South Australia is typically the driest state on the driest continent (with the exception of Antarctica), yet it has one of the world’s largest artesian basins in the world, stretching 1.06 million km². The Murray River Basin supplies irrigation for large-scale, diverse agriculture and supplies drinking water to the 1.3 million residents living in the City of Adelaide. The Department of Environment & Water (DEW) is responsible for the vitality and sustainability of this water ecosystem which involves monitoring and managing a lot of data to ensure fair water sharing, flood control, and maintaining of water quality through controlling barrages that open the lower lakes to the ocean.