones. The agreement includes management prescriptions which define the permissible annual volumes, permissible rate of groundwater level lowering and permissible level of salinity for each zone. Under the Victorian Water Act 1989, the Water Minister declares the Permissible Consumptive Volume that can be taken for an area or water system, for a defined period of time. The Permissible Consumptive Volume for the Murrayville GMA is 11,005 ML/year (declared July 2017). This does not include domestic and stock use.
11.	Monitor the sustainability of Murrayville groundwater resources and adjust management arrangements, if necessary.
5.2	Ensuring sustainable water delivery methods to irrigated properties Given the continued expansion of horticulture, and the Minister for Water’s policies for managing works licences, this draft LWMP considers how best to account for delivery capacity under the irrigation development guidelines. Similarly, it also considers the best ways to manage delivery shares inside the irrigation districts. The aim is to support irrigators’ access to water when they need it. In keeping with the Irrigation Development Guideline’s efforts to minimise the environmental impacts of pumping arrangements, this draft LWMP looks at opportunities to minimise the impacts on fish populations from irrigators’ suction lines. It also seeks to ensure that the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines regarding works licences remain relevant and contemporary. Ongoing reviews of work licences conditions will help to minimise their environmental footprint and to address cultural heritage and environmental obligations. They will also help to maintain irrigators’ social licences to operate by reassuring the general community that irrigation diversions in the Victorian Mallee are being well managed.
5.2.1	Extraction shares for irrigators who pump directly from the river Every works licence held by LMW and GMW customers includes a condition that relates to the licence holder’s share of the available capacity in the river in the event that there is a delivery shortfall. This condition defines their “extraction share”. At the time of unbundling in 2007, it was expected that a market in extraction shares might help to manage delivery shortfalls. As outlined in the actions in section 5.1.4, the main task now in preparing for the potential for rationing events is to work with irrigators to test the potential to develop rules to help manage the challenge of any future delivery shortfalls. It is possible that markets in extraction shares might be part of those arrangements. To date, water corporations have issued extraction shares commensurate with the annual use limits on the associated water-use licences.
Recent delivery shortfall “drills” involving MDBA, DELWP and water corporations has shown that this has led to some customers holding more extraction share than necessary, while others do not hold enough, as different crops have different demand patterns and different peak demands. The current formula of “six per cent of total annual use limit per seven days” does not account for the differences in crop types and varieties. A market in extraction shares could help to make any necessary adjustments.
5.2.2	Delivery shares for irrigators inside irrigation districts All irrigators in Victorian irrigation districts have a delivery share, which is defined as an entitlement to have water delivered at specified volumes during specified periods. In LMW irrigation districts, each irrigator’s delivery share is defined as a unique volume of water (in ML) that can be delivered over a seven-day period during peak demands. A delivery share does not entitle individual irrigators to always have that volume of water delivered at the specified rate. Rather, it entitles them to a share of the total available capacity in proportion to their fraction of the total volume of delivery shares – in that system. If water deliveries must be limited, all affected delivery shares must be affected to the same proportion. The current rejuvenation of the Red Cliffs, First Mildura and Merbein Irrigation Districts involves a trend towards higher water-use crop-management systems. Irrigation
In the 1990s, the Robinvale Irrigation District faced a similar challenge. Volumetric restrictions were introduced there in 1999/2000, with the support of the irrigation community, and their historical problems are now being well managed. LMW is now planning to work with its customers in the other districts to implement a system of priority volumetric access arrangements, which would be linked to delivery shares. This is being done as part of DELWP’s review of delivery shares in all Victorian irrigation districts. Delivery shares are not well understood in irrigation communities. Irrigators often exceed their delivery share allowances during the peak of the irrigation season. Whether they do so knowingly or unknowingly, on tight parts of the delivery system it affects other irrigators within the system. Through extensive consultation with the irrigation community in 2017, LMW received clear messages about irrigators’ future expectations of delivery shares. In general, people felt everyone should have appropriate delivery share volume, there should be the same rules for all, and the initial focus needs to be on problem pipelines, where the current water-ordering rules are enabling individual advantage.
12.	Work with district irrigators to implement priority volumetric access linked to delivery shares across all districts, as part of actively identifying and managing deliverability risks and capacity constraints.
13.	Support and implement recommendations from the DELWP Delivery Share Review.
5.2.3	Conditions on works licences and bore licences Under the Water Act 1989, the Minister has set policies for managing works licences and bore licences. In accordance with those provisions, the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines 2017 call for a Works Plan to be produced as part of the application process. The purpose of a Works Plan is to protect the aesthetic, archaeological, cultural and conservation values of the riverine and riparian environment and public land areas. Accordingly, pumps, pump houses, pipelines, access tracks and associated water diversion works must meet the standards necessary to minimise their impacts on other persons and the environment. This involves an assessment of local conditions and the appropriate
demands in those districts are therefore increasing so much so, that it is nearing capacity during peak season on some spur delivery lines. Individuals’ demands for flow rates and delivery times is therefore also becoming increasingly competitive.
siting, construction, operation and maintenance of water diversion works. Once that assessment has been completed, conditions are placed on the licence to ensure that the Works Plan is followed into the future. Similarly, bore licences (Murrayville GMA) include conditions to ensure that other users of the groundwater resource are not adversely affected by the operation of the bore. As technologies advance, practices improve, and as environmental and cultural obligations become clearer, the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines must be continuously improved. Under this draft LWMP, those parts of the guidelines that relate to works licences and bore licences should continue to be reviewed and updated every three years.
It is important for the broader community to be assured that the conditions on works licences are being met. Works licences on the river are renewed every five years. LMW has arranged for the licence holders to be grouped into five river reaches. Each year all the works licences in one of the reaches come up for renewal at the same time. The conditions on works licences can be amended at the time of renewal. This process provides an opportunity to demonstrate ongoing compliance with licence conditions. One recent potential advancement in pumping technology has been the development of fish-friendly
suction screens. These help to prevent native fish being killed or diverted away from the river. This technology should be investigated to determine if it meets a requirement for future developments under the Irrigation Development Guidelines, and explore ways to encourage their adoption, potentially during licence renewal programs. Cost effective ways to satisfy cultural and environmental obligations also need consideration. If possible, the costs of meeting those obligations can be shared across several pump sites at the time of licence renewal.
14.	Continue to implement a program of rolling 5-year reviews of works licences to ensure alignment and compliance with Ministerial Policies for Managing Works Licences and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines.
15.	Investigate options for fish-friendly suction screens and their application to water diversion in the Victorian Mallee.
Mallee CMA, DELWP & Ag Vic
16.	Subject to the outcomes of investigations, support the adoption of fish-friendly suction screens as part of the works licence review program, and if appropriate, incorporate requirements for them in the Irrigation Development Guidelines.
Mallee CMA & Water Corps
17.	Support awareness of and compliance with, cultural heritage and environmental obligations associated with irrigation development.
Mallee CMA, DELWP & Aboriginal Victoria
18.	Coordinate the case management of private diverter works licence applications through the interagency New Irrigation Development Group, consistent with Ministerial Policies and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines.
Ag Vic
Discussing crops with irrigator.
5.2.4	Water delivery systems Although a concerted effort has been made to replace and upgrade less efficient on-farm irrigation systems and open earthen delivery channels in irrigation districts, there remains some off farm delivery infrastructure that has been overlooked and continues to present seepage and evaporation losses. This oversight was largely because the water loss in these systems is accounted for as river losses and not part of the landownerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water entitlement or the LMW loss allowance.
