Southern Murray-Darling Basin water prices 2022-23

ABARES executive director Jared Greenville said based on the current climate outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology, ABARES considered the "wet scenario" to be the most likely, with prices expected to fall to $58 per megalitre.

"In all scenarios the price is forecast to remain well below the annual average of $617/ML during the last drought in 2019-20," Dr Greenville said.

READ MORE:

"Back-to-back La Nina years have recharged storages and have allowed carryover balances to rebuild. The volume of carryover available in 2022-23 is the highest it's been in a decade.

"High opening allocations and excellent forecasts for allocations for the rest of the year for all major entitlements will provide a lot of certainty to irrigators in making water management decisions."

The difference in prices across the forecast scenarios for 2022-23 is small, with only a $113/ML difference between the wet and extreme dry scenarios.

Although La Nina conditions began to dissipated at the start of 2022-23, there is a 50 per cent chance of it re-forming in spring 2022. If La Nina re-forms, conditions are likely to be even wetter than forecast in the wet scenario.