This Land Our Water: Water Challenges for the 21st Century 1921511044, 9781921511042

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Water Challenges for the 21 st Century A Collection of Papers by Peter Cullen

edited by Vicky Cullen

Water Challenges for the 21 st Century A Collection of Papers by Peter Cullen

PRESS

Copyright © 2011 with Vicky Cullen for the main text and with the individual authors for the vignettes. Copyright © - photographs held by individual photographers for all photos in this volume. All rights reserved. Except for any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any means without prior permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Cullen, Peter, 1943-2008. Title:

This land, our water : water challenges for the 21st century / by Peter Wray Cullen ; edited by Helen Victoria Cullen.

ISBN:

9781921511042 (hbk.)

Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: Water quality management--Australia. Water resources development--Australia. Water-supply--Australia. Water conservation--Australia. Sustainable development--Australia. Other Authors/Contributors: Cullen, Helen. Dewey Number:

333.9100994 We would like to acknowledge and thank the Peter Cullen Trust for their generous support in the printing of ‘This Land, Our Water.’

Published by ATF Press

PRESS

An imprint of the ATF Ltd PO BOX 504 Hindmarsh SA 5007 ABN 90 116 359 963 www.atfpress.com

Cover Artwork: ‘This Land’, Dave Wood Graphic Design & Layout: Fiona Paton and Lydia Paton

The Peter Cullen Trust, which seeks to strengthen the bridges between science, policy and stakeholders in management of land and its waters, is delighted to support the publication of this stimulating book. Our hope is that by doing so it will build on the legacy of Peter Cullen and encourage scientists to work effectively with policy makers, and policy makers to understand scientists’ thinking, by facilitating learning, communication and connections between these groups.

Contents Vignettes viii Foreword by Peter Cosier

xi

An Appreciation of Peter Cullen by Kate Andrews

1

Section 1 introduction Part 1

Preface : An Introduction to the Papers by Vicky Cullen

Part 2

Peter Cullen the Man by Vicky Cullen

7 13

Section 2 Knowledge Needed to Manage Water Systems Paper 1

The Turbulent Boundary Between Water Science and Water Management

Paper 2

The Knowledge Base for the Water Industry 57

Paper 3

Science Brokering and Managing Uncertainty 69

Paper 4

Delivering Limnological Knowledge to the Water Industry 83

Paper 5

Knowledge Investments Underpinning National Water Reform 95

43

Section 3 The Big Story on Water: DESCRIBING THE ISSUES Paper 6

Water as a Constraint to Growth in the 21st Century

Paper 7

Water Challenges of the 21st Century 117

Paper 8

Flying Blind: The Disconnect between Groundwater and Policy 127

Paper 9

Running on Empty: The Risk of Continuing to Dither While the Empty

107

Light is Flashing 137

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SeCtion 4

the Big Story on wAter: ACting For the Future

Paper 10

Facing up to the water Crisis in the Murray darling Basin

147

Paper 11

Confronting water Scarcity: water Futures for South Australia

159

Paper 12

the national water Agenda in 2007

175

Paper 13

water reform: Are we there yet?

183

Paper 14

Adapting to water Scarcity: A global Challenge for the 21st Century

199

Paper 15

Sharing the waters: ten Key things - water

211

SeCtion 5

urBAn wAter: AgendA And CliMAte ChAnge

Paper 16

the urban water Agenda in 2007

221

Paper 17

driving innovation: urban design in a Changing Climate

239

SeCtion 6

wAter in the lAndSCAPe

Paper 18

Putting the Jigsaw together

Paper 19

water in the landscape: the Coupling of Aquatic ecosystems and their Catchments 265

Paper 20

Facilitating landscapes and Communities in transition

283

Paper 21

yes it’s not Sustainable but it’s not My Fault!

293

253

SeCtion 7 how you inFluenCe PoliCy Paper 22

turning the tide: does Science Change Public Policy?