In 2016, LMW conducted a feasibility study (GHD 2016) to replace earthen irrigation channels near the Murray River. The study involved a preliminary estimation of seepage rates, evaporation losses and Murray River salinity impacts. It identified four private channels that warranted further investigations. These four channels collectively constitute a length of approximately 14 km with a surface area of 20.8 ha. The preliminary estimate showed a salinity benefit of 2.1 EC (in the Murray River at Morgan) could be derived if the channels were replaced.
19.	Prepare business cases to investigate options to upgrade private diversion irrigation channels in Private Diversion Areas and investigate water delivery systems upgrades in pump districts to deliver water efficiencies.
LMW, DELWP & Mallee CMA
5.3	Increasing the uptake of best management irrigation practices Irrigators in the Victorian Mallee are continuing to assure the broader community that their activities make an important contribution to the regional economy while also minimising or avoiding environmental impacts. In keeping with the Minister for Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policies for managing wateruse licences, new irrigation developments are required to manage groundwater infiltration, disposal of drainage; minimise salinity; protect biodiversity and minimise cumulative effects of water use. Existing irrigators are encouraged to adopt emerging technologies and practices, where these can help them improve their productivity and profitability.
This draft LWMP seeks to ensure that the Irrigation Development Guidelines regarding water-use licences remain relevant and contemporary. Water-use licence conditions have no defined renewal period; providing a process for review, particularly for older licences, would help to reassure the general community, maintain irrigatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; social licences and demonstrate that irrigated properties in the Victorian Mallee are being well managed using relevant and contemporary controls.
The draft LWMP builds on contemporary knowledge to support irrigation modernisation, productivity improvements, climate change adaption and irrigator awareness of opportunities and challenges. The aim is to build a resilient irrigation community in a changing climate, and to ensure seasonal adjustment processes for the annual use limits on water use licences remain relevant and contemporary. Stakeholders consulted in developing the draft LWMP identified a high level of confidence that irrigators are complying with water-use licence conditions, especially with regard to compliance with the individual Irrigation and Drainage Plans attached to water-use licences for properties that have been subject to Irrigation Development Guidelines. A key aim is to demonstrate that the cumulative impacts of increased water use in the Victorian Mallee are being monitored to assure the broader community that appropriate responses would be considered if any problems were to emerge.
5.3.1	Ensuring the adoption of best management practices for new irrigation developments The total area of irrigation in the Victorian Mallee has more than doubled since water entitlement trade was introduced. More than 40,000 hectares has been added since 1994 while avoiding, minimising and mitigating the negative environmental impacts common to large scale irrigation developments in the past. The Mallee Irrigation Region has been at the forefront in establishing effective processes to manage irrigation development, while also achieving improvements in river salinity. Those processes are designed to meet the Water Use Objectives and the Standard Water-Use Conditions determined by the Minister for Water in accordance with the Water Act 1989. As outlined in the Standard Water-Use Conditions and repeated in the Irrigation Development Guidelines (2017), an application for a new or varied water-use licence must be accompanied by an Irrigation and
Drainage Plan for the area of land being developed. The Irrigation and Drainage Plan must provide the information necessary to demonstrate how the development meets the necessary standards to minimise the impacts of water use on other persons and the environment (in particular water logging, salinity and nutrient impacts). The Irrigation and Drainage Plan must involve an assessment of local conditions and appropriate design of irrigation systems. The key purpose of an irrigation and drainage plan is to match the way land is irrigated and drainage disposed of, with the characteristics of the land and soil, in order to efficiently meet the objective of minimising harmful side-effects of irrigation. The Irrigation and Drainage Plan under the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines must include: •	A map of the proposed development clearly identifying the irrigation footprint; •	Topographical survey; •	Soil survey report and maps; •	Irrigation design and management; •	Arrangements for drainage disposal; •	Biodiversity protection arrangements; and •	Hydrogeological assessment(s) For a new water use licence to be granted, the Irrigation and Drainage Plan must be endorsed by the relevant Water Corporations and a reference to the plan recorded as part of the water-use licence. Conditions are placed on the licence in order to ensure the Irrigation and Drainage Plan continues to help meet the water-use objectives, while also allowing continuous improvement on the land covered by the licence. The Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines (2017) articulate and prescribe the approval processes and the coordinated approach, adopted by regional agencies in responding to applications for water-use licences and the other legal instruments that govern these developments. To assure the public that the guidelines continue to avoid or minimise environmental impacts, it is essential for the guidelines to be regularly reviewed to ensure they remain relevant and contemporary.
20.	Coordinate and case manage the approval application processes necessary for irrigation development and recommendations for site specific Water-use Licence conditions through the interagency New Irrigation Development Group, consistent with Ministerial Policies and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines.
21.	Ensure emerging knowledge and risks associated with irrigation best practice are incorporated into the review of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines.
5.3.2	Encouraging the adoption of best management practices on existing irrigation developments
that limited their acceptance. Extension programs are therefore necessary to explain and demonstrate their benefits and build capacity.
A 2018 review of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Incentive Program found that there were strong public benefits to be achieved by providing irrigators with financial incentives to carry out soil surveys, conduct irrigation system checks, and to purchase and install irrigation scheduling equipment on properties irrigated by pressurised irrigation systems.
By contrast, the review found that the private incentives to upgrade from furrow irrigation to pressurised irrigation systems are now so strong as to render further public incentives unnecessary. The review recommended continuation of the upgrade incentive for a limited period as a transition measure for actively furrow-irrigated properties. The recommendations from the review are reproduced in the appendix in section 7.4.1.
The review also demonstrated that the private incentives for adopting those practices were often insufficient for their uptake and there were information failures
22.	Support best management irrigation practices at existing irrigation developments to deliver water use efficiency and salinity benefit through a Victorian Mallee irrigation incentive program.
Mallee CMA & DELWP
23.	Deliver extension programs that support irrigation modernisation, productivity, adaptability and irrigator awareness of contemporary knowledge and best management irrigation practices.
Ag Vic & DELWP
5.3.3	Monitoring the effectiveness of water-use licence conditions Water corporations are accountable for ensuring compliance with, and, if necessary, enforcement of, the conditions on individual water-use licences. However, since water-use licences run with the land there is no renewal period. Unlike works licences, there is no mechanism for regular reviews of the need for new conditions on individual licences. The Water Act 1989 does, however, include mechanisms to enable changes to water-use licence conditions if there is a demonstrated need to make changes to satisfy the Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Water Use Objectives. Those mechanisms are subject to prescribed consultation processes. This draft LWMP looks more broadly at the effectiveness of the conditions that have been placed on wateruse licences. It does so with a view to continuous improvement in the Irrigation Development Guidelines and the Incentives Program. The aim is to keep building contemporary knowledge about irrigation in the Victorian Mallee. A three-year remote sensing study recently assessed the efficiency of existing irrigation management practices in the Victorian Mallee. In that study, Agriculture Victoria used satellite imagery, combined with water usage data from the Victorian Water Register, to investigate how much water moves beyond the rootzone of Victorian Mallee crops being irrigated using current irrigation practices.
As outlined in section 4.5, rootzone drainage should be kept to a maximum of five to ten per cent of total applied water. The study suggests that irrigators in the Victorian Mallee are achieving an average of 10 per cent rootzone drainage (MCMA 2018b). This is in line with expectations, and international comparisons suggest that Victorian Mallee irrigators are using best management practices for irrigation (Hornbuckle & Ballester 2019). Among other things, this world-leading study will help to test the current assumptions about the river salinity impact of each additional megalitre of irrigation in the Victorian Mallee. As discussed in more detail in section 5.4.2, this affects the charges paid against each megalitre of annual use limit placed on water-use licences. As shown in a schedule to the Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Standard Conditions on Water-Use Licences, at the time of unbundling in 2007, it was expected that seasonal adjustments would need to be made to annual use limits in two years out of ten on average to allow for extraordinarily high evapotranspiration rates or low rainfall. In practice, seasonal adjustments have been made five years out of seven since 2012. As outlined in the Mallee Natural Resource Management Plan for Climate Change, the projections for potential evapotranspiration indicate increases in all seasons. By 2030, potential evapotranspiration is projected to increase by one to seven per cent. By 2090, the increases are about one to ten per cent in a low emissions scenario and one to 20 per cent in a high emissions scenario.
