• Change text size
• Skip to content

Caring for our Country

What is NRM?

• About us
• Contact us

Search:

Home

• What is Natural Resource Management (NRM)?
  • What's an NRM region?
  • What's an NRM plan?
  • Who manages NRM?
  • Policies, agreements and frameworks
• What can I do?
  • Building capacity
  • Engaging communities
  • For landholders
  • Find a facilitator
  • Indigenous communities and NRM
  • NRM discussion forum
  • Volunteer
• Business plan 2009-10
  • Information sheets
  • Information sessions
  • Priority coastal hotspots
  • Planning your project
  • FAQs
• Funding
  • 2008 funding
  • A-Z list
• Funded projects
  • Community Coastcare announcement
  • Open Grants announcement
  • NSW
  • Vic
  • Qld
  • SA
  • WA
  • Tas
  • NT
  • ACT
• Data, maps and research
  • Atlases
  • Spatial data
  • Reporting tools
  • Managing data
• Monitoring and evaluation
  • Setting and reporting on targets
  • Measuring performance through indicators
  • National and regional evaluations
• Publications
  • Agreements
  • Annual reports
  • Books and reports
  • Brochures
  • Case studies
  • Fact sheets
  • Frameworks
  • Guidelines
  • Legislation
  • Links
  • Logos
  • Media releases
  • Newsletters
  • Policies
  • Strategies

Murrumbidgee - Natural Resource Management region

Regional summary

The Murrumbidgee River stretches for 1600 kilometres and has average annual flows of around 4.4 million megalitres. The catchment is bounded by Cooma in the east, Balranald in the west, north to Temora and south to Henty.

The Murrumbidgee catchment region has one of the most diverse climates in New South Wales , ranging from the alpine areas of Kosciuszko National Park and the Monaro plains, through to the rich grazing and grain belts of the southwest slopes and plains and the shrublands and grasslands of the semi-arid western Riverina. Covering an area of 84,000 square kilometres, the Murrumbidgee region is home to approximately 545,000 people with a population growth rate of 1.5 percent per annum. Australia's capital, Canberra, with 314,000 people, and NSW's largest inland city of Wagga Wagga, with 57,000 people, are both situated within the catchment . Other major towns include Cooma, Queanbeyan, Yass, Tumut, Narrandera, Griffith, Hay and Balranald.

A wide range of community interests and organisations contribute to natural resource management (NRM), including industry groups, corporations, Landcare groups, non-government organisations such as Greening Australia, government agencies, local government and numerous community groups. Within its boundaries there are 30 local government areas having all or part of their region in the catchment. One of the Catchment Action Plan's challenges is to foster partnerships between the individuals and organisations to provide a more integrated, targeted and cohesive approach to NRM. This includes minimising difficulties in dealing with cross-border issues.

Situated in the lower Murrumbidgee catchment are the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area and the Coleambally Irrigation Area. These irrigation areas have more than 10,000 kilometres of irrigation channels. The irrigation industry provides 25 percent of the state's fruit and vegetable production, 42 percent of its grapes and half of Australia's rice production. Other major industries in the catchment include:

• dryland agriculture
• including beef production
• intensive poultry production
• sheep and wool
• cropping and softwood plantations

Agricultural production is worth in excess of $1.9 billion annually.

Sites of international ecological significance include the Fivebough and Tuckerbil Swamps and the Lowbidgee Wetlands.

Priority issues

Key natural resource management issues in the region include:

• declining water quality and flow rates
• increasing levels of salinity in rural and urban areas
• declining soil health
• loss of native vegetation and other threats to biodiversity
• community capacity building to undertake natural resource management

Regional plan

The former Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Boards - predecessor to the current Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority - prepared an integrated NRM plan, the blueprint, for what is now the Murrumbidgee, incorporating social, economic and environmental elements of NRM. This blueprint is based on a whole-of-catchment approach and sets 10-year catchment condition targets for the priority NRM issues of the region. It outlines the tasks that need to be accomplished to achieve these targets.

This blueprint forms the basis for the development of an Investment Strategy that is used to attract funding from the Australian and state governments, and from other sources, for the specific actions identified in the Investment Strategy.

Through National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) and the Natural Heritage Trust (the Trust) funding, the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority provides information and incentives to resource managers to encourage strong community involvement in the region's NRM and foster projects and practical activities that benefit the environment and the community.

Current activities

NRM priority	Activities addressing the priority
Water quality	restoration of riparian areas, focusing on restoring riparian vegetation and controlling erosion in priority reaches in the mid and upper catchment improving water quality and salinity on the Yass River, Jugiong and Muttama Creeks by planting perennial vegetation on the reaches that are most susceptible to erosion or salinity
Salinity	implementing Land and Water Management Plans in irrigation areas defining and prioritising saline sub-catchments assessing and prioritising the extent and impact of urban salinity on high value infrastructure in urban centres establishing and managing agroforestry and perennial pastures to lower water tables
Soil health	benchmarking and understanding soil chemistry on a paddock basis to better manage acidity, sodicity and soil structure implementing best management practices in dryland cropping systems to achieve improved soil management, including conservation farming practices, improved weed and disease management and improved water use efficiency facilitating landholder groups in perennial pasture establishment and management
Biodiversity	enhancing aquatic wildlife by developing and implementing recovery and threat abatement plans, providing fish passage and enhancing habitats for aquatic species
Community building	developing strategies for capacity building, knowledge and skill development and communication to increase community involvement in natural resource management establishing local cultural heritage groups and a regional forum to increase involvement of the Indigenous community in natural resource management

Contacts

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Regional Facilitators for New South Wales.