Helicoverpa spp. (heliothis) are a major insect pest of cotton, grains and horticulture in the Murray‐ Darling Basin. Climate change is likely to make conditions more favourable for heliothis. This could cause regional comparative advantages in irrigation systems to change as management costs...

Large scale forest plantations in the Murray-Darling Basin may be embraced as a carbon sequestration mechanism under a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. However, increased tree plantation will be associated with reduced inflows to river systems because of increased transpiration, interception...

The extended dry conditions in the Murray Darling Basin have resulted in unprecedented levels of reduced water availability for both irrigators and the environment. Concerns over environmental degradation and the health of the river Murray have prompted the Federal and State Governments to...

For much of the 20th century, the expansion of irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basin, was treated as a self-evidently desirable objective, to be pursued without excessive regard to questions of economic costs and benefits. Irrigation seemed to offer a ‘droughtproofing’ solution...

For most of the last decade, water policy in Australia has been dominated by emergency responses to what was, on most measures, the worst drought in our history. Irrigators have received only small fractions of their normal allocations of water, while urban water users have been subject to...