Given these climate change scenarios, the seasonal adjustment process will be reviewed to ensure it remains relevant and contemporary. Annual use limits are intended to provide irrigators with the flexibility to meet their crops’ irrigation requirements without undue constraint, and irrigators are expected to be able to apply for an annual use limit that suits their needs in most years.
The annual use limits on water-use licences are generally within the volume calculated by multiplying the irrigated area by the maximum irrigation application rates (Schedule 2, Standard Water–use Conditions) deemed to be suitable for that crop per unit area. The Mallee CMA recently commissioned a review of application rates for a range of irrigated crops in the Victorian Mallee which will be formally incorporated into the Standard Water–use Conditions.
24.	Establish a review process for existing water-use licences to ensure licence conditions align with relevant and contemporary risks in accordance with Water for Victoria Action 4.7.3.
DELWP & Mallee CMA
25.	Monitor implementation of water-use licence conditions and non-compliance response actions in developing a compliance and enforcement strategy.
26.	Communicate the outcomes of new learnings to promote wider understanding of contemporary knowledge about efficient water use within the Victorian Mallee irrigation community.
27.	Conduct annual use limit assessments consistent with legislative requirements.
28.	Periodically review seasonal annual use limit adjustment methods to ensure they remain relevant and contemporary.
29.	Ensure incorporation of revised maximum application rates into subordinate legislative instruments.
Inspecting irrigation infrastructure.
5.4	Protecting the quality of the region’s water resources The Victorian Mallee’s salinity management framework has reduced salinity risk, but not removed the threat, which requires ongoing management. Given the need for some rootzone drainage, irrigation in the Mallee will continue to mobilise salt in the landscape. The salinity impacts of irrigation on the water quality of the Murray River must, therefore, be accounted for at the regional level in order to help Victoria maintain compliance with BSM2030. In the Murrayville GMA, the threat of failed or failing bores is also a major consideration for water quality. Since bores have a limited life, there will always be some at risk of failure. It is important for each generation of land and water managers to understand these ongoing threats. It is essential for salinity management to continue to be understood, adaptive, supported, relevant and contemporary. Several initiatives related to the salinity management framework that were started under the previous LWMP will be delivered during the life of this plan. These include: •	an independent review of the salinity offset charges that apply to each extra megalitre of annual use limit applied to water use licences in salinity impact zones as required by Water for Victoria – Water Plan (2016); •	refinements to the models that assess how much salt is driven into the river by each extra megalitre of annual use limit in the different salinity impact zones; and •	review cap and trade arrangements for annual use limits in the high salinity impact zone.
5.4.1	Murrayville Bore Decommissioning Project
bores drilled into the limestone aquifer are likely to deteriorate as the steel casing corrodes, allowing water from the saline Parilla Sands aquifer above to enter the fresher limestone aquifer and cause contamination. Proper capping and decommissioning of old bores is important to protect the water quality of the Murray Group Limestone aquifer. While decommissioning of failed and redundant bores is the responsibility of landholders, GWMW’s policy is to assist where possible. The considerable depth to the Murray Group Limestone aquifer, the upwards pressure of the aquifer and the overlying aquitard mean that, other than the threat from failing bores, the Murray Group Limestone aquifer is relatively protected from most vertical processes that could have the potential to affect groundwater quality in the area. A long-term threat to the Murrayville area is the naturally occurring lateral movement of more saline water from the east. It is possible that pumping for irrigation may increase the water level gradient and therefore increase the rate of groundwater movement. However, monitoring and the current rates of extraction have not provided any evidence of this to date. The condition of the groundwater resource is monitored by GWMW and DELWP using the State Observation Bore Network. This includes groundwater level monitoring across the management area, as well as salinity monitoring at selected observation bores and some spatially distributed regularly pumped domestic and stock water supply bores. All monitoring data is regularly reviewed by GWMW to ensure management is meeting the objectives of the Murrayville Local Management Plan.
The Murrayville GMA is threatened by the presence of failed or failing groundwater bores, particularly where the Murray Group Limestone aquifer is overlain by the saline Parilla Sands aquifer. The older stock and domestic
30.	Develop and implement a bore decommissioning strategy for Murrayville Groundwater Management Area.
GWMW, DELWP & Mallee CMA
5.4.2	Independent review of salinity charges As required by the Water for Victoria - Water Plan an independent process is underway to review how salinity charges are set for increases in annual use limits in the low salinity impact zones. The review is being completed in two stages: •	The first stage is a review of the hydrogeological models used to calculate the increase in river salinity caused by additional irrigation in each salinity impact zone. •	The second stage is a review of the cost of offsetting salinity impacts per electrical conductivity (EC) unit. Together the hydrogeological model and salinity cost reviews are likely to result in changes to the salinity offsetting charges that irrigators pay for an increase
in the number of megalitres that make up the annual use limits on their water-use licences. These changes will need to be communicated carefully to maintain the industry’s confidence and support for the Victorian Mallee Salinity Management Framework. In managing the salinity impacts from irrigation development it is essential to undertake research and ensure the best available information is on hand to support decision making. Action 4.8 in Water for Victoria – Water Plan aims to improve salinity management in the Mallee. It commits to invest revenue from salinity charges on an annual basis to update contemporary knowledge of the Victorian Mallee salinity impacts and the cost of offsets consistent with BSM2030.
31.	Plan to invest revenue from salinity offset charges to update contemporary knowledge of salinity impacts of water use on the Murray River and Victorian Mallee landscape and regularly review those investment plans.
32.	Amend the Salinity Management Framework to incorporate findings from the model refinement.
33.	Finalise the independent review of salinity offset charges and implement supported recommendations.
DELWP, Mallee CMA & LMW
34.	Maintain annual use limits as the preferred unit of account for salinity offset charges and salinity accounting in the Victorian Mallee.
5.4.3	The cap on annual use limits in the salinity High Impact Zone Action 4.8 from Water for Victoria – Water Plan calls for a review of policies related to the cap on annual use limits in the high salinity impact zone and the trading rules that go with it. The aim of the project is to analyse and document the policy options for expressing an in-principle agreement to implement a fixed cap in the high impact zone that is consistent with the targets set out in the Nyah to SA Border Salinity Management Plan.
Prior to unbundling in 2007, water entitlements could be traded out of the high impact zone, but not traded in. Since unbundling, it has been annual use limits (replacing water entitlements) that can be traded out of the high impact zone, but not traded in. A proposal to allow annual use limits to be issued in the high impact zone provided the total volume does not exceed an agreed cap is under consideration. This change would support the Sunraysia Rejuvenation Project.
35.	Review Victorian Mallee annual use limits High Impact Zone capping policies to support continued rejuvenation of the Sunraysia Irrigation Districts.
