| The Cap | 
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Threats to the supply of water from the Murray Darling Basin in the early 1990s led to the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council introducing a moratorium in 1995 on the future growth in diversions of water. From 1 July 1997 the upper limit on the amount of water that could be taken from the river system was known as the Cap. The Cap is defined as "the volume of water that would have been diverted under 1993/94 levels of development. In an unregulated river this Cap may be expressed as an end-of-valley flow regime". Each state has been allocated a volume of water that would have been used with the infrastructure (pumps, dams, channels, areas developed for irrigation, management rules) that existed in 1993/94.
Why the Cap?
- River systems showing signs of stress
- No certainty that the current riverine environment is sustainable with the current regime.
- Increased growth in diversions would reduce security to existing irrigators
- No margin of safety for any further changes that will have an adverse impact on water quality (eg, the emerging problems of dryland salinity). | The Cap should restrain diversions, not development. With the Cap in place, new developments should be allowed, provided that the water for them is obtained by improving water use efficiency or by purchasing water from existing developments. | Review of the Cap
The Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council commissioned a comprehensive review of the operation of the Cap on water diversions from the Basin's rivers. This review, completed in August 2000, focused on how the Cap can be refined to better meet the needs of the Basin
Click here to view theReviewed Cap
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