The Murray is Australia's longest river and its drainage basin covers one-seventh of Australia spanning New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
The Murray-Darling Basin encompasses not only the Murray River and its tributaries but all associated floodplains as well as their floodplains; covering 75% of New South Wales, 50% of Victoria, 15% of Queensland, 8% of South Australia and Australia Capital Territory with 16 internationally significant wetlands as well as numerous endangered species.
The Murray River snakes its way west from Australia's Alps and across its inland plains before flowing south at Morgan and becoming part of South Australia's state boundary with Victoria for just two miles (3.6 km). Here it meets lagoon water from The Coorong National Park as well as at high tide seawater from Great Australian Bight.
At its mouth, the Murray River meets the Pacific Ocean in a natural harbor protected by magnificent sand dunes and saltwater lagoons. This "Murray Mouth" serves as an important shipping port, source of energy and food supply in this part of the world.
Indigenous people of South Australia venerated and revered the Murray as sacred ground, telling its many creation stories. Modern South Australians now use it as a vital water resource for irrigation, industry and domestic consumption; its unique river life provides fringing corridors of iconic River Red Gum eucalyptus trees; however since European settlement its health has suffered significantly due to river regulation measures such as river control schemes containing foreign fish species that disrupt its natural flow as well as run-off from agriculture. Unfortunately this disruption of natural flow has led to much aquatic biodiversity declining or becoming rare or endangered due to regulation measures implemented through river regulation channels as well as introduced species introduced species introduced from foreign sources causing disruption of its natural flow as well as run off from agriculture runoff into river systems of its banks affecting its biodiversity resulting from agricultural run offs from agriculture run offs from agriculture run offs from agriculture run-off from agricultural run offs into rivers such as these; therefore many aquatic biodiversity now rare or endangered due to disturbance caused by regulation agencies or runoff from agriculture runoff is partly responsible.
