NSW to push ahead with flood plain harvesting despite calls for more research on impacts

New regulations likely to include tougher safeguards but a NSW upper house committee report finds more environmental protections are needed

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The NSW government will forge ahead with plans to license flood plain harvesting before the end of the year but will make amendments to address some of the findings in a NSW upper house committee report which warned knowledge around the practice was inadequate.

The committee report, issued Wednesday, calls for further scientific work to establish the extent and impact of flood plain harvesting, which involves capturing floods moving across plains using massive dams, levees and channels. The practice, which has grown dramatically in the past 20 years, has been blamed by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists for some of the 20% reduction in flows in the Murray-Darling, along with climate change.

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