The Australian Conservation Foundation says it is disappointed by the findings of a parliamentary inquiry into the Murray-Darling river system.

The parliamentary committee report was prepared after widespread community anger at a plan to significantly reduce water allocations in the basin.

The report has found the river system can be protected without the water cuts and has instead recommended extra investment in water infrastructure.

But Australian Conservation Foundation spokeswoman Arlene Harriss-Buchan says buybacks are the most efficient way to save the basin.

"We're very, very concerned about this threat to the buyback of water entitlements," she said.

"Buying back water from willing sellers is the most efficient and effective way of recovering water for the environment.

"Buyback has put real water back into our rivers and delivered real benefits for the taxpayers."

Ms Harriss-Buchan says the ACF wants the Government to reject any recommendation to slow down or stop water buybacks.

"If the Government stops the buyback of water from willing sellers, it would seriously slow down the rate at which water is recovered for the environment," she said.

"It would certainly cost much, much more to recover the required amount of water."

The committee, chaired by independent MP Tony Windsor, was made up of a cross-section of government, opposition and independent MPs.

It began its hearings in South Australia in January and travelled the length of the basin.

The consensus among irrigators was that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority was not listening when it released its draft plan last year.

Now irrigators say the new report will go some way in soothing anger across the river system.

Danny O'Brien, from the National Irrigators Council, says Mr Windsor and the committee have struck the right balance.

"They've clearly listened to communities - a far cry from what the MDBA went through last year - and they've delivered a good set of recommendations," he said.

"I think we're seeing already some of the comments I've had in feedback from my members that people are glad that they've been listened to."

He says irrigators all accept that there will be water going back to the environment.

"Frankly, one of the things that was missed in the guide is that irrigators have been giving up water," he said.

"There would be barely an irrigator in the basin who hasn't lost water, mostly uncompensated, over the last 10 or 15 years.

"There will be more and we think that the Government purchasing it is respecting our property rights and that's only fair, as long as it continued to come from willing sellers."

Soothed

Andrew Gregson, from the New South Wales Irrigators Council, thinks the findings will soothe the anger along the river.

But with the final plan due next year, he is wary the process is far from over.

"It will certainly have a calming effect because people will see that the concerns that they've raised have been listened to," he said.

"The real proof, however, comes when the draft basin plan is released, to see if the Murray Darling Basin Authority have listened, have had time to listen and has had time to incorporate what it is that the Windsor inquiry has said."

The Federal Opposition says the report shows the existing reform process has failed.

Water spokesman Senator Barnaby Joyce says the report confirms very little has been spent to improve water efficiency.

"We acknowledge that the cost of works is substantial, but we also acknowledge the basin is the food basket of Australia," he said.

"It produces 40 per cent of Australia's food, 60 per cent of Australia's irrigated agriculture."

Mr Windsor's committee has avoided the furious debate over the minimum amount of water needed to be returned.

The basin guide recommends at least 3,000 gigalitres but that figure is now uncertain.

"We haven't suggested that there is an appropriate level," Mr Windsor said.

That is an issue that caused the key Wentworth Group of Scientists to break away from the basin plan process.

Members of that group have declined to be interviewed by ABC Radio's PM.