301

Paper 23

Science and Politics: Speaking truth to Power

313

list of Publications

329

index

347

Acknowledgements

361

ConTenTs

vii

Vignettes

Section 1 introduction Michelle Linmore A Daughter’s Perspective 18 Jenny Gleeson Gunning Grieves

27

Professor Angela Arthington

A leader for the CRC for Freshwater Ecology 30

Professor Richard Kingsford & Professor Geoffrey Lawrence

Peter Cullen: Chair of the Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Advisory Panel

36

Section 2 Knowledge Needed to Manage Water Systems Dr Deb Foskey Developing Sustainable Water Policy in Australia

50

Dr John Williams He Built Bridges of Trust

62

Dr Beth Heyde An Influential Champion 74 Ticky Fullerton Thinker in Residence

87

Bob Spiller Peter in Gunning 90 Lee O’Brien Finding and Implementing Creative Solutions Professor Bruce Thom

A Systems Thinker

Section 3

The Big Story on Water: DESCRIBING THE ISSUES

Dr Greg Fraser Big Dreams and Big Visions

100 102

112

Maree Morton Innamincka 122 Professor Gary Jones

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A Great Mentor

132

SECTION 4

THE BIG STOry ON WATEr: ACTING FOr THE FuTurE

Dr Owen Cameron

Peter Cullen: A Leader

156

Martin Stokes

Peter and the Mount Lofty ranges Program

170

John Granger

Peter Cullen as I Knew Him

178

Dr John Williams

Australians Live with a Highly Variable rainfall

186

Professor Arthur Georges

A Man of Great Social and Analytical Intelligence

189

Professor Mike young

Science and Politics

215

SECTION 5

urBAN WATEr: AGENDA AND CLIMATE CHANGE

ross young

Contributing to the urban Water Industry

231

Professor John Langford AM

A Leading Voice on Freshwater Ecology in Australia

235

Dr Gene Likens

The Master Communicator

244

Hon John Howard AC

Advisor to the Howard Government

246

SECTION 6

WATEr IN THE LANDSCAPE

Michael McGirr

Teacher and Husband

259

Professor richard Norris

Saving Lake Burley Griffin

271

Professor Ingrid Moses

Eminent and Visionary Scientist

273

rosslyn Beeby

Thinking About Water in a New Way

277

Professor John Thwaites

The Peter Cullen Trust

288

Professor rod McDonald

Intellectually Merciless but Interpersonally Gentle

290

SECTION 7

HOW yOu INFLuENCE POLICy

Leith Boully

Peter Cullen: A role Model

305

Tim Stubbs

The Cullen Benchmark

306

robert Purves AM

Making a Difference

309

Hon Mike rann MP

Influencing Water Policy in South Australia

314

A Journalist’s Perspective

320

o

Asa Wahlquist

ConTenTs

ix

“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to develop a sustainable and healthy Murray Darling Basin. There is much to be done.” Peter Cullen

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Foreword Peter Cosier Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists March 2011

P

eter Cullen built a career in science. His belief was that science can help us understand our landscape and that the more we understand it, the better we will manage it. Europeans settled this continent just over 200 years ago. In the 200 years that followed we have transformed this vast island continent into one of the wealthiest and most successful democracies in human history. We built our economic and political institutions at a time when the natural world seemed endless– where nature was there for the taking–where land clearing was part of a heroic vision to develop the nation–where fresh water flowing to the sea was thought to be wasted.

The twenty–first century requires a new set of skills and political institutions–skills and institutions built from an understanding, not of the market economics and social sciences of the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, but skills and institutions built from the natural sciences. Peter built his career in science, but he learned that simply understanding and appreciating nature will not save it. What makes Peter Cullen a man of our times is that he stood up–at great personal cost–to those vested interests intent on destroying everything he valued.

The great challenge of our generation is not wealth creation–our great challenge is population growth, climate change, the growing scarcity of fresh water resources, and the astonishingly rapid loss of the world’s biodiversity. These are the defining issues of our age which will increasingly challenge our notion of progress. Peter Cullen knew from his science that many European practices we brought onto this ancient continent simply do not work here, and that if we are to live sustainably in Australia, we need to learn to live in harmony with the landscape, not fight against it.

