The Review of Water Quality Targets in the Basin Plan (MDBA, 2020) recommended that the Salt Export Objective (SEO) (Chapter 9, section 9.09) should be improved ahead of the 2026 Basin Plan Review. It also highlighted opportunities for improvement in the communication and management of water quality targets, such as the Salinity Targets for Flow Management. Of the five salinity targets for flow management located in the shared resources, the review noted problems with the Burtundy target value and potential problems with the Milang target value. Such problems had previously been identified in the Productivity Commission report on the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) in 2018 and the Basin Evaluation Report in 2017.
The Murray–Darling Basin Authority commissioned a more detailed review into these three objective/targets (SEO, Burtundy and Milang salinity targets); the findings of which are summarised in this report. The study was conducted in two phases. This report covers Phases I and IIA, with IIB still to be conducted.