The Fifth Stage in Water Management: Policy Lessons for Water Governance

Effective management of water resources is a critical policy issue globally. Using a framework developed by Turton, and a common set of characteristics describing key stages of water demand, we examine the effectiveness of isolated technical (e.g. irrigation upgrades) and allocative (e.g. buyback) efficiency for reducing water demand to sustainable levels. We base our analysis on Australia's water reform context which offers an advanced example of applying these levers to achieve allocative and technical efficiency. The study is motivated by appreciation of the benefits from increased policy flexibility and adaptability in response to: potential transformations toward inflexible production systems; uncertainty associated with impacts of climate change on future water reliability; and the need for increased possible future equity between uses/users (productive/consumptive, environmental, cultural). Our results highlight risk issues that rarely feature in current policy assurance reviews or performance assessments, and enables a clearer representation of uncertainty in future policy choices in many global settings with respect to water demand reduction.A. Loch, D. Adamson, N.P. Dumbrel

Evaluation of a visual assessment method for tree condition of eucalypt floodplain forests

For decades the floodplain forests of the River Murray have endured the effects of prolonged water stress. This has resulted in significant crown dieback and loss of condition. The Living Murray (TLM) initiative aims to restore the ecological health of six Icon Sites along the River. The two eucalypts River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and Black Box (Eucalyptus largiflorens) that dominate the forests at five of the six Icon Sites are undergoing widespread decline. To enable effective management and restoration of these forests, we developed a standardised tree condition assessment method. Named the TLM tree condition assessment method, it utilises visual assessment of a range of tree crown variables (extent and density of the foliage in the crown, epicormic growth, new tip growth, reproductive activity, leaf die-off, mistletoe infestation) and measurements of bark condition, diameter at breast height and dominance class. This article describes the TLM tree condition assessment method and assesses it for consistency between multiple observer teams after limited training. The level of observer agreement between six teams each comprised of two observers was assessed for seven of the ten variables. Intra-class correlation was used to compare scores of 30 River Red Gum trees assessed on Gunbower Island on the River Murray. The level of agreement for all variables was statistically significant with six of seven variables having correlation coefficients over R = 0.5. The TLM tree condition assessment method was found to provide accurate estimates of a range of tree variables that can be used to determine tree condition. The TLM tree condition assessment method provides a valuable monitoring tool that can be used to assess management interventions, such as management flooding and silvicultural thinning.Nicholas J. Souter, Shaun Cunningham, Stuart Little, Todd Wallace, Bernard McCarthy, Mark Henderso

Sustainable, efficient, and equitable water use: the three pillars under wise freshwater allocation

There are many river basins in the world where human water footprint needs to be reduced substantially. This article proposes three pillars under wise freshwater allocation: water footprint caps per river basin, water footprint benchmarks per product, and fair water footprint shares per community. Water footprint caps for all river basins in the world—setting maximums to the water volumes that can be consumed or polluted by the various human activities per basin—would aim to ensure a sustainable water use within each basin. Water footprint benchmarks for water-using processes aim to provide an incentive to producers to reduce the water footprint of their products toward reasonable benchmark levels. Benchmarks will enable the actors along supply chains—from primary producers and intermediate companies to final consumers—and governments responsible for water allocation to share information about what are ‘reasonable water footprints’ for various processes and products. The idea of a fair water footprint share per community aims to contribute to the debate about social equity. Water allocation may be environmentally sustainable and efficient from a resource point of view, but that does not automatically imply that water allocation is fair from a societal point of view. We need international agreement on what makes the water footprint of a community of consumers fair or reasonably acceptable, given the limited maximum sustainable water footprint per global citizen

A new approach to determining environmental flow requirements : sustaining the natural values of floodplains of the southern Murray-Darling Basin

Large overbank flood events play an important role in maintaining largescale ecological processes and connectivity along and across the floodplains and between the rivers and their floodplains in the southern Murray-Darling Basin. However, the regulation of rivers means that extensive overbank flooding can only occur in the rare circumstance of extreme flood events. Recent environmental water allocations have focussed on the largest floodplain blocks (‘icon’ sites) and a small set of specific values (e.g. colonial nesting waterbirds), as well as on trialling fine-scale manipulation of infrastructure (e.g. pumping) to water relatively small areas. There has been no comprehensive systematic assessment of the entire floodplain and its wider set of flood-dependent natural assets (such as ecosystems and species; herein referred to as ‘natural values’) to maximise the effectiveness of environmental water use and to catalogue values likely to be lost. This paper describes an assessment of some 220 000 ha found to support flood-dependent natural values in Victoria. We mapped the geographic distribution and estimated components of the flooding requirements (natural flooding frequency, and maximum period without flooding and minimum duration of each flooding event before significant deterioration) for each natural value. Using an example of one stretch of the River Murray, we show how the resultant spatial data can be used with floodplain inundation modelling to compare the outcomes of real or planned environmental watering events; potentially providing tools for management agencies to conserve a wider range of floodplain values than is currently the case. That is, water managers and the public can see what ecosystems and threatened species are intended to be maintained by environmental watering and what values are intended to be abandoned across the whole floodplain, rather than just seeing the small subset of values and ‘icon’ sites that are intended to be maintained. Examples are provided to illustrate how information about the location, water requirements and extent covered by potential floods for specific values can be used to build adaptive watering strategies for areas as large as the whole floodplain