Above: Cullyamurra Waterhole, South Australia. (Peter Cosier collection) Opposite: A swollen river Murray from the big cliff lookout south of Blanchetown, South Australia, January 2011. (Bill Doyle)

ForeWord

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“Believing we could meet the water needs of these communities by fixing a few leaking taps and having shorter showers was always a fantasy.” Peter Cullen

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An Appreciation of Peter Cullen Kate Andrews Adapted from Peter Cullen Eulogy March 2008

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t is unexpectedly blunt to be introduced as Peter’s apprentice shit stirrer (I didn’t think our MC would really follow through with that), but that is certainly how Peter saw me, and I was proud to be one of his apprentices.

The last e-mails I received from Peter were a few weeks before he died when he learnt I was facilitating the Kimberley water forum in Broome, for which he was to be keynote speaker. “I hear I’m to be facilitated by you – sharpen your texta!” I think I wrote something back about darts now being more useful than textas. Peter never pulled his punches and I’d learnt not to with him.

“Peter was a good bloke, a pleasure to work with and I would like to thank him for his support and advice to the IWPG.” Professor Marcia Langton (university of Melbourne–Australian Indigenous Studies) also sent a comment through;

“Immense sadness and loss at Kumanjayi Cullen’s passing. It was a great pleasure to work with Peter; a scientist with the big picture in mind and a heart of gold.”

Peter was excited about the Broome meeting which was bringing together people from across the Kimberley to discuss water, including a substantial number of Aboriginal elders. Peter always made the effort to participate – he never felt too important. He was always willing to make the effort to get out there and meet with people. And that was something very special for others. Peter had been an advisor to the Indigenous Water Policy Group of northern Australia and helped in furthering Indigenous engagement in water reform. Murandoo yanner, Traditional Owner from the Gulf Country said;

Above: King Edward river waterfall, Western Australia. (Frank Flanagan) Opposite: Brancos lookout, East Kimberley, Western Australia. (Stuart Westmore)

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“Here I am–I’m a scientist–and from Canberra–and these people trust me!” Maree Morton from Innamincka Station said;

“He’d listen to everyone no matter where they came from”. Peter loved that desert country and he loved sharing it with others. We had a trip with Vicky, and Gene and Phyllis Likens (from the USA) from Longreach to Birdsville. We talked about everything - rivers, science, ethics, and vegemite (Gene was introduced to vegemite). For a rivers’ man he did love the red country. We talked about the different communities in the desert, about knowledge and how to share knowledge. And how much knowledge resides in everyone. We agreed that knowledge is not something just scientists own; it is in everyone out there in all the communities we worked with, and we all needed to share our knowledge.

I first got to know Peter through his work with the Lake Eyre Basin Initiative in the mid 1990s. Early on in the piece I had to come down from Longreach to Canberra and Peter said his office would be free if I wanted to use it. I remember walking in to this big office, surrounded by books and computers, and sitting in his big black chair, and whirling around and around in it, just being stunned that this man trusted me and had the generosity to lend me his office in that way. I guess I felt pretty small and unimportant compared to him. I have never forgotten twirling around in that big chair thinking with surprise about Peter’s generosity. At one key community meeting for the Lake Eyre Basin in Birdsville he stepped in at the last minute to chair (things were starting to go a little haywire so I twisted his arm), and he saved the day doing what he was so good at - pulling together very different strands and turning them into a whole to take us all forward together. At that meeting he was elected to continue chairing the transition committee. He was so proud!

