Project title: MDB SY2 groundwater recharge modelling for the Murray–Darling Basin
Project description: During the previous MDB Sustainable Yields, CSIRO undertook a project to estimate the diffuse dryland recharge across the MDB. The project objectives included the following:
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estimation of the baseline annual average recharge from 1895–2009,
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estimation of the temporal variability in annual average recharge over the baseline period,
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estimation of the changes in recharge under future climate scenarios (based on a projected 2030 climate).
The recharge modelling was undertaken using WAVES, this modelling did not consider recharge due to drainage below irrigated areas or recharge from streams through the bed and banks or overbank flooding.
Deliverable Details:
The proposed approach to the delivery of the module 3a has been split into 2 workstreams, modelling of dryland diffuse recharge including modelling of flood and in-stream recharge and updating/revising the numerical groundwater models. This approach to market is for the first of these workstreams and builds on work delivered under the previous MDB Sustainable Yields project by increasing the baseline from 2009-2024 and estimating changes in recharge under future climate scenarios developed under Module 1 of the Sustainable Yields Project.
Project leader: David Post
Collaborating organisations: CSIRO (Australia)
Credit: Russell Crosbie, Rebecca Doble, Guobin Fu, Paula Campos Teixeira, Trevor Pickett, Anjana Devanand, Cate Ticehurst, Matt Gibbs, Will Gunner, Denis Gonzalez, David Post
Access: The metadata and files (if any) are available to the public.
Lineage: The future climate data used as an input to the recharge modelling was derived from 120 CMIP6 GCM runs, the future climate data is described in a separate DAP archive: https://doi.org/10.25919/s9hx-6f50.
The methods used to model the historical and future recharge is described in the report:
Crosbie R, Doble R, Fu G, Campos Teixeira P, Pickett T. Devanand A, Ticehurst C, Gibbs M, Gunner W, Gonzalez D, Post D (2025) Groundwater recharge modelling of the Murray-Darling Basin under historical and future climate conditions. CSIRO, Australia.
Groundwater recharge datasets made publicly available on CSIRO Data access platform.