Why is the Murray-Darling Basin important?
The Murray-Darling Basin has been termed Australia ‘s agricultural heartland, its food basket’. It is Australia’s most important agricultural region, accounting for just over 34 per cent of the nation’s agricultural production in 2000/2001. The MDB dominates Australian irrigated agriculture. The area of irrigated agriculture in the Basin is 1.9 million hectares which is 75% of the Australian total in 2000/2001. Farms in the MDB cover an area of 88.6 million hectares, 19.4 per cent of the Australian total farm area of 455.7 million hectares. The map of the Basin below has been divided into different catchments. The size of the pie chart (circle graph) indicates the area of agricultural land in the catchment and the colours represent the type of agriculture. The map above only indicates land area devoted to different types of agriculture. The table below indicates the value of production.
