Incentives for ecosystem service supply in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

For Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin is a significant ecological and socioeconomic asset. During the Millennium Drought (1997 - 2010), severe ecosystem service losses provided impetus for water policy reform. With around $8.9 billion committed, the Commonwealth's two-pronged water recovery strategy is to purchase water entitlements for the environment and support investment in improving irrigation infrastructure efficiency. In this paper, we consider the design of a complementary payment for ecosystem services pathway which using water as payment can provide incentives for local ecosystem service supply.