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It was on that trip that Peter ended up with an anecdote that he used countless times since; he made the dreadful discovery of the contents of my tuckerbox. We had pulled over to boil the billy and I asked him to grab the tea. Much to his disgust he found Earl Grey tea and smoked oysters in my tucker box. I could not understand the ongoing fuss until I recently discovered he hated smoked oysters. I guess the real issue was being trapped in the desert with only smoked oysters to eat. Don Rowlands, Traditional Owner in the Simpson Desert and ranger at Birdsville;

“When I first saw Peter I thought ‘What a big man he was’, but when he spoke I realised everything about him was big”. Mike Chuk of Longreach;

“He gave so freely and consistently to the community. We are so grateful he came our way”. Angus Emmott, pastoralist and naturalist;

“Peter has made a major contribution to the Lake Eyre Basin. His involvement was not only to the sciences but also a generous and unselfish contribution to the people and social processes. He will be fondly remembered and sadly missed.” While working for Land & Water Australia in Canberra I had many more opportunities for lunches with Peter, sometimes with Vicky or Belinda. Belinda says we used to harangue each other but I like to think we were just keeping each other on our toes, challenging and encouraging each other, sometimes combative (Peter did not suffer fools gladly). We talked about visions and pragmatics, his important role in being able to speak out uninhibited by masters, and how rare that was. And we laughed. We laughed a lot. On the Friday morning after he died, as I pulled myself together and got on with running the Kimberley water forum, shocked at how devastated I felt, I listened to participants despair

“...I realised that that was my loss, our loss – the wisdom, stories and friendship of an Australian elder.” at losing old Aboriginal people one by one, losing their stories and their wisdom about country. And I realised that that was my loss, our loss–the wisdom, stories and friendship of an Australian elder. Peter lives on in his family. He also lives on in those of us around the country that he taught, challenged and befriended; those of us who loved him. I would like to thank him for that.

Above: Braided channels along Eyre Creek, Lake Eyre Basin, South-west Queensland. (Matthew Turner) Opposite: A red sand dune, Simpson Desert. (Matthew Turner)

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seCTion 1

Introduction Part 1

Preface: An Introduction to the Papers By Vicky Cullen

Part 2

Peter Cullen the Man By Vicky Cullen

The Cooper Creek, Coongie Lakes National Park, South Australia. (Bill Doyle)

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“Governments have now outsourced so much expertise they seem to have outsourced critical thinking.” Peter Cullen

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Preface: An Introduction to the Papers Vicky Cullen November 2010

T

his book is about how we use water in this land of ours and how we could do it better, so both land and water remain healthy. Our water comes from a very variable rainfall and flows in rivers and wetlands, through lakes and across country in floods. We trap it in channels and dams and use it to make things grow in dry places and to sustain large populations in cities and towns. Water is our life. Sometimes we forget that the water is not only ours, it belongs to the rivers and to the land as well, in fact to all plants and animals living on this land.

Peter Cullen was a scientist who was passionate about our water and the best ways to use it to keep the land and all its inhabitants happy and healthy. In December 2007 his last substantive paper ‘Adapting to Water Scarcity: a Global Challenge for the 21st Century’ was presented at a limnology conference in New Zealand. The introduction sets the context of his work very well: “Today I will outline the climate change and how it is affecting the Australian water situation. I will describe the policy framework that we have agreed is the best way for us to confront water scarcity, and outline how both the urban and rural sectors may have to cope with the situation. I will finish by outlining the challenges I see for freshwater ecologists as we grapple with the issue of protecting aquatic ecosystems from the increasing pressures they are experiencing.” The papers contained in this book are mainly from the last two years of his life but a few earlier ones are included to set the scene for the direction of his thinking. They have been chosen thematically to show the development of his ideas. The sections highlight the major themes of his work. Opposite (far page): Sunrise over Coongie Lakes, South Australia. (Matthew Turner) Opposite: ‘National Water Plan cotton rice unpublished’, 25th June 2004. (Cartoon by Peter Nicholson from The Australian www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au)

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KNOWLEDGE NEEDED TO MANAGE WATER Not only was Peter a scientist but he explored ways of thinking and communication of ideas. The papers in this first section show the development of his thought about a broadly based knowledge and its transmission across disciplines. The concept of ‘knowledge’ was fundamental to his whole way of operating. His insights gave people confidence in his advice to decision makers. Knowledge provided the basis for wisdom and so people believed him. The 1989 Jolly address to the Society of Limnology explores the ‘turbulent boundary between science and water management.’ This is his first important exploration of the differing cultures of scientists, resource managers, engineers, economists and planners. Early on Peter was influenced by C.P. Snow and Carl Popper and later, as a philosophical thinker, educator and scientist, he could clearly see and communicate these differing points of view. It is a theme which continues throughout his work, right into Wentworth Group discussions today.

