Economically viable land regeneration in Central Queensland and improved water quality outcomes for the Great Barrier Reef

Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040The impact of excessive sediment loads entering into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon has led to increased awareness of land condition in grazing lands. Improved ground cover and land condition have been identified as two important factors in reducing sediment loads. This paper reports the economics of land regeneration using case studies for two different land types in the Fitzroy Basin. The results suggest that for sediment reduction to be achieved from land regeneration of more fertile land types (brigalow blackbutt) the most efficient method of allocating funds would be through extension and education. However for less productive country (narrow leaved ironbark woodlands) incentives will be required. The analysis also highlights the need for further scientific data to undertake similar financial assessments of land regeneration for other locations in Queensland

Final Report on the Status of the Social, Cultural (Sense of place) and Economic Components for the Gladstone Harbour 2018 Report Card

De Valck, JM ORCiD: 0000-0002-5233-426X; Flint, N ORCiD: 0000-0003-4331-4109The Gladstone Harbour Report Card, first piloted in 2014, represents one of the early initiatives to incorporate social, cultural and economic indicators in an aquatic health report card. It has been associated with pioneering new methodologies and techniques in the assessment process such as the use of Bayesian Belief Networks to combine the different measures and indicators (Pascoe et al. 2016) and the application of nonmarket valuation techniques in the economic assessment (Windle et al. 2017).The Gladstone Harbour Report Card is produced annually and 2018 is the fifth consecutive year of reporting. The report card encapsulates environmental, social, cultural and economic objectives. The focus of this report is on the last three components

Final report on the status of the social, cultural (sense of place) and economic components for the Gladstone Harbour 2016 report card

De Valck, JM ORCiD: 0000-0002-5233-426X; Flint, N ORCiD: 0000-0003-4331-4109The Gladstone Healthy Harbour Partnership is one of the early pioneers to apply socio-economic considerations in an aquatic health report card, particularly in Australia. Report cards have become an increasingly popular tool to measure and record changes in ecosystem health over time. The main objective is to assist in environmental management and decision-making. While the inclusion of bio-physical indicators in aquatic report cards is well-established, the inclusion of social, cultural and economic indicators is less common. The challenge of assessing and reporting socio-economic indicators in a uniform and simplistic manner has limited their inclusion in aquatic health report cards. The initial report card for Gladstone Harbour was piloted in 2014 and incorporated environmental, social, cultural and economic objectives. The aim of this project is to generate report card scores and grades for the Social, Cultural (‘Sense of place’) and Economic components of the Gladstone Healthy Harbour 2016 Report Card. The same methodology as applied in previous years is repeated again for this year. Full details or the methodology applied to assess the scores and grades are outlined in the 2014 (Pascoe et al. 2014)and 2015 (Cannard et al. 2015) report cards and the information is not repeated again in this report. The Gladstone Healthy Harbour Report Card is now in its third year of production and it is possible to start identifying some trends and changes over time. The longitudinal results are allowing the report cards to become an even more meaningful management tool. Assessment and analysis The Gladstone Healthy Harbour Report Card comprises five levels of assessment. In this report, the results (scores and grades) are presented for the Social, Cultural (Sense of place) and Economic components (2nd level) along with their constituent indicator groups (3rd level), indicators (4th level) and measures (5th level). Scores are classified into five (A-E) grades. Baseline data, used to calculate the scores for the indicator measures, is collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data are collected in an annual community questionnaire survey of 401 respondents and secondary data are obtained from a range of regularly updated, publically available sources. In order to establish the relationship between the measures, indicators and indicator groups, a system of weights (derived in 2014) is applied. Each element is weighted to reflect its relative importance as a management objective. To aggregate the scores for the measures into indicator scores,indicator groups and components, a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) is used. This model is able to provide a probability of an outcome rather than to produce a deterministic outcome. From the conditional probability distributions, a mean (expected) outcome and confidence interval can be determined. The numerical score is based on the weighted average of the A-E values in the distribution of outcomes. A separate BBN is developed for each component. Full methods are described in Pascoe et al. (2014).For the first time, this year there is an automated process of data analysis to estimate the scores and grades for the report card. The transition from manual to automated data analysis has revealed some anomalies in 2015 data sets and data analysis. Where applicable these have been noted in the report and details are outlined in the recommendations (Appendix E). The most notable of these relates to the Commercial fishing indicator and concerns are identified with the results for both 2015 and 2016

