NeWater 28 aug 07

Information for Adaptive Water Management

Ian White

Fenner School of Environment and Society

NeWater 28 aug 07

Adaptive Management & Thermodynamics

1st Law: You can break even

2nd Law: You can only break even at absolute zero

3rd 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 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