Understanding the Basin and its Dynamics

Williams, John

doi:10.22459/bf.05.2011.01

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…1) covers 14% of Australia's surface and was populated by Aboriginal hunter-gatherers for some 40 millennia before British colonists took it in the 19th century and transformed it to commercial agriculture (Weir 2011). However, the MDB's flat topography and limited groundwater outflows make it prone to salinization after native vegetation is cleared and land irrigated, and the highly variable climate provides an uncertain supply of water (Williams 2011). Diversion of water for irrigation has reduced river flows to floodplains and wetlands and changed their species composition, structure, and functioning.…”

Section: The Murray-darling Basin Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Diversion of water for irrigation has reduced river flows to floodplains and wetlands and changed their species composition, structure, and functioning. "Environmental flows" have been allocated to counter this trend, but water resources are insufficient to meet the combined demands of irrigation needs and adequate http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss2/art23/ environmental flows (Williams 2011). Despite droughts, floods, and salinity, the MDB grows some 40% of Australia's agricultural production and is home to around two million people.…”

Section: The Murray-darling Basin Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Abel¹,

Wise²,

Colloff³

et al. 2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Climate change and its interactions with complex socioeconomic dynamics dictate the need for decision makers to move from incremental adaptation toward transformation as societies try to cope with unprecedented and uncertain change. Developing pathways toward transformation is especially difficult in regions with multiple contested resource uses and rights, with diverse decision makers and rules, and where high uncertainty is generated by differences in stakeholders' values, understanding of climate change, and ways of adapting. Such a region is the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, from which we provide insights for developing a process to address these constraints. We present criteria for sequencing actions along adaptation pathways: feasibility of the action within the current decision context, its facilitation of other actions, its role in averting exceedance of a critical threshold, its robustness and resilience under diverse and unexpected shocks, its effect on future options, its lead time, and its effects on equity and social cohesion. These criteria could potentially enable development of multiple stakeholder-specific adaptation pathways through a regional collective action process. The actual implementation of these multiple adaptation pathways will be highly uncertain and politically difficult because of fixity of resource-use rights, unequal distribution of power, value conflicts, and the likely redistribution of benefits and costs. We propose that the approach we outline for building resilient pathways to transformation is a flexible and credible way of negotiating these challenges.

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Section: The Murray-darling Basin Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Murray-darling Basin Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Abel¹,

Wise²,

Colloff³

et al. 2016

E&S

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“…The effects of the Millennium Drought, beginning in 1997 and ending in 2010, exacerbated the concern that the consensus-based approach had failed to protect the basin's environmental assets. Critics also believed that the MDBC was unable to adapt quickly enough to changing circumstances, such as critical urban and rural water shortages (Connell, 2011;Williams, 2011).…”

Section: Reengineering the River -Construction O F Irrigation Infrastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and responses in the Murray–Darling Basin

et al. 2014

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This paper traces the evolving institutional and policy responses to the social, environmental and economic needs of stakeholders in the Murray-Darling Basin. The paper begins by describing four cycles of challenge and response in the basin: the first period (1830-1900) witnessed the state-level development of irrigation and navigation in the basin; the second period encompassed the construction of the basin's major engineering projects and irrigation infrastructure; the third period covered the institution of market reforms under a 'whole Basin' management approach, in particular, the development of inter-state water trading and the National Water Initiative; and the fourth phase (2007-present), marks the assertion of federal authority over water management with the passing of the Water Act in 2007. The second section of the paper provides background on the basin's natural environment and its infrastructure. This section also describes the increasing centralization of basin management authority by the federal government. The paper's final section presents three key questions for the basin's future: (1) the politically acceptable balance between environmental and economic uses for water in the basin; (2) the appropriate allocation of responsibility between federal and state basin management authorities; and (3) the best way to deliver the desired environ mental outcomes.

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“…They are located 80 km upstream of the junction between the Macquarie River and the Barwon River in New South Wales (NSW) (Figure ). Like numerous other major wetland systems in the semi‐arid zone of the Murray–Darling Basin, the wetlands are sustained by flows that originate from higher rainfall zones in the upper catchment, which in the case of the Macquarie Marshes lies 460 km to the south east (Kingsford and Thomas, ; Williams, ). For much of the time large areas of the Macquarie Marshes are dry, with only the most frequently flooded sections adjacent to the major water channels remaining wet, but during floods the area inundated may be up to 130 000 ha (Kingsford and Thomas, ; DECCW NSW, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities and challenges for water‐dependent protected area management arising from water management reform in the Murray–Darling Basin: a case study from the Macquarie Marshes in Australia

Berney

Hosking²

2016

Aquatic Conservation

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1. In dryland environments, freshwater ecosystems often suffer extensive degradation through habitat modification and water regime changes. The Macquarie Marshes are located in the Murray-Darling Basin in south-eastern Australia. They are an example of an ecosystem that has experienced significant degradation in recent decades owing to upstream water diversions. Recent reforms of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin have attempted to balance environmental needs against consumptive uses of water.2. This paper examines the role a protected area has played in conserving the Macquarie Marshes freshwater ecosystem and discusses how Murray-Darling Basin water reform, together with social expectations of public land managers, have had impacts on the management of the Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve.3. Protected areas may limit adverse impacts on habitat associated with local-scale agricultural production but struggle without formal water management arrangements to protect water-dependent ecosystems from threats operating at a catchment scale. Protected area managers balance demands from stakeholders to address local issues, such as fire management and geomorphic changes, against contributing to the achievement of environmental goals in a water planning system that operates at the catchment scale.4. European settlement and water resource development has marginalized local Aboriginal people from any role in land and water management activities. The water reforms have given them more opportunities for involvement in decision-making processes, but opportunities for increased access to water for cultural and spiritual purposes remain limited. Protected areas offer a means of providing greater access for Aboriginal people to their ancestral lands.5. The strategies and processes developed to maintain and enhance the Macquarie Marshes exemplify the evolution in understanding of freshwater ecosystem protection in Australia, and are relevant globally to water resource management in complex social-ecological systems.

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Understanding the Basin and its Dynamics

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Challenges and responses in the Murray–Darling Basin

Opportunities and challenges for water‐dependent protected area management arising from water management reform in the Murray–Darling Basin: a case study from the Macquarie Marshes in Australia

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Understanding the Basin and its Dynamics

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

Building resilient pathways to transformation when &#8220;no one is in charge&#8221;: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Building resilient pathways to transformation when &#8220;no one is in charge&#8221;: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Challenges and responses in the Murray–Darling Basin

Opportunities and challenges for water‐dependent protected area management arising from water management reform in the Murray–Darling Basin: a case study from the Macquarie Marshes in Australia

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Product

Resources

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Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

Building resilient pathways to transformation when “no one is in charge”: insights from Australia's Murray-Darling Basin