Purpose Ongoing population growth and economic development place increasing demands on the supply of services produced in and by ecosystems. The resulting degradation compromises their ability to continue supporting the provision of these services. As ecosystem services (ESs) are closely related to land use changes, studies linking these topics are critical in the context of better land use planning and to ensure the sustainable provision of ESs. Results The impacts of various land uses on ESs occur in three ways: (1) Major ESs are generated under different land use practices, (2) land use patterns have a significant impact on ESs, and (3) differing intensities of land use may have different impacts on the generation of ESs. As human needs for different ESs vary and are not always consistent, maximizing the use of one ES can lead to a sharp decline in other ESs that may exceed a threshold inducing irreversible change. Therefore, trade-offs between ESs have become challenges that the ecosystem planning and management community must address. Furthermore, other problems (such as a lack of reliable data, inconsistent evaluation methods, and a lack of validated results used in assessments of ESs) compound the difficulty of this challenge. The development of comprehensive assessment models that result from an integrated assessment and scenario analysis of ESs under different land uses can inform ecosystem management options. Future perspectives and conclusions Studies of ESs under different types of land use change must enhance understanding of topics that link ecosystem processes with ESs. Recommended research includes enhancement of the management practices of soil and land, modeling and mapping the spatial flow of ESs, analyzing trade-offs and synergies between multiple ESs, and integrating and optimizing analyses of ESs. By understanding the ecological processes that drive ESs and how these are affected by land use change, we can establish a sustainable balance between multiple uses of different ESs.

The impact of extreme low flows on the water quality of the Lower Murray River and Lower Lakes (Alexandrina and Albert) in South Australia was assessed by comparing water quality from five sites during an extreme low flow period (March 2007-November 2009 and a preceding reference period (March 2003-November 2005. Significant increases in salinity, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a and turbidity were observed in the Lower Lakes during the low flow period. Consequently, water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic ecosystems were greatly exceeded. Principal Component Analysis, empirical and mass balance model calculations suggested these changes could be attributed primarily to the lack of flushing resulting in concentration of dissolved and suspended material in the lakes, and increased sediment resuspension as the lakes became shallower. The river sites also showed significant but more minor salinity increases during the extreme low flow period, but nutrient and turbidity concentrations decreased. The most plausible reasons for these changes were decreased catchment inputs and increased influence of saline groundwater inputs. The results highlight the vulnerability of arid and semi-arid lake systems to reduced flow conditions as a result of climatic changes and/or water management decisions.

News accounts both reflect and influence public opinion through their noted 'agenda-setting' capability. We examined newspaper articles in Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald from 1843 to 2011 to observe the evolution of media coverage on water issues related to water resources management. The results showed that water supply-related articles have dominated the reporting of water issues since 1843. This emphasis is reflected in the institutions involved and their related policy/management initiatives, as well as the themes of the articles. Extreme events such as flooding and drought have punctuated the historical record of reports on water issues. An economic development-driven tone was overwhelmingly predominant in newspaper articles (85 % of the total); however, there has been a marked decline in the importance of development-driven tone relative to environmental-sustainability oriented tone of articles since 1994. People from academia and NGOs were rarely quoted. Inclusion of wider range stakeholders should be considered as a strategic break-through and natural events should be considered as an ''opportunity'' to change public opinion on water issues for environmental sustainability.

Australia's Millennium drought, a 13-year dry period unprecedented in the instrumental record, inspired a change in the extant water management principles. The Water Act of 2007 was introduced and required the preparation of a Basin Plan to set environmentally sustainable levels of water extraction and to reduce the over-allocation of water entitlements that threatened water security. The Act was unusual in that environmental considerations were initially interpreted as a non-negotiable constraint on other water uses because of the legislative context in which it was written. This framing shaped subsequent negotiations during development of the Basin Plan. The recent passing of this Plan into law provides a conclusion to this complex, messy and, at times, irrational reform process. The path taken, from genesis of the Act to its eventual culmination in the Basin Plan, provides internationally important lessons in legislating for sustainable water management in inter-jurisdictional river basins. However, the reforms have also created new opportunities for ongoing improvement, including the mutual benefits derived from managing environmental water and irrigation water cooperatively.

This paper evaluates an experimental environmental flow manipulation by modeling the counterfactual case that no environmental flow was applied. This is an alternate approach to evaluating the effect of an environmental flow intervention when a before-after or control-impact comparison is not possible. In this case, the flow manipulation is a minimum flow designed to prevent hypoxia in a weir on the low-gradient Broken Creek in south-eastern Australia. At low flows, low reaeration rates and high respiration rates associated with elevated organic matter loading in the weir pool can lead to a decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations with adverse consequences both for water chemistry and aquatic biota. Using a one dimensional oxygen balance model fitted to field measurements, this paper demonstrates that increased flow leads to increases in reaeration rates, presumably because of enhanced turbulence and hence mixing in the surface layers. By comparing the observed dissolved oxygen levels with the modeled counterfactual case, we show that the environmental flow was effective in preventing hypoxia.