Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia's largest river catchment, draining the tributaries of the Murray River, Australia's longest river, and the Darling River, its right tributary and Australia's third-longest river. Covering about 1,061,469 square kilometers and stretching 3,375 kilometers, the basin lies west of the Great Dividing Range and drains southwest into the Great Australian Bight, spanning most of New South Wales and Victoria plus parts of the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and South Australia. It contains six of Australia's seven longest rivers and, despite carrying water volumes that are large only by Australian standards, its long, slow-flowing rivers support about a third of Australia's food supply, with irrigation worth roughly three billion Australian dollars a year and over forty percent of national agricultural output.