DELWP, LMW & Mallee CMA
5.4.4	Managing accountable actions under the basin salinity management strategy – BSM 2030 The Basin Salinity Management (BSM) 2030 Strategy retains the accountability framework established under Schedule B of the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. It provides for the registering of all actions that are assessed to have a significant effect, 0.1 EC or more, on Murray River salinity at Morgan by 2100. The framework commits the partner governments to maintain agreed salinity levels and ensure that their actions that increase river salinity are offset by investing in actions to reduce salinity. BSM2030 also retains the Basin Salinity Target to maintain modelled average daily salinity at Morgan at less than 800 EC for at least 95 per cent of the time over an agreed climatic-hydrologic sequence (otherwise known as the ‘benchmark period’). The current benchmark period is May 1975 to April 2000. This target provides a single metric to assess the Basin-scale outcomes of improved land and water management practices and salt interception schemes. Accountable actions and delayed salinity impacts continue to be recorded in two salinity registers. Register A records all actions taken after 1988 for NSW, South Australia and Victoria. Register B records the delayed impacts of actions taken before 1988 – such as the clearing of deep-rooted native vegetation to enable agriculture in the Mallee – that have had an impact post 2000.
Under BSM2030 a risk-based approach applies to the review of register entries and associated models. Many register entries and their associated models are now mature having been reviewed several times. Given this, the maximum time period between reviews has been extended from five to 10 years. Review periods are set by the MDBA and a shorter review period will be agreed for those register entries and models where there is higher risk, uncertainty, or where there is new knowledge, changes in landuse or operational experience. The MDBA and the partner governments maintain a four-year register entry and model review plan, with a 10-year outlook. It sets out the frequency of reviews required of each register entry and model. That plan enables partner governments and the MDBA to make pragmatic decisions to focus limited resources on the most significant salinity threats or where there is likely to be significant change or uncertainty. It provides partner governments with a basis for estimating budgetary and resourcing requirements and identifying workloads to inform business planning cycles. The Mallee CMA is responsible for coordinating the reviews of accountable actions in the Victorian Mallee. It does this in partnership with DELWP and the Victorian Salt Disposal Working Group. As outlined in Table 3, there are eight accountable actions on Register A and two actions on Register B in the Victorian Mallee. More information about the location of these actions is provided in Appendix 7.4.2.
Table 3 | Review schedule for Accountable Actions in the Victorian Mallee. Accountable Action
Salinity Effect at Morgan 2100 (EC)*
Register A Nyah to the South Australian Border Salinity Management Plan – Irrigation Development Reduced Irrigation Salinity Impact (Stage 1) Reduced Irrigation Salinity Impact (Stage 2) Sunraysia Drains Drying Up Psyche Bend Lamberts Swamp Nangiloc-Colignan Salinity Management Plan Mallee Drainage Bore Decommissioning Register B Victorian Mallee legacy of History - Dryland Victorian Mallee legacy of History - Irrigation
17.3 -5.4 -4.7 -2.2 -2.1 -3.0 0.4 -0.3 5.9 8.3
Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium High High Low
2020 2021 2021 2022 2022 2027 2023 TBD
*Source BSM2030 Register 2018, (-) values are credits, (+) values are debits.
36.	Continue to accurately account for salinity impacts consistent with contemporary knowledge and support Victoria in meeting obligations under BSM2030, including environmental watering impacts.
37.	Work with Victorian Government and the MDBA to ensure a consistent approach across basin states in the joint management of salinity.
5.4.5	Managing irrigation drains Under Clause 36 of the State Environment Protection Policy (Waters), irrigation drains must be designed and managed to minimise risks to beneficial uses of receiving waters, so far as reasonably practicable, with particular regard to flow, sediment, nutrients, salt and other pollutants. Water corporations that have an irrigation district under the Water Act 1989 have particular responsibilities with regard to Clause 36. When developing and implementing programs for improved irrigation, drainage and salinity mitigation practices, they must minimise risks to the beneficial uses of receiving waters by participating in implementing regional land and water management plans and setting and ensuring compliance with conditions on water-use licences in accordance with Regional Irrigation Development Guidelines.
When reporting on their management of irrigation drains, water corporations must have regard to the environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of the catchments they serve. DELWP also has specific responsibilities. It must maintain, implement, review and periodically renew, for each relevant CMA region, guidelines for the development and implementation of land and water management plans. Under Clause 37 of the State Environment Protection Policy (Waters), those plans must encourage the adoption of on-farm best management practices in order to reduce pollution into irrigation drains. They must also seek to identify and implement cost-effective improvements to the management of outfalls from irrigation drains.
38.	Investigate opportunities to identify and implement cost-effective improvements to the management of irrigation drains and outfalls.
Water Corps & Mallee CMA
Doerings Basin.
5.5	Monitoring the cumulative effects of irrigation water use The contemporary risks of waterlogging and salinisation in Mallee landscapes is not as well understood as the risks to water quality. However, there is a growing realisation that salt accumulation in landscapes such as floodplains is a compounding issue. In particular, landscape risks are not well understood for private diversion areas; they are better understood inside irrigation districts. At the broader regional scale, it is important to better understand, monitor and mitigate or offset salinity impacts of irrigation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; particularly on floodplains. The ability to address landscape salinity impacts needs to be built into the salinity management framework. In part, gaining this improved understanding and address impacts will involve maintaining and upgrading groundwater monitoring and irrigation drainage monitoring assets. Previous work in land and water management has resulted in unexplored legacies. For example, the biodiversity buffers and offsets required under new irrigation development since 1994 need to be better understood as an opportunity for a network of potentially connected corridors. Doing this will help to optimise the biodiversity benefits associated with new irrigation developments while protecting native vegetation from salinity impacts of irrigation. Land and water management in the Victorian Mallee must increasingly be understood in the context of healthy, productive and sustainable Mallee communities. Every effort must be made to coordinate and streamline regulatory activities, in order to minimise compliance costs, while also enabling sustainable and productive irrigation enterprises.
Similarly, energy efficiency and the carbon dependency of irrigated Mallee enterprises provide feedback loops to the climate change challenges facing the region. It is prudent therefore to think about opportunities to reduce energy used for irrigation and to consider the potential for greater use of renewable energy.
5.5.1	Successful coordination of irrigation practices and cultural values Irrigation in the Mallee necessitates infrastructure on floodplains and use of water resources. These landscapes and resources also support diverse and rich cultural assets and values dating back tens of thousands of years. Successful coordination requires a balance, whereby irrigation communities are healthy and productive and the cultural values of waterways are appreciated and protected for generations to come. To achieve this aim, this plan supports increased collaboration between irrigators and Traditional Owners, including the First People of the Millewa Mallee, and the Barengi Gadjin Land Council, Aboriginal Corporations. The coordination will enable a better understanding of the cultural values and uses of floodplains so these treasures can be protected, used and celebrated by Traditional Owners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community groups. There are critical knowledge gaps preventing best practice management of productive and cultural landscapes. This plan seeks to close those gaps by encouraging knowledge sharing and communication by all parties with an interest in healthy, productive and culturally rich landscapes.
39.	Increase the Aboriginal and irrigation community understanding and management of the impacts of irrigation on the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s natural, productive and cultural landscapes.
40.	Increase Aboriginal communitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; awareness and understanding of the water sector and capacity to participate in the water market and manage Aboriginal Economic Water.
41.	Support Traditional Owners to have a voice in land and water management through assistance in defining the cultural values, uses, health and future needs of key waterways.
Mallee CMA, DELWP, Ag Vic, LMW & Aboriginal Victoria
5.5.2	Understanding the cumulative effects of irrigation on mallee landscapes The Mallee CMA has existing obligations to monitor groundwater levels and groundwater quality. Similarly, it has existing obligations to monitor drainage flows and salt loads. Those obligations are supported by an ongoing operation and maintenance budget for the related monitoring assets.
