Theme: The Current severe drought in SouthEastern Australia has been with us for over three years. As a result, there is an understanding that the Murray-Darling Basin water resources are shrinking. The challenge for those of us who use these resources and those who rely on water from the Basin is to use less.

CSIRO predicitons in the Inter- Governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) indicate that Northern Victoria is facing a decline in run-off of up to 35% by 2030.
The Murray- Darling Basin as a whole will experience a 25% reduction between 2030 and 2050. This gives us all reason to be very concerned at the economic, environmental and social impacts of these predictions.
The challenges are:

- How do we all adjust to less available water?

- Can we change our lifestyle to live with more frequent droughts?

- What water innovations will assist in greater efficiencies of water collection, distribution and reuse?

The 2009 National Conference aims to address issues that have arisen in recent years of drought and discuss how water innovation can assist the management of this shrinking resource of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.