Improved grazing management practices in the catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia: Does climate variability influence their adoption by landholders?

Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040The declining health of the Great Barrier Reef from diffuse source pollutants has resulted in substantial policy attention on increasing the adoption of improved management practices by agricultural producers. Although economic modelling indicates that many improved management practices are financially rewarding, landholders with dated management practices remain hesitant to change. This research involved bio-economic modelling to understand the variance in private returns for grazing enterprises across a climate cycle. Results show that financial returns to landholders can vary substantially across different 20-year periods of a climate cycle, demonstrating that the variability in expected returns may be an important reason why landholders are cautious about changing their management practices. Although previous research has separately identified financial returns and attitudes to risk and uncertainty of landholders as key influences on decisions concerning adoption of improved management practices, this research demonstrates that it is the interaction between these factors that is important to understand when designing policy settings

Economic returns of transferring post-coal mine land to grazing land in the Bowen Basin: Is this a new opportunity for rural development in Australia?

Akbar, DH ORCiD: 0000-0002-2269-5056; Kinnear, SH ORCiD: 0000-0002-2734-8547; Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040Most coal mines in the Bowen Basin of Queensland, Australia are at a mature stage. A number of these coal mines have been rehabilitating their mined land progressively with a view to relinquishing their mining leases once production finishes. The original land use of most mining leases in the Bowen Basin was grazing. Some studies have found that transferring such post-coal mine land to its original use of grazing was the most acceptable land use option in the eyes of local landholders. However, the actual costs and benefits for the future land owner are unknown. This study examines the direct costs of managing such land for grazing, as well as the direct benefits from beef production in the Bowen Basin region. The study found that the expected return is $97/ha/year. This is the net return, broadly equivalent to average revenues less average operating costs. The implications of these estimates are that if post-mining land could be returned to grazing capability with no additional management requirements or caveats on the title, it would generate increased agricultural production and contribute to rural development in mining regions of Australia

Targeting resource investments to achieve sediment reduction and improved Great Barrier Reef health

Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040Concerns about excessive sediment loads entering the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon in Australia have led to a focus on improving ground cover in grazing lands. Ground cover has been identified as an important factor in reducing sediment loads, but improving ground cover has been difficult for reef stakeholders in major catchments of the GBR. To provide better information an optimising linear programming model based on paddock scale information in conjunction with land type mapping was developed for the Fitzroy, the largest of the GBR catchments. This identifies at a catchment scale which land types allow the most sediment reduction to be achieved at least cost. The results suggest that from the five land types modelled, the lower productivity land types present the cheapest option for sediment reductions. The study allows more informed decision making for natural resource management organisations to target investments. The analysis highlights the importance of efficient allocation of natural resource management funds in achieving sediment reductions through targeted land type investments

Targeting for pollutant reductions in the Great Barrier Reef river catchments

Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040The declining health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) from poor water quality has increased the urgency for pollutant reductions at the same time that available financial resources and knowledge regarding the most appropriate interventions are limited. Prioritisation of water quality interventions in the Great Barrier Reefcatchments is the process of identifying which land based actions can achieve the largest environmental benefitsat the lowest cost. For prioritisation to be effective a focus is required on the outcomes of pollution reductiona ctivities as compared to the inputs. In this paper we set out a framework for prioritising actions to improve water quality into the Great Barrier Reef, as well as providing a case study analysis using 47 individual riverbasins across the six large scale catchments, three pollutants and two industries. The results identify the most cost-effective options for water quality improvements aligning to locations of medium risk to reef health. The outcomes of the analysis highlight the importance of seeking pollutant reductions where the most effectiveoutcome can be achieved rather than simply targeting an industry or a catchment