The Mallee CMA has also initiated a study into the extent to which private diverters who have been through the new irrigation development assessment process have activated their drainage contingency arrangements. Failure to adequately manage irrigation induced water logged soils may affect biodiversity on individual properties covered by water-use licences.
42.	Monitor, review and maintain groundwater monitoring assets to meet BSM2030 obligations and landscape stewardship.
43.	Review and maintain irrigation drainage monitoring assets to meet BSM2030 obligations and Victorian environment protection requirements.
Mallee CMA, DELWP & Water Corps
44.	Investigate implementation of irrigation drainage in private diversion irrigation areas. Maintain a database of drainage development.
Mallee CMA & Ag Vic
45.	Monitor the cumulative effects of irrigation water use on the Murray River and Victorian Mallee landscape in order to evaluate, understand, respond and report on impacts in ways consistent with BSM2030 and the Victorian Water Plan.
5.5.3	Reviewing the biodiversity outcomes of the Irrigation Development Guidelines As outlined in section 5.3.3, this draft LWMP considers the broad effectiveness of the conditions that have been placed on water-use licences. The effectiveness of conditions relating to the protection of biodiversity,
buffering arrangements and offsetting requirements are generally considered on a case by case basis consistent with native vegetation protection legislation and the Irrigation Development Guidelines. There are opportunities to enhance the biodiversity benefits from irrigation development by creating strategic linking revegetation corridors across the development area.
46.	Review the outcomes of biodiversity buffering arrangements and biodiversity offsetting requirements on properties that have been through new irrigation development assessment.
47.	Investigate options to maximise biodiversity benefits from irrigation development.
5.5.4	Protecting the environmental values of wetlands managed for salinity purposes Several wetlands in the Victorian Mallee are managed for salinity purposes. These include Lake Hawthorn, Lake Ranfurly, Psyche Bend â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Woorlong Wetlands
complex, and irrigation drainage lakes in the Nangiloc area. The relationship between salinity management and environmental management are well understood for Lakes Hawthorn and Ranfurly, but less understood for the Psyche Bend â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Woorlong Wetlands complex and the drainage lakes around Nangiloc.
48.	Investigate and develop action plans for wetlands managed for salinity purposes to mitigate or offset salinity impacts of irrigation .
5.5.5	Ensuring healthy, productive and sustainable mallee communities Healthy, productive, and sustainable Mallee communities depend on innovation and adaptive management. Changes in land-use and the adoption of new technologies are driving changes to farming practices and improvements to irrigation management. Climate variability, climate change, consumer preferences and market forces are shaping the future of irrigated enterprises in the Mallee. This draft LWMP seeks to strengthen the links between land and water management and the social and cultural values of local communities and Traditional Owners. The actions in this plan will help to provide Mallee communities with assurance that irrigation in the Mallee is not having unacceptable impacts on the Murray River or on Mallee landscapes. In part, this depends on making sure that the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development
Using water, energy and nitrogenous fertilisers more efficiently, and generating on-farm renewable energy will help to reduce emissions. This, in turn, will help to manage the feedback loop between irrigation management and the challenges of climate change. Collaborative relationships between irrigators, industry groups, and government agencies, will allow them to learn from each other as they innovate and trial new equipment and practices. Farmer-led irrigator discussion groups to support improvements in farm planning, irrigation efficiency, energy efficiency, and nutrient management will be supported.
49.	Refine the Victorian Mallee Salinity Management Framework to account for the Water and Catchment Legislation Amendment Act 2019.
DELWP, Mallee CMA & Water Corps
50.	Triennially review the Victorian Mallee Irrigation and Development Guidelines to ensure they keep pace with innovations in the irrigation industry and remain relevant and contemporary.
51.	Develop and implement compliance and enforcement strategies for all water users to maintain community confidence in Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entitlement and allocation framework. .
52.	Continue to investigate risks and opportunities associated with irrigation practices and invest in building contemporary knowledge to be incorporated in future projects.
53.	Develop on-farm energy efficiency calculator to assess the potential for systems to be more energy efficient.
Walking through vineyard.
Guidelines remain relevant and contemporary, demonstrating effective compliance with and, if necessary, enforcement of licence conditions and using salinity offset charges to effectively mitigate or offset the salinity impact of irrigation.
6.1	Action summary Actions detailed in the draft LWMP identify a, timeframe priority and Lead agency. The timeframe definitions include; Short term: 0 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2 years, Mid term: 2-5 years and Long term: 5-10 years. The priorities include High, Medium, Low, Ongoing and As required.
Table 4 | Action List. Issue
1.	Investigate the relationships between Mallee crop plantings and water availability. Communicate any identified risks. 2.	Develop Victorian Mallee Crop Reports on a regular basis to support planning and management. 3.	Encourage the development of a whole of Mallee irrigated landuse crop report. 4.	Investigate the impact of climate change and supply constraints on water availability in the Mallee. 5.	In collaboration with regional partners, develop and maintain strategies to address priority water availability issues. 6.	In collaboration with regional partners, consider responses to the unauthorised take of water in the development of a compliance and enforcement strategy. 7.	Work with the MDBA to investigate the likelihood and consequence of delivery shortfalls, and communicate those risks to affected parties. 8.	Increase community understanding of the risks associated with low and variable water availability due to drought and changes in water supply and demand issues. 9.	Improve community capacity to adapt to low and variable water availability.
DELWP & Ag Vic Mallee CMA
DELWP DELWP, Water Corps & Ag Vic DELWP Water Corps & Ag Vic Water Corps & DELWP DELWP & Ag Vic DELWP & Water Corps Mallee CMA, Ag Vic & Water Corps DELWP, River Operators & Water Corps GWMW
12.	Work with district irrigators to implement priority volumetric access linked to delivery shares across all districts, as part of actively identifying and managing deliverability risks and capacity constraints. 13.	Support and implement recommendations from the DELWP Delivery Share Review.
Water deliverability Community understanding of low and variable water availability
Irrigation groundwater availability Delivery shares
Table 4 | Action List. Continued... Issue
Conditions on works licences
14.	Continue to implement a program of rolling 5-year reviews of works licences to ensure alignment and compliance with Ministerial Policies for Managing Works Licences and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines. 15.	Investigate options for fish-friendly suction screens and their application to water diversion in the Victorian Mallee. 16.	Subject to the outcomes of investigations, support the adoption of fish-friendly suction screens as part of the works licence review program, and if appropriate, incorporate requirements for them in the Irrigation Development Guidelines. 17.	Support awareness of and compliance with, cultural heritage and environmental obligations associated with irrigation development.
