NeWater 28 aug 07 Information for Adaptive Water Management Ian White Fenner School of Environment and Society

NeWater 28 aug 07 Adaptive Management & Thermodynamics 1 st Law: You can break even 2 nd Law: You can only break even at absolute zero 3 rd Law: You can’t reach absolute zero

NeWater 28 aug 07 Adaptive Management & Thermodynamics ? 1: You can manage adaptively 2: You can manage adaptively in an ideal world 3: The world is far from ideal Allan & Curtis (2005)

NeWater 28 aug 07 Management Agencies & Information Ideal  Persistent  Purposeful  Information-rich  Inclusive  Flexible Current MDB agencies  Short term, under-resourced  Swept by changing priorities  Deskilled & loss of corporate knowledge  Mistrusted or narrowly-focussed  Uncertain Some of the current stored information is classed commercial-in-confidence

NeWater 28 aug 07 Commonwealth Water Bill 2007 Assigns responsibility to the Bureau of Meteorology for collecting information on stocks & flows (quality & use?) & ACCC for regulation Persistent Purposeful ? Information-rich ? Inclusive ? Flexible ?

NeWater 28 aug 07 NWI 2004 Aims & Information Needs  Secure entitlements  Transparent water planning  Improved env management  Sustainable levels of extraction  Open trading market  Clarity of risk assignment  Comprehensive accounting  Policy settings for WUE  Future adjustments  Surface-groundwater treated as a single resource  Stocks, Flows, Quality & Connectivity  Demand & use  Prices & trades  Ecological responses  Social impacts  Policy analysis  Demographics, social- economic & industry goals  Prediction of impacts  Efficient and effective stakeholder engagement

NeWater 28 aug 07 Information availability  Demographics  Climate  Surface Hydrology  Groundwater  Water use/ production  Water price/trade  Ecology  Land resources/use  Impacts of land use  Impacts of policy  Long term planning  Identifying Trends  Engaging the community  Good  Reasonably good/ Evap?  Reasonably good/ leakage?  Variable & poor  Poor to fair/good  Sensitive  Difficult  Good (N. Land & Water Audit)  Poor to fair  Poor  Difficult  Efficiency???

NeWater 28 aug 07 Identifying Trends Trend in Salt Load in the Lachlan River NSW Use of models but confidence as issue

NeWater 28 aug 07 Landuse/Climate/Policy Impacts Why has the yield of Queanbeyan River into Googong Dam decreased over the past 15 years? Is it Climate variabilty? Landuse? Policy? Planning changes? What strategies will address the apparent yield decline? July 2005

NeWater 28 aug 07 NWI Aims & Ministerial Decisions 2007  Secure entitlements  Transparent water planning  Improved env management  Sustainable levels of extraction  Open trading market  Clarity of risk assignment  Comprehensive accounting  Policy settings for WUE  Future adjustments  Surface-groundwater treated as a single resource  BHP allowed to extract 32 ML/day of groundwater free of charge for mining in SA.  Graziers in Queensland given unfettered and unmetered extraction of groundwater in Queensland

NeWater 28 aug 07 Interesting MDBC Applications of the NWI?  Trading out of rice growing districts  Incorporation of Great Artesian Basin groundwater in the open market trading scheme  Disposal of irrigation tailwater and pumped saline groundwater  Resupplying the Maquarie Marshes  Deregulation of the Dairy Industry  Water abstraction charges

NeWater 28 aug 07 Caveat on Adaptive Management “A systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of implemented management strategies.” Implict assumption that systems being managed are not hysteretic or catastrophic so that the adverse outcomes of policies/strategies are readily reversible.

NeWater 28 aug 07 Soil Acidity

NeWater 28 aug 07 Groundwater Discharge Zones