Lasting solutions to water challenges require a broad range of expert knowledge about climate, ecology, farming, population, engineering, economics, community politics and local cultures, says Jeffrey D Sachs

THE Goulburn River has been found to have the poorest health of any of the 23 rivers in the Murray-Darling basin

The Rudd Government is buying into the flawed plans to alleviate the water crisis. IT IS possible to have life without oil, but life without water is impossible for more than a few days. Given the impending water crisis you would think that, at the very least, the Rudd Government would have looked at all the alternatives before Water Minister Penny Wong announced a $13 billion investment program in "strategic water priorities" in a speech to the Annual Water Summit on Tuesday.

The Australian state Victoria has finally agreed to sign the Murray-Darling Basin national water plan. Victoria agreed to the plan in return for a $1 billion (us $0.9 billion) to upgrade its

UNLESS there is heavy rain in the Murray-Darling Basin over the rest of the year, 90% of South Australians face environmental catastrophe caused by the movement of heavy metals in solution up the river by osmosis. Osmosis is the process by which any solution that is in higher concentration in one part of a body of fluid will flow into the other parts with a lower concentration until the solution is evenly distributed.

The Australian government has given the green light to Australian $10-billion (about us $8-billion) plan to revive the Murray-Darling basin, which provides 40 per cent of the country's food. The

The Victorian government has announced plans to build Australia's largest desalination plant and pipeline to boost water supply to the state capital. The desalination plant in Melbourne's

A fter 117 years, Australia entered a new era of water management with the federal government taking control of rivers from the states they run through. The federal authorities will spend us$10

diverted for farm irrigation, dams and towns use of its waters, the once-mighty Murray river at present flows into the sea in a trickle. Worse, the river has a high level of pollution by the time