As opportunities arise Ongoing
Mallee CMA, DELWP & Ag Vic Mallee CMA & Water Corps
18.	Coordinate the case management of private diverter works licence applications through the interagency New Irrigation Development Group, consistent with Ministerial Policies and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines. 19.	Prepare business cases to investigate options to upgrade private diversion irrigation channels in Private Diversion Areas and investigate water delivery systems upgrades in pump districts to deliver water efficiencies. 20.	Coordinate and case manage the approval application processes necessary for irrigation development and recommendations for site specific Water-use Licence conditions through the interagency New Irrigation Development Group, consistent with Ministerial Policies and the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines. 21.	Ensure emerging knowledge and risks associated with irrigation best practice are incorporated into the review of the Victorian Mallee Irrigation Development Guidelines. 22.	Support best management irrigation practices at existing irrigation developments to deliver water use efficiency and salinity benefit through a Victorian Mallee irrigation incentive program. 23.	Deliver extension programs that support irrigation modernisation, productivity, adaptability and irrigator awareness of contemporary knowledge and best management irrigation practices. 24.	Establish a review process for existing water-use licences to ensure licence conditions align with relevant and contemporary risks in accordance with Water for Victoria Action 4.7.3. 25.	Monitor implementation of water-use licence conditions and non-compliance response actions in developing a compliance and enforcement strategy. 26.	Communicate the outcomes of new learnings to promote wider understanding of contemporary knowledge about efficient water use within the Victorian Mallee irrigation community. 27.	Conduct annual use limit assessments consistent with legislative requirements. 28.	Periodically review seasonal annual use limit adjustment methods to ensure they remain relevant and contemporary. 29.	Ensure incorporation of revised maximum application rates into subordinate legislative instruments. 30.	Develop and implement a bore decommissioning strategy for Murrayville Groundwater Management Area. 31.	Plan to invest revenue from salinity offset charges to update contemporary knowledge of salinity impacts of water use on the Murray River and Victorian Mallee landscape and regularly review those investment plans. 32.	Amend the Salinity Management Framework to incorporate findings from the model refinement. 33.	Finalise the independent review of salinity offset charges and implement supported recommendations. 34.	Maintain annual use limits as the preferred unit of account for salinity offset charges and salinity accounting in the Victorian Mallee. 35.	Review Victorian Mallee annual use limits High Impact Zone capping policies to support continued rejuvenation of the Sunraysia Irrigation Districts.
DELWP & Water Corps Mallee CMA
Mallee CMA Mallee CMA
GWMW, DELWP & Mallee CMA Mallee CMA
Water delivery systems Best management irrigation practices
Mallee CMA, DELWP & Aboriginal Victoria Ag Vic
Mallee CMA & DELWP DELWP, LMW & Mallee CMA Mallee CMA & DELWP DELWP, LMW & Mallee CMA Continued...
Meeting obligations under BSM 2030
36.	Continue to accurately account for salinity impacts consistent with contemporary knowledge and support Victoria in meeting obligations under BSM2030, including environmental watering impacts. 37.	Work with Victorian Government and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to ensure a consistent approach across Basin states in the joint management of salinity. 38.	Investigate opportunities to identify and implement cost-effective improvements to the management of irrigation drains and outfalls. 39.	Increase the Aboriginal and irrigation community understanding and management of the impacts of irrigation on the region’s natural, productive and cultural landscapes. 40.	Increase Aboriginal communities’ awareness and understanding of the water sector and capacity to participate in the water market and manage Aboriginal Economic Water. 41.	Support Traditional Owners to have a voice in land and water management through assistance in defining the cultural values, uses, health and future needs of key waterways.
Water Corps & Mallee CMA Mallee CMA & DELWP Mallee CMA & DELWP
42.	Monitor, review and maintain groundwater monitoring assets to meet BSM2030 obligations and landscape stewardship. 43.	Review and maintain irrigation drainage monitoring assets to meet BSM2030 obligations and Victorian environment protection requirements.
44.	Investigate implementation of irrigation drainage in private diversion irrigation areas. Maintain a database of drainage development. 45.	Monitor the cumulative effects of irrigation water use on the Murray River and Victorian Mallee landscape in order to evaluate, understand, respond and report on impacts in ways consistent with BSM2030 and the Victorian Water Plan. 46.	Review the outcomes of biodiversity buffering arrangements and biodiversity offsetting requirements on properties that have been through Irrigation Development Guidelines process. 47.	Investigate options to maximise biodiversity benefits from irrigation development.
48.	Investigate and develop action plans for wetlands managed for salinity purposes to mitigate or offset the salinity impacts of irrigation.
Mallee CMA & DELWP Mallee CMA
50.	Triennially review the Victorian Mallee Irrigation and Development Guidelines to ensure they keep pace with innovations in the irrigation industry and therefore they remain relevant and contemporary. 51.	Develop and implement compliance and enforcement strategies for all water users to maintain community confidence in Victoria’s entitlement and allocation framework. . 52.	Continue to investigate risks and opportunities associated with irrigation practices and invest in building contemporary knowledge to be incorporated in future projects. 53.	Develop on-farm energy efficiency calculator to assess the potential for systems to be more energy efficient.
Managing irrigation drains Coordination of irrigation practices and cultural values
Cumulative effects of irrigation on Mallee landscapes
Biodiversity outcomes of the Irrigation Development Guidelines Wetlands managed for salinity Healthy, productive and sustainable Mallee communities
Mallee CMA DELWP, Ag Vic, LMW & Aboriginal Victoria Mallee CMA & DELWP Mallee CMA, DELWP & Water Corps Mallee CMA & Ag Vic Mallee CMA & DELWP
DELWP, Mallee CMA & Water Corps Mallee CMA
DELWP & Water Corps Mallee CMA & Ag Vic Ag Vic
6.2	Prioritising actions There is strong competition for natural resource management funding. In choosing where to allocate resources, decision-makers consider community interests, environmental values, cultural values, the risks to those values and the benefit-cost relationship of investment. The process that has been used to assess and prioritise the actions agreed to as a result of consultation on this draft LWMP is summarised in Figure 9.
Issues identified through consultation with steering committee
Discussion with steering committee and steering committee organisations to determine any existing actions and their effectiveness
Identify actions to resolve issues
Identify appropriateness and success of existing actions and determine if need to be modified
Determine appropriate lead agency
Prioritise actions that are financially, socially and environmentally feasible, factoring in their achievability and availability of required resources.
Figure 9 | The process for assessing and prioritising actions agreed through consultation.
In summary, recommended actions for each program will be prioritised on the basis of the following: •	How well they contribute to the LWMP’s objectives and long-term outcomes; •	The degree of community support for the proposed action; •	Alignment with government policy; •	Relative costs and benefits: a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) will be undertaken to confirm that the actions to implement the LWMP actions are cost-effective in managing any adverse effects of irrigation. Cost estimates include both capital and annual operating costs of actions over the 10-year life of the LWMP (discounted to present value; PV). Public and private
benefits of actions will be considered in the CBA where they can be reasonably estimated (in dollar terms). LWMP benefits will be assumed to be accrued over 30 years •	Likely adoption: priorities and management action targets will also be influenced by consideration of the likely level of the adoption of individual actions. Actions that are unlikely to be attractive to irrigators will either be screened out or linked with other actions that would support their adoption. The work program will be developed in conjunction with a Technical Working Group.
6.3	Delivery partnerships Where relevant, projects initiated under this LWMP will be supported by an agreement between partners. This will ensure from the start that each agency is clear about its roles, responsibilities and accountabilities.
6.4	Monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement A critical component of any strategic plan, such as this LWMP, is the capacity for adaptive management. That is, can this LWMP be flexible in the face of new information, unexpected outcomes and the uncertainty that is inherent in natural resource management? A monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement (MERI) framework is one way to provide capacity to adapt. The MERI framework provides a simple mechanism to incorporate the principles of adaptation into the delivery of the LWMP. It will provide the capacity to understand and record the successes (or otherwise) and knowledge gained from LWMP implementation. The primary intention of the MERI framework is to provide the basis for reviewing and reporting on the LWMP at key points throughout its implementation. The secondary intention is to align it with and to support the associated MERI processes being delivered under the 2013-19 Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy. A detailed MERI Plan will be developed as a supporting document for the LWMP. It will allow for the annual review of LWMP activities, a mid-term review after five years, and will also facilitate continuous improvement and adaptive management.
