But don't expect the decision to make an immediate impact on the flows to the river, as the vast bulk of the water in question was ear-marked to be used only as 'high-flow' irrigation water - that is, the water only exists in periods of flood.

Premier Anna Bligh said today the water would now be transferred to the control of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.

"The water will come from across the Queensland section of the Murray Darling basin and includes allocations from the Nebine, Moonie, Warrego and Border Rivers," Ms Bligh said.

"To achieve this historic measure, I have instructed the Department of Natural Resources and Water (NRW) to ensure existing unallocated reserves of water are made available.

"That water will be gifted to the Commonwealth to improve the health of the Murray Darling system."

The 'gift' is made up of 1.1GL of unallocated water from the Moonie River, 1GL in the Nebine River and 500ML in the Border Rivers.

About 8GL of the water will come from the cancellation of plans to auction new irrigation licences for the Warrego River.

Last year State Water Minister Craig Wallace defended plans to auction the water for irrigation, stating that the river would have retained 89pc of its natural flow even if the sales went ahead.

Mr Wallace said today the "gift" was despite the fact that the Queensland water resource planning already provides for the environment and the recent Murray Darling Basin Commission Sustainable River Audit clearly shows the health of the Queensland rivers are the best in the Basin.

"People need to understand that all of the river systems in the State’s south west are ephemeral, so the flows can only be taken when the rivers actually run," Mr Wallace said.

"The fact is the lion's share of water taken from the Murray-Darling Basin every year is taken by New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

"Queensland, on average, takes less than 5pc of the total water extracted from the basin.

"In the past seven years, landholders in the Queensland section of the basin have been unable to take anything near their legal water entitlements because of the drought."

In 2006-07, total extractions within the Queensland leg of the Basin was just 27.4pc of our average take.

The 2007-08 summer rains produced the first decent flows in years.

"As such, landholders could take some of the water they were legally entitled to take, yet we were criticised heavily for allowing that to happen," Mr Wallace said.