“Environmental flows and the concept of resilience need to be understood. As yet little progress has been made on restoring overallocated systems.” The second article (1995) builds on the former one and postulates a knowledge strategy for the water industry. It describes the types of knowledge needed by managers in a time of rapid population growth, organisational change, water scarcity and sustainability. A strategy for providing knowledge needs to be spelt out. The Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) were established by the government to build a new partnership between knowledge providers and knowledge users. In the third article (1996) the term ‘broker’ is introduced. Without good communication from scientists there is a danger that management decisions can be influenced by popular views with no

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scientific input. Conflicts can be resolved and scientific forums come up with solutions, but it is a sobering reminder to scientists that most of society thinks differently from them. In national water reform both users and specialists from different disciplines need to be involved in setting the research agenda. In the 2001 paper, ‘Delivering Limnological Knowledge to the Water Industry’, the concept of ‘knowledge brokers’ is clearly set out, and its use in the CRC for Freshwater Ecology described. The final article in this section states categorically that knowledge investments must be made to guide reform. It explores the problem of overallocation of water in the Murray Darling Basin and describes the political initiatives of the nineties like the Council of Australian Governments (CoAG) agreements, the Living Murray programme, the National Land and Water Resources Audit and the 2004 National Water Initiative (NWI), culminating in the Water Act of 2007. Environmental flows and the concept of resilience need to be understood. As yet little progress has been made on restoring over-allocated systems.

THE BIG STORY ON WATER Describing the Issues This second section contains papers written in the last two years of Peter’s life. It was an extraordinarily rich period of thinking and speaking to a great variety of audiences. He travelled from Charleville to Melbourne, from Sydney to Canberra to Adelaide with a couple of side trips to Queenstown, New Zealand (NZ) and Alaska, United States (USA). He addressed farmers, politicians, managers, water scientists and economists. In each case his paper is written especially for the audience and relates to the specific area, be it the whole Murray Darling Basin, the headwaters in Queensland or the Murray Mouth in South Australia. Peter describes, in an amusing manner, the folly of previous water resource management and,

in precise and clear language, points the way towards the future, the issues which must be addressed. These five papers were written after the publication of the NWI which provided hope for a way forward. Unfortunately governments argued and little progress was made. In ‘Water as a Constraint to Growth’ he says that towns are planned and built by developers and engineers with little regard for environmental or economic factors. Only then do they ask for water infrastructure and, as the population grows, new sources of water will need to be found. Water challenges include shrinking water resources, climate change and needs of agriculture. Damaged rivers need to be restored and pristine rivers preserved. Biodiversity needs to be maintained and land use in catchments monitored. In ‘Flying Blind’ the whole issue of the connection between groundwater and rivers is explored. Expertise in groundwater hydrology needs to be continually improved and political leaders must act. In ‘Running on Empty’, an address to the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies Peter says that governments must follow NWI recommendations. Agriculture must adapt to less water. There are many ways to sabotage the plan, especially by letting interest groups take over the agenda.

Acting for the Future The last five papers in The Big Story suggest ways forward. In the last months of his government Prime Minister Howard made the decision to set up a new Commonwealth Authority to manage water. He put $10 billion aside to buy back water and fix infrastructure. So, now one government is to make key decisions. ‘Facing up to the Water Crisis in the Murray Darling Basin’ looks at the reasons for the crisis and the history of managing the Basin by a partnership of six governments. The Commonwealth’s new Murray Darling Basin Authority will take responsibility for determining the sustainable limits for water extraction. Peter suggests seven key actions needed in delivering a

sustainable Murray Darling Basin. This is a guide for using the $10 billion. Some political challenges are discussed but the paper ends on a hopeful note. The next paper looks at water futures for South Australia. The River Murray can no longer sustain Adelaide. Who can we blame? How do we secure the water supply? Five new sources of water for the growing population are suggested. Irrigation landscapes will need to change too. A strategic planning workshop with the Water Services Association was held in Sydney in February 2007. The ‘National Water Agenda’ needs to address the water shortage in big cities and on farms. Reasons for the shortage are described. Governments have responded by creating new agencies and asking for community feedback. This is no substitute for

