Economics of plant disease outbreaks

Increasing trade liberalisation, globalisation and international transportation of people and commodities have increased the potential for disease incursion, both plant and animal, in countries like Australia. While a comparatively strict quarantine regime and geographic isolation provide substantial protection in Australia, disease incursions are not uncommon. In recent years, there have been several exotic disease outbreaks including wheat stripe rust, bacterial blight of cotton, sugar cane ratoon stunt, potato cyst nematodes, karnal bunt, grapevine leaf rust, papaya fruit fly, Newcastle disease in poultry flocks, and Ovine Johne’s Disease (OJD) in sheep. Recent attention on the incursion of plant diseases, followed the outbreak of black sigatoka, a banana leaf disease, in the Tully district of North Queensland in 2001, and citrus canker, a highly contagious bacterial disease for citrus fruits, in the Central Highlands region of Queensland in 2004

Economic and social impact assessment of water quality improvement.

Water quality in Queensland’s rivers, coasts and estuaries varies considerably, ranging from some in pristine condition to others in very poor condition. Despite a range of government programs and initiatives, levels in many areas have continued to decline. Declining water quality levels impact on communities and stakeholders in a number of ways including direct impacts, impacts on human support systems, and impacts on biodiversity and other ecological systems. This paper demonstrates how setting of more stringent water quality objectives can enhance and protect environmental assets of water resources. There are very large and damaging economic and social impacts associated with further declines in water quality in some specific Queensland water systems. Therefore, the case for averting these impacts by at least maintaining current water quality levels is very strong, justifying a range of current government initiatives to minimise further damages. There is also a strong case for undertaking improved water quality objectives above the current standards through best practice management intervention strategies

The importance of riparian vegetation in improving water quality

This is the second of a report series about designing a market based instrument to address water quality issues in the Fitzroy Basin, Central Queensland. There are significant exports of sediment and nutrients from the Fitzroy River each year, with potential impacts on waterways, the estuary, and the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The bulk of those exports come from non-point sources, principally agricultural land used for grazing, farming and irrigation purposes. Key mechanisms to reduce those exports are to protect riparian areas and to improve ground cover in grazing and farming areas. The focus of this report is the protection of riparian areas and buffer zones as the key strategy to achieve improved water quality outcomes. The key ecological benefits of this strategy would come from three main sources: reduced nutrients directly associated with livestock in riparian areas, reduction in streambank and gully erosion, and increased trapping of sediments and nutrients from overland flows. The extent of ecological benefits from riparian vegetation will vary from site to site, and modelling tools such as Sednet may be useful to predict such outcomes. The opportunity costs of establishing riparian strips fall into two main categories; capital costs (fencing and water) and recurrent costs (production loss and management effort). There are substantial variations according to industry, enterprise and location. When opportunity costs are assessed for different ecological outcomes, the variations will be cumulative, meaning that there will be large variations in opportunity costs to achieve water quality improvements, even between enterprises in the same industry and catchment. Evidence about the benefits of improved water quality in the Fitzroy Basin has been assessed from a number of choice modelling studies that have been performed. The results of those studies show significant values for attributes such as waterway health and estuary health, where water quality is likely to be a key contributor to attribute levels. By association, there are high levels of community value for improving water quality in the Fitzroy Basin. Regulation is one possible approach to improving water quality through better provision of riparian strips. The regulatory approach has been increasingly used since the 1990s to protect remnant vegetation in the catchment. However, it is much more difficult to use regulatory tools to set management actions. Devolved grants and market based instruments offer more flexible means of achieving these outcomes

Overview of the Fitzroy Basin and opportunities for offset trading

A major project is being undertaken in Queensland to design how a market-based instrument in the form of an offset mechanism can be used to achieve improvements in water quality in the lower Fitzroy River. Like other river systems draining into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, the Fitzroy River has deteriorating water quality levels with high sediment and nutrient loads. This may cause damage to estuaries, the coastal zone and the Great Barrier Reef, although the level of scientific knowledge about the linkages between poor water quality and potential environmental damage is incomplete. There is substantial public interest in improving water quality outflows to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The impacts on water quality come from a number of different sectors and regions within the Fitzroy Basin. Existing measures to improve water quality include regulatory controls over many point source discharges, and a range of education, persuasion and devolved funding grants over many non-point source discharges. The potential for introducing a market-based instrument (MBI) stems from the range of different opportunity costs for improvement actions between and within sectors, and the need to tailor incentives at the specific enterprise level. Offsets, competitive tendering and cap-and-trade mechanisms are the types of MBI mechanisms that may be used. A key issue in designing a market-like mechanism is to predict the gains from trade and the appropriate institutional arrangements. Asymmetric information means that much of that knowledge is hidden to system planners, so a non-market valuation mechanism termed Choice Modelling will be trialed in this project. Potential MBI participants will have a trading scenario described to them, and will then be asked to identify their preferred level of involvement from several trading options. The outcomes of a series of these questions will allow the identification of the range of opportunity costs involved and the market behaviour under different institutional structures. In this report, a summary of the water quality issues in the Fitzroy Basin is presented, together with an overview of the process that will be undertaken to complete the project

Assessing the cost-effectiveness of water quality interventions in South-East Queensland