Identifying the causes of low participation rates in conservation tenders

Rolfe, JC ORCiD: 0000-0001-7659-7040Conservation tenders are being used as a policy mechanism to deliver environmental benefits through changes in land, water and biodiversity management. While these mechanisms can potentially be more efficient than other agri-environmental and payment for ecosystem service schemes, a key limitation in practice is that participation rates from eligible landholders are often low, limiting both efficiency and effectiveness. In this paper we document and review potential causes of low participation in two categories: those that treat participation as an adoption issue focused on searching for the landholder, farm or practice characteristics that limit participation; and those that treat it as an auction design issue, looking for the different auction, contract or transaction cost elements that limit landholder interest in participation. We then model how landholders make choices to engage and bid in a tender, making three important contributions to the literature on this topic. First, we document the low participation rates in conservation tenders, mostly across developed countries, an issue that has received little attention to date. Second, we explain that a decision to participate in a conservation tender involves three simultaneous decisions about whether to change a management practice, whether to be involved in a public or private program with contractual obligations, and how to set a price or bid. Third, we explain that there are a number of factors that affect each stage of the decision process with some, such as landholder attitudes and risk considerations, relevant to all three. Our findings suggest that decisions to participate in a conservation tender are more complex than simple adoption decisions, involving optimisation challenges over a number of potentially offsetting factors. © 2018 J. Rolfe, S. Schilizzi, P. Boxall, U. Latacz-Lohmann, S. Iftekhar, M. Star and P. O'Connor

Intoducing the hill "Sxisti Petra"

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας εργασίας αποτελεί η αστική παρέμβαση στο λόφο Σχιστή Πέτρα, στους πρόποδες του Λυκαβηττού, στην Αθήνα. Κύριος στόχος της παρέμβασης είναι η επαναδιαπραγμάτευση της σχέσης της Σχιστής Πέτρας τόσο με το δομημένο περιβάλλον της όσο και με το λόφο του Λυκαβηττού. Πρόκειται για μια αλληλουχία οριακών παρεμβάσεων που συγκροτούν μια υπαίθρια έκθεση γλυπτικής με κύριο εργαλείο υλοποίησης το τοιχίο. Η χρήση του τοιχίου είναι τέτοια ωστέ να συγκρατεί, να κατευθύνει, να εισχωρεί, να παράγει επίπεδα, μεταβατικούς χώρους και περάσματα, να στρέφει το σώμα και το βλέμμα. Αυτές οι χειρονομίες υλοποιούνται με απλές συνθέσεις τοιχίων. Με την ίδια λογική συγκροτείται και μια κτιριακή δομή που φιλοξενεί ένα εργαστήρι γλυπτικής που τροφοδοτεί την υπαίθρια έκθεση. Την παρέμβαση ολοκληρώνουν η διαμόρφωση του εδάφους καθώς επίσης και τα γλυπτά.The subject of the present project is an urban intervention at the hill “Sxisti Petra”, at the foothills of the hill Lycabettus, in Athens. Main goal of our intervention is the renegotiation of Sxisti Petra’s relationship with the built environment as well as the hill of Lycabettus. Our proposal consists of a sequence of limit interventions which form an outdoor sculpture exposition. Main compositional tool is the wall which is used so that it can hold, give direction to the body, penetrate, produce levels and passages and turns both body and gaze. Our intervention as a whole is formed as simple wall compositions. With the same philosophy we develop a building structure which hosts a sculpture workshop. Two extra compositional tools complete the project, the configurations of the ground as well as the sculptures themselves.Ιωάννα Α. ΜπουντουβάΜυρσίνη Πετροπούλο