Cultural water and Indigenous water science.

Australia shows the need for more sustainable and just water management.

Applying and Assessing Participatory Approaches in an Environmental Flows Case Study.

Environmental flows (e-flows) management takes place within a complex social-ecological system, necessitating the involvement of diverse stakeholders and an appreciation of a range of perspectives and knowledge types. It is widely accepted that incorporating participatory methods into environmental flows decision-making will allow stakeholders to become meaningfully involved, improving potential solutions, and fostering social legitimacy. However, due to substantial structural barriers, implementing participatory approaches can be difficult for water managers. This paper assesses the effectiveness of an e-flows methodology that combines elements of structured decision-making and participatory modeling, whilst constrained by project resources. Three process-based objectives were identified by the group at the start of the process: improving transparency, knowledge exchange, and community ownership. We evaluated the success of the approach according to those objectives using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. In evaluating how well the participatory approach achieved the process objectives, we found that at least 80% of respondents expressed positive sentiment in every category (n = 15). We demonstrate that the values-based process objectives defined by the participant group are an effective tool for evaluating participatory success. This paper highlights that participatory approaches can be effective even in resource-constrained environments when the process is adapted to fit the decision-making context.

'Sub-Prime' Water, Low-Security Entitlements and Policy Challenges in Over-Allocated River Basins: the Case of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Environmental policy is often implemented using market instruments. In some cases, including carbon taxing, the links between financial products and the environmental objectives, are transparent. In other cases, including water markets, the links are less transparent. In Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), financial water products are known as 'entitlements', and are similar to traditional financial products, such as shares. The Australian water market includes 'Low Security' entitlements, which are similar to 'sub-prime' mortgage bonds because they are unlikely to yield an amount equal to their financial worth. Nearly half the water purchased under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan for environmental purposes is 'Low Security'. We suggest that the current portfolio of water held by the Australian Government for environmental purposes reflects the mortgage market in the lead-up to the global financial crisis. Banks assumed that the future value of the mortgage market would reflect past trends. Similarly, it is assumed that the future value of water products will reflect past trends, without considering climate change. Historic records of allocations to 'Low Security' entitlements in the MDB suggest that, in the context of climate change, the Basin Plan water portfolio may fall short of the target annual average yield of 2075 GL by 511 GL. We recommend adopting finance sector methods including 'hedging' 'Low Security' entitlements by purchasing an additional 322-2755 GL of 'Low Security', or 160-511 GL of 'High Security' entitlements. Securing reliable environmental water is a global problem. Finance economics present opportunities for increasing the reliability of environmental flows.

Informing Environmental Water Management Decisions: Using Conditional Probability Networks to Address the Information Needs of Planning and Implementation Cycles.

One important aspect of adaptive management is the clear and transparent documentation of hypotheses, together with the use of predictive models (complete with any assumptions) to test those hypotheses. Documentation of such models can improve the ability to learn from management decisions and supports dialog between stakeholders. A key challenge is how best to represent the existing scientific knowledge to support decision-making. Such challenges are currently emerging in the field of environmental water management in Australia, where managers are required to prioritize the delivery of environmental water on an annual basis, using a transparent and evidence-based decision framework. We argue that the development of models of ecological responses to environmental water use needs to support both the planning and implementation cycles of adaptive management. Here we demonstrate an approach based on the use of Conditional Probability Networks to translate existing ecological knowledge into quantitative models that include temporal dynamics to support adaptive environmental flow management. It equally extends to other applications where knowledge is incomplete, but decisions must still be made.