The Murray-Darling Basin Authority reported yesterday the dam now held 2.583 million megalitres but still needs to rise another 22 metres to spill.

At 66.2 per cent, this is the highest storage volume at Dartmouth since October 2002.

Lake Hume remains at 94 per cent, the authority’s desired level to retain an air space of about 150,000 megalitres.

The basin’s total storage has increased 16,000 megalitres since last week and is at a healthy 7 million megalitres or 84 per cent of capacity.

South Australia is currently gaining river inflows of about 34,000 megalitres a day.

Flows through the Murray mouth are at a high flow of about 15,000 megalitres a day.

The unusually wet basin after years of drought was one factor discussed when scientists, economists, state and federal bureaucrats attended their annual water forum at La Trobe University’s Albury-Wodonga campus yesterday.

Among speakers at the private meeting was the Productivity Commission’s Dr Wendy Craik, NSW water commissioner David Harriss and Professor Harry Clarke, of La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus.

Dr Craik spoke about the commission’s study into urban water, the final report of which is due in late August.

Professor Clarke discussed how the water authorities might cope with extreme weather events such as heavy rain or much hotter temperatures, given the uncertainties of climate change.

He said investments in infrastructure such as desalination plans should be flexible enough to leave options open if the unexpected happened in climate change.

In South Australia, water from a desalination plant was going to cost about 10 times the price of water for purchase by farmers, he said.