In 1992, the Commonwealth government and the four basin states agreed to the Murray–Darling Initiative to conserve the river's ecosystem. The Initiative led to adopting the federal–state Murray–Basin Agreement and creating a joint federal–state commission overseen by a federal–state ministerial council. The Agreement both allocates water among the basin states and vests the Murray–Darling Commission with the power to control releases from specified upstream storage facilities. To restore lost ecosystem services, the Commission has adopted an artificial base flow regime and imposed a use reduction regime on existing users.