Integrated catchment management (ICM) is a process through which people can develop a vision, agree on shared values and behaviours, make informed decisions and act together to manage the natural resources of their catchment. Their decisions on the use of land, water and other environmental resources are made by considering the effect of that use on all those resources and on all people within the catchment. The decision to manage our natural resources on the basis of catchments reflects the importance of water to the Basin environment, and to the people who live and work within the Basin. The boundaries for ICM in the Basin are based on catchments, but in some cases also take account of political, economic and social boundaries.

Murray Darling Catchment (pdf)

The environmental health of the Murray–Darling Basin (the Basin)—the condition of its land, water and other environmental resources—and its continued productivity are important to all Australians.

The Basin is Australia’s largest and most developed river system, covering over one million square kilometres of land from southern Queensland through to the Murray mouth in South Australia. The Basin incorporates 75 per cent of Australia’s irrigation and provides just over 41 per cent of Australia’s gross value of agricultural production. The Basin has a diverse range of landscapes, ecosystems, land uses, and climates.

Its rivers provide drinking water for over three million people, more than one-third of whom live outside its borders. The Basin encompasses 30 000 wetlands; 11 of these wetlands have been listed under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.

The native animals and vegetation of the Basin represent much of Australia’s unique flora and fauna, and many native species rely heavily on the 93 per cent of the Basin’s land not included in national parks and other reserves.

The Murray–Darling Basin Initiative is a cooperative arrangement between government and community—through the governments of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory and the Commonwealth, and a Community Advisory Committee. It is the largest integrated catchment management program in the world and covers an area of over one million square kilometres. The Initiative seeks to achieve the internationally agreed goals of ecologically sustainable development within the Basin.

Using, conserving and enhancing the community’s resources so that ecological processes, on which life depends, are maintained, and the total quality of life, now and in the future, can be increased.

The Initiative seeks to respond to issues which:

• require joint government action or common action by two or more parties; or
• require action by an individual State or Territory but which could have implications for integrated resource management across the Basin.

Partners to the Initiative commit to working together for the benefit of the Basin, knowing that cooperation will achieve much more than action by any individual jurisdiction, and that only a true partnership between governments and the community can achieve the changes required for a secure future.

The main focus of the Initiative has been the shared water resources of the Basin. However, partners acknowledge that protecting these shared resources requires a whole-of-catchment approach, one that takes account of the relationships between natural systems, including land, water and other environmental resources. Any decision on the use and management of natural resources also affects economic and social values of regional communities. Therefore, Initiative partners are committed to strengthening ICM and the partnership between governments and the community over the next decade.