6.4.1	Program logic The key to any MERI framework is a detailed understanding of the anticipated cause and effect relationships between planned actions and expected
outcomes. The Program Logic for this LWMP visualises the expected hierarchy of outcomes that will indicate progress towards our vision, objectives and resource condition targets. The LWMP’s Program Logic is informed by a suite of knowledge, science and experience drawn from a regional evidence base and the application of assumptions to produce a theory of change. Examples of some key assumptions applied in the development of the Program Logic include the following. •	The region’s strategic management intentions over the life of the LWMP are the right mechanisms and have sufficient scope and scale to contribute meaningfully to the objectives and resource condition targets; •	There are sufficient resources available to the region over the life of the LWMP to implement the proposed actions with sufficient scope and scale to contribute meaningfully to the objectives and resource condition targets; •	There is sufficient information or access to information over the life of the LWMP to evaluate the impact of implementation on resource condition targets; and •	The relationships between proposed actions and expected outcomes are based on a ‘typical year’. Adaptation in response to events such as drought, commodity price booms or busts may be required over the life of the LWMP to account for changed conditions or risks.
6.4.2	Monitoring Monitoring activities will collect information to inform evaluation and reporting on the implementation of the LWMP. This will include monitoring of the: •	level of expenditure against regional priorities; •	type, area and location of management activities and outputs implemented in the region; •	short-term impacts of delivery; and, •	long-term impacts of delivery. New information and research on climatic influences (e.g. drought, frost and hail) and externalities (e.g. land-use change, market conditions, water price, community expectations) that affect implementation of the LWMP will also be collected where appropriate.
6.4.3	Evaluation reporting and improvement Delivery of the LWMP will be evaluated and reported at key intervals: annually; at five years (mid-point of implementation); and ten years (end-point of implementation). Regional stakeholders will participate in these evaluations as part of already established partnership and engagement mechanisms (e.g. Technical and Community Advisory Committees). The primary intention of undertaking annual reviews of the LWMP is to: •	assess progress towards planned management activities and outputs; •	identify any short-term delivery outcomes;
•	consider any new knowledge that may influence future implementation; and •	improve the plan and adapt it to changes in understanding and circumstance (the ongoing reviews built into the actions outlined in the LWMP will help to provide adaptive management). The results of these annual reviews will be reported as part of the Mallee CMA’s obligations under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 (CaLP Act) which requires CMAs to report annually on the condition and management of land and water resources on behalf of the region. Annual project reports developed to meet specific investor requirements (e.g. financial, spatial, tabular data) will provide further detail and context. A mid-term review of the LWMP will be undertaken in accordance with DELWP’s guidelines for the preparation of Land and Water Management Plans. This review will also evaluate and revise the price structure of the Salinity Offset Charges. LWMP evaluations will be incorporated into reviews of the Regional Catchment Strategy where appropriate. A report detailing the outcomes of this review will be produced by the Mallee CMA and promoted to all stakeholders. Findings will also be incorporated into associated reviews of the Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy. The review process will be driven by a series of key evaluation questions which provide the background to evaluating the effectiveness, appropriateness, efficiency, impact and legacy of the LWMP and its implementation (see Table 5).
Table 5 | Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan Key Evaluation Questions. Evaluation Purpose
annual / mid-point / end-point
To what extent have the planned activities and outputs been achieved? Why or why not?
Have the management intervention methodologies employed conformed to ‘best practice’ throughout the delivery phase? If not, why not?
To what extent has the LWMP delivered against investor, stakeholder and community needs and expectations?
mid-point / end-point
Did the strategic management interventions delivered through the LWMP produce the expected level of contribution to targets?
Are there alternative or additional intervention options available to improve the region’s contribution to targets?
What impacts are apparent as a result of the management interventions delivered through the LWMP?
What progress towards the objectives and goals has been identified? What level of progress can be attributed to the LWMP?
What, if any, unanticipated positive or negative outcomes have resulted from LWMP implementation?
What is the status of and trend in the condition of land and water in the Mallee?
Part 7 Reference Materials
7.1	References AWE 2015, RISI Stage 1 Register Entries Five Year Review, Final Report for Mallee CMA, Australia Water Environments, December 2015 DELWP 2016, Water for Victoria: Water Plan, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, 2016. DELWP 2019, Updated Trends in Northern Victorian Water Trade 2001-2018 DELWP 2019, Victorian Irrigation Drainage Program, Final Draft, Strategic Directions 2019-24, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, January 2019. GHD 2016, River Murray salinity reduction options, Investigations Report for Lower Murray Water, September 2016. Hornbuckle & Ballester 2019, An Assessment of Irrigation Best Practices of the Victorian Mallee, Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, Deakin University, Australia. MCMA 2019, 2018 Mallee Horticultural Crop Report, Final Report, SunRise Mapping and Research, November 2018. MCMA 2018a, Mallee Irrigation Incentives Program Review, Final Report for the Mallee CMA, RMCG, Bendigo, September 2018. MCMA 2018b, Satellite Based Estimates of Mallee Crop Water Use and Root Zone Drainage, Final Report for the Mallee CMA, Agriculture Victoria Research, August 2018. MCMA 2013, Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy 2013-19, Mallee Catchment Management Authority, Irymple, May 2013. MDBA 2015, Irrigated crop area data for the Lower Murray-Darling 2003 to 2015, Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Canberra, December 2015. TCA and Frontier Economics, 2017, Social and economic impacts of the Basin Plan in Victoria, a report for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Melbourne. https://www.water.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0013/52123/Social-and-economic-impacts-of-the-Basin-Plan-in-Victoria.pdf accessed 6 June 2019
7.2	Acronyms AUL Annual Use Limit
MAT Management Action Target
MBI Market Based Instruments
BSMS Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2001â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2015
MCMA Mallee Catchment Management Authority
BSM2030 Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2015â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2030
MDBA Murray-Darling Basin Authority
MDBC Murray-Darling Basin Commission (now MDBA)
MERI Monitoring Evaluation Reporting and Improvement
DELWP Department of Environment Land Water & Planning EC Unit Electrical Conductivity Unit GMA Groundwater management area GMW Goulburn Murray Water GWMW Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water Ha Hectare LMW Lower Murray Water LWMP Land and Water Management Plan
MIIP Mallee Irrigation Incentives Program ML Megalitre NRM Natural Resource Management RCS Regional Catchment Strategy RCT Resource Condition Target WUE Water-use Efficiency WUL Water-use Licence
7.3	Glossary Accountable Actions An Accountable Action is one where an activity (either on its own or cumulatively) is estimated to have an effect on daily average salinity at Morgan greater than 0.1 EC in the next 100 years (a Significant Effect). Accountable Actions are typically salt interception schemes, changes to river operation and water management including changes to water use efficiency, and new irrigation developments in the Mallee Region. Annual Use Limit (AUL) The maximum volume of water that, in any 12-month irrigation season, may be applied to the land specified in a water-use licence. Aquifer Porous (sand or gravel) subsurface layer within the Earth’s crust capable of containing groundwater. Aquitard Clay layer in between groundwater aquifers. Aquitards help to confine aquifers and retard the movement of groundwater between one aquifer and another. Barmah Choke A narrow section of the River Murray between Cobram and Echuca that runs through the Barmah-Millewa Forest on the Victorian/NSW Border. Its operating capacity is small relative to other parts of the river. Consequently, when no water is available from the Menindee Lakes to augment supply, the Choke is the main limiting factor in delivering sufficient water to meet peak downstream demands for water use and to meet minimum flow requirements for South Australia. Basin Salinity Target Is to maintain the average daily salinity at Morgan at a simulated level of less than 800 EC for at least 95 percent of the time, during the Benchmark Period. Basin State Means New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. Benchmark Period Is an observed climatic sequence over a defined period (determined to be the period 1 May 1975 to 30 April 2000) that is representative of hydrological variability across the Basin. Delayed salinity impacts (also referred to as the ‘legacy of history’) means a salinity impact which occurs after 1 January 2000, but which: i.	in the case of New South Wales, Victoria or South Australia, is attributable to an action taken or decision made in that State before 1 January 1988; and ii.	in the case of Queensland or the Australian Capital Territory, is attributable to an action taken or decision made in that State before 1 January 2000.
