Governing the Murray-Darling Basin: Integrating social and biophysical indicators for better environmental outcomes

Abstract River basin governance has become increasingly challenged in many river basins around the world. At heart is the poor understanding of governance performance and its interaction with biophysical restoration targets. This paper aims to improve the Murray-Darling Basin governance for better environmental outcomes by understanding the interactions between governance performance indicators and biophysical indicators. A diagnostic framework consisting of social indicators (Collaboration, Leadership, Institutions and Learning) and biophysical indicators (River Flows, Water Quality, Biodiversity and Species Recovery) was used to estimate condition and target for each indicator from a range of stakeholder groups representing different interests and perspectives. In addition, stakeholders also measured synergistic effects of indicator progress towards target on other indicators using strength of indicator interaction scores. A network analysis of indicator condition and interaction scores was used to determine a composite enabling pathway to suggest stakeholder contributing roles to polycentric governance. Leadership and its role in regulation, compliance and operating rules is a recurring challenge mentioned by multiple stakeholder groups, requiring clarification of roles and subsidiarity decision-making through enhanced collaboration and institutional reform. The enabling pathway proposes collaborative learning by assigning co-implementation priorities based on diagnostics rather than stakeholder specific identified key challenges. This novel approach offers a tangible way for developing sectorised stakeholder engagement strategies where participation is conceived as active collaboration towards decision-making and co-implementation.