This book explores the issue of salinization in the context of contemporary conflicts about irrigation, water, and the environment in Australia, considering the Murray-Darling Basin in particular. It provides an environmental and social history charting the transformation of rural communities in the basin through the salinization of soils and water. Focusing on the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation district in the southwest of the Murray- Darling basin - the largest irrigation district in Australia - it explores the history of state-directed, large-scale engineering in the district, where the environment has been altered dramatically to facilitate white agricultural settlement inland. Changes to the landscape led to extensive salinization, however -