Delivery Share The right to have water delivered by a water corporation and a share of the available flow in a delivery system: a share in terms of unit volume per unit of time of the total amount of water that can be drawn from a water system at a certain point. EC – Electrical Conductivity Is the measure of total concentration of dissolved salts in water. When salts dissolve in water, they give off electrically charged ions that conduct electricity. The more ions in the water, the greater the electrical conductivity it has. Because there are almost no ions in distilled water, it has almost no electrical conductivity. Hard water contains more salts, and therefore more ions, and has high electrical conductivity. Measuring electrical conductivity provides a fast and convenient way to measure salinity levels. Sea water has a salinity of about 35,000 to 50,000 EC units. EC at Morgan Changes in Murray River salinity are expressed as changes in average annual salinity (EC) at Morgan South Australia. Groundwater Water that collects or flows beneath the Earth’s surface. Hydrogeology The study of groundwater systems. Irrigable area Land licensed for irrigation water use. Irrigation application efficiency The proportion of total irrigation and rainfall that is consumed by the crop through evapotranspiration. The remaining proportion is lost to collected drainage, groundwater recharge, or the landscape. Joint works or measures Means physical works or measures that change instream salinity, either through a reduction in salt loads or through a changed flow management regime, for which partner governments have formally agreed to cost sharing. Market Based Instrument (MBI) A method of giving a positive reward for proactive involvement in natural resource management. They are another ‘string to the bow’ adding to the more traditional forms of encouragement and assistance in NRM, such as incentives and grants. Millennium Drought A prolonged dry period in much of southern Australia from late 1996 to mid-2010.
Salinity (or salt concentration) Is the concentration of dissolved salts in water, usually expressed in EC units or milligrams of total dissolved solids per litre (mg/L TDS). Salinity Cost Effect Is a change in average salinity costs resulting from an action. Salinity Credit Is a reduction in average Salinity Cost Effect. Salinity Debit Is an increase in average Salinity Cost Effect. Salinity Credits and Debits Are units of salinity accountability and are defined as increases or decreases in average salinity costs since the baseline date. Salinity Effect Means a change in river salinity that leads to a Salinity Cost Effect. Salinity registers Are a credit and debit based salinity accounting system which tracks all actions that are assessed to have a Significant Effect on river salinity, being a change in average daily salinity at Morgan which will be at least +/-0.1 EC by 2100. The salinity registers Provide a primary record of partner government accountability for actions that affect river salinity. Register A contains details of any actions after 1st January 1988 for NSW, Victoria and South Australia, and 2000 for Queensland and the ACT; that are considered to have a Significant Effect. Register A also brings forward information about works carried out under the former Salinity and Drainage Strategy and the BSMS. Register B records Delayed Salinity Impacts due to actions taken before 1988 for NSW, Victoria and South Australia, and 2000 for Queensland and the ACT (the ‘legacy of history’ for which the partner governments accept joint responsibility). It also contains details of the predicted future effects of actions aimed at specifically addressing Delayed Salinity Impacts, including contributions from Joint Works or Measures, and their salinity costs. Salt load Is the amount of salt carried in rivers, streams, groundwater or surface run-off, in a given time period. The salt load is often expressed in kg/day, tonnes/day or tonnes/year.
Salt Disposal Entitlements Entitlements to increase Murray River salinity at Morgan. These are only earned at the state level in return for investments that reduce river salinity by at least the same amount if not more (this term is being phased out and replaced with Salinity Credits and Debits). Schedule B Is a schedule to the Murray– Darling Basin Agreement (Schedule 1 to the Water Act 2007 (Cth)) that provides the accountability framework for implementation of the BSM2030 by the partner governments. Shared water resources Refer to the water resources of Murray River System as defined in Section 86A(3) of the Water Act 2007 (Cth). Significant Effect Is a change in average daily salinity at Morgan which the Authority estimates will be at least 0.1 EC by 2100, or a salinity impact the Authority estimates will be significant. Victorian Water Register A public register of all water-related entitlements in Victoria. It records entitlements with integrity, enables proper water accounting, keeps track of the water market and produces crucial information for managing the State’s water resources. The register is shared between an independent Victorian Water Registrar, The Department of Environment Land Water & Planning (Office of Water) and rural water corporations. Water Share A legally recognised, secure share of the water available to be taken from a defined water system; a water share is specified as a maximum volume of seasonal allocation that may be made against that share. Water-use Efficiency (WUE) Maximising the use of available water resources by applying water efficiently at a time and volume that meets the needs of the crops and ensures the long term sustainability of production levels (DSE & DPI 2004). Water-use Licence (WUL) The right to use water on a specific piece of land or; Water-use Registration (WUR) An authorisation to use water for purposes other than irrigation. Works Licence A licence to construct, operate, alter, decommission or remove works associated with the extraction of water (i.e. bore, pumps, dams)
7.4	Appendices 7.4.1	Recommendations of the review of the Mallee Irrigation Incentives Program Recommendation 1 A future Mallee Irrigation Incentive Program (MIIP) should cover soil survey, system checking and scheduling for pressurised irrigation systems. System upgrades should not be eligible for incentives, except for actively irrigated furrow irrigation, which will have an incentive to convert to a pressurised system available for a limited period. The definition of actively irrigated will be decided by the Mallee CMA. Recommendation 2 The incentive for scheduling should require a soil survey and a system check. The incentive to upgrade furrow to pressurised system will require a soil survey. Recommendation 3 All incentive recipients should require attendance at an irrigation management course, unless the participants have already completed the course and a refresher course. Recommendation 4 The incentives should be provided on a “rolling call” basis rather than within a limited “expression of interest” period. Recommendation 5 Recommendation 4 means that there cannot be prioritisation of applications in a round, instead minimum criteria will need to be set for eligibility. In terms of the salinity criteria, applications from high salinity impact zones and low impact zone L4 will be eligible, while applications from the L1, L2 or L3 zones will need to meet the existing $800/t criteria using the salt load calculator.
Recommendation 6 The level of incentive provided should be 90% of the cost for eligible soil survey, system check and scheduling equipment. For upgrading active furrow irrigation this should be 25%. Existing caps on expenditure per incentive will apply and as per current practice, these can be summed for multiple activities. Recommendation 7 Innovative methods for system checking and scheduling may be eligible, for example using NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index derived from remote sensing that can be used to determine crop water use variability), on the condition that this information is available for sharing. Pilots for these methods will be developed by the CMA to assess suitability for incentives. Recommendation 8 Delivery of extension and the revised MIIP should be coordinated with other industry programs. In some cases, this can be by joint delivery of field days and other events. Recommendation 9 Fund the program for three years and then review the continuation of incentives based on expected public benefits. Recommendation 10 The Mallee CMA develop protocols for data capture of soil surveys, system checks, remote sensing and adoption of incentives.
7.4.2	BSM2030 maps of accountable actions in the Victorian Mallee
Figure 10 | Nyah to SA Border Salinity Management Plan, Mallee Bore Drainage Decommissioning and Nangiloc Colignan Salinity Management Plan.
Figure 11 | Reduced Irrigation Salinity Impact.
Figure 12 | Psyche Bend, Sunraysia Drying Of Drains, Lamberts Swamp.
Figure 13 | Mallee Legacy of History.
DRAFT Victorian Mallee Irrigation Region Land and Water Management Plan (LWMP)