Comparative Perspectives on Basin Governance in the Murray-Darling Basin: Insights from the western United States

The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) is internationally recognised for innovation in basin governance to achieve more sustainable outcomes. This chapter examines water-management experiences from the western United States relevant to the emerging public dialogue about the Murray–Darling Basin Plan. We argue that a comparative perspective offers more scope for exchanging policy and practical lessons than previously recognised. Australia imparts more lessons than it stands to learn from the exchange, but the western United States has both success stories and failures that are instructive in four elements of sustainable water reforms, including: a) balancing multiple objectives in water reform; b) defining environmental-flow requirements; c) basin planning across jurisdictions; and d) adaptive learning in environmental-water recovery. The Columbia and Colorado river basins bracket the diverse range of management challenges and institutional innovations in the western United States. Both have engaged with diverse stakeholders to reconcile multiple objectives in long-range planning, particularly with indigenous communities. The Colorado River has responded to water-supply variability by building technical capacity for engagement in State and tribal stakeholder groups. The Columbia has pioneered adaptive learning in market-based environmental-water recovery through nested governance arrangements that combine bottom-up planning and implementation with basin wide financing and accountability. This preliminary comparison highlights the broad scope for mutual learning and the need for sustained and systematic cross-case comparisons to realise this potential.