The research reported in this paper is focused on the cost-effectiveness of mitigation strategies to reduce pollution loads and improve water quality in South-east Queensland. To perform the study, scenarios had to be developed about the types of catchment interventions that could be considered, and the resulting changes in water quality indicators that may result. Once these catchment scenarios were modelled, the range of expected outcomes are assessed and costs of mitigation interventions were estimated. Strategies considered include point and non-point source interventions. Predicted reductions in pollution levels were calculated for each action based on the expected population growth. The costs of the interventions included the full investment and annual running costs as well as planned public investment by the state agencies. The results show that the cost-effectiveness of strategies is likely to vary according to whether suspended sediments, nitrogen or phosphorus loads are being targeted

Designing the Choice Modelling Survey Instrument for establishing riparian buffers in the Fitzroy Basin

A major project is being undertaken in Queensland to design how a market-based instrument in the form of an offset mechanism can be used to achieve improvements in water quality in the lower Fitzroy River. Like other river systems draining into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, the Fitzroy River has deteriorating water quality levels with high sediment and nutrient loads. This may cause damage to estuaries, the coastal zone and the Great Barrier Reef, although the level of scientific knowledge about the linkages between poor water quality and potential environmental damage is incomplete. There is substantial public interest in improving water quality outflows to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The impacts on water quality come from a number of different sectors and regions within the Fitzroy Basin. Existing measures to improve water quality include regulatory controls over many point source discharges, and a range of education, persuasion and devolved funding grants over many non-point source discharges. The potential for introducing a market-based instrument (MBI) stems from the range of different opportunity costs for improvement actions between and within sectors, and the need to tailor incentives at the specific enterprise level. Offsets, competitive tendering and capand- trade mechanisms are the types of MBI mechanisms that may be used. A key issue in designing a market-like mechanism is to predict the gains from trade and the appropriate institutional arrangements. Asymmetric information means that much of that knowledge is hidden to system planners, so a non-market valuation mechanism termed Choice Modelling will be trialed in this project. Potential MBI participants will have a trading scenario described to them, and will then be asked to identify their preferred level of involvement from several trading options. The outcomes of a series of these questions will allow the identification of the range of opportunity costs involved and the market behaviour under different institutional structures. In this report, a summary of the water quality issues in the Fitzroy Basin is presented, together with an overview of the process that will be undertaken to complete the project

Using Choice Modelling to establish the supply of riparian services

The potential supply of water quality mitigation actions from diffuse sources is difficult to assess, although important for designing policies to encourage such actions. In this report the design and results of a Choice Modelling (CM) valuation exercise to assess the potential supply of rural mitigation actions from altered grazing management are reported. The exercise was focused on the supply of mitigating services (specified riparian management standards), the total cost of provision, and the extent to which these costs varied between landholders. CM has traditionally been applied to environmental valuation issues, but there is increasing use of the method to design agricultural markets. This study extends that application to markets for environmental actions

Influence of tool material on forces, temperature, and surface quality of Ti-15333 alloy in CT and UAT

Ultrasonically Assisted Turning (UAT) is a progressive machining method in which vibration is applied to the cutting insert in the direction of the cutting tool velocity to reduce the cutting forces significantly and increase the surface finish noticeably However, the key question about the tool damage caused by the vibration and its effect on the cutting forces, surface roughness, and process zone temperature is still unknown in UAT. This paper conducts an experimental analysis of the effect of a worn tool in UAT and Conventional-Turning (CT) of β-Ti-15V-3Al-3Cr-3Sn (Ti-15333) alloy on the surface quality of a machined surface, temperature of the process zone, and cutting forces using KC5510 (PVD TiAIN) and CP500 (PVD (Ti,Al)N-TiN) cutting inserts. In UAT, the tool edge damages in CP500 inserts increased with tested machining time, which resulted in the growth of 8 N and 10 N in tangential force component in CT and UAT, respectively. Similarly, with the progression of tool edge damage, growth rates of 1.7% and 9.3% in the process zone temperature were observed in CT and UAT, respectively. The surface roughness results revealed a gradual degradation with machining time; however, the results of UAT with a worn tool were significantly better than those of CT with a virgin tool

Thermal activation Eyring energy approach to characterise the dependence of nanoscale friction on the surface roughness

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is used to characterise the frictional response of surfaces with varying roughness parameters in dry and in the presence of fully formulated lubricants. The surface roughness has shown to affect nanoscale friction. The characteristics involved the investigation of roughness, small-scale adhesive forces and nanoscale friction using AFM in lateral force mode. The fluid-cell Lateral Force Microscopy (LFM) results were used to model thermal activation Eyring energy components in conjunction with the relevant continuum contact mechanics model. The paper shows that a combination of LFM, for dry and fluid-cell LFM and thermal activation Eyring energy barrier approach is a useful tool to explain the effect of surface roughness on nanoscale friction.<br

Changes in inequality of childhood morbidity in Bangladesh 1993-2014: A decomposition analysis

Child health remains an important public health concern at the global level, with preventable diseases such as diarrheal disease, acute respiratory infection (ARI) and fever posing a large public health burden in low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh. Improvements in socio-economic conditions have tended to benefit advantaged groups in societies, which has resulted in widespread inequalities in health outcomes. This study examined how socioeconomic inequality is associated with childhood morbidity in Bangladesh, and identified the factors affecting three illnesses: diarrhea, ARI and fever