Above: ‘National Water Plan states squabble unpublished,’ 24th June 2004. (Cartoon by Peter Nicholson from The Australian www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au)

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analysis and understanding. Four key elements are suggested where governments must act and five planning solutions suggested. The ‘water from the north’ solution is demolished. Water reform in the rural sector was discussed at an agriculture roundtable conference in November 2007 just before the Labor Government was elected. It asked “Are we there yet?” The National Water Commission has issued its assessment of progress on the reform agenda. Not good! And climate change is making it worse. Six simple key principles for water reform are listed and discussed. The paper ends with descriptions of farm landscapes in transition. The remaining two papers in this section are the last things Peter wrote. His NZ paper ‘Adapting to Water Scarcity: A Global Challenge for the 21st Century’ is a broad summary of what has gone before but from the perspective of freshwater ecologists. It was presented in December 2007

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in Queenstown, NZ. Peter put together all his thoughts on the future management of Australia’s water in ‘Sharing the Waters: Ten key Things Water’, written in January 2008 with Mike Young and Jim McColl. It was a chapter for a book edited by David Lindenmeyer and was the last paper he wrote before he died.

URBAN WATER The NWI is very light on urban water issues but its principles can be applied to urban water. Governments thought cities had responded well to the 1994 CoAG reforms but cities were expanding with no new water sources envisaged. Climate change warnings from science were not taken seriously. The first paper is a comprehensive discussion of urban water challenges with suggestions for new water sources and how governments should be involved. The second paper describes Water Sensitive Urban Development including use of stormwater and

a requirement for developers to source water before gaining subdivision and building approvals. Institutional requirements need to be simplified and both the public and agency staff educated. It ends with a delightful description of the water sensitive town of the twenty-first century.

WATER IN THE LANDSCAPE In this section Peter uses his agricultural science background to put landscapes and people together with water availability. It begins with ‘Putting the Jigsaw Together’, a paper given to a rural conference in Wagga Wagga in 1997. Environment, people and institutions must work together, he says, otherwise there is a risk of reducing diversity, simplifying the ecosystem and reducing its ability to respond to changes in the environment. Salinity, blue-green algae and carp are all examples. Inputs from different disciplines must be integrated and the community, through Landcare groups and Catchment Management Authorities, must take the lead. ‘Water in the Landscape’ reminds us that rivers reflect their catchments. The health of a river is influenced by soil, vegetation, land use and introduced species to name a few. Seven key design principles are identified and discussed – stream flow, refugia, connection between a river and its floodplain, balance of irrigation and river water, nutrient fluxes, riparian zones and fire. ‘Facilitating Landscapes and Communities in Transition’ identifies four such landscapes and discusses the reasons for the transitions, climate change and shortage of water being the major ones. Challenges for facilitators are identified, with the main focus being involvement of the people living and working on the land. Short term goals must be addressed first. If rural communities understand and confront transition, they will be more resilient in difficult times and be able to plan for the future. In the last paper Peter deals with the ethics of water. It is hard to manage water scarcity in a western democracy. For each option there is an opposite point of view. Whose fault is it that it is not sustainable? Focussed interest groups will

always act in their own interests rather than in the interests of the whole society. We need to stop blaming others and get on with dealing with what we have. Three ethical points and the NWI provide the way forward.

HOW YOU INFLUENCE POLICY The last two papers describe how scientists got the ear of politicians and other decision makers. Scientists and academics funded from the public purse have an obligation to contribute to public discourse on how we manage land and water. Peter’s address in Adelaide in 2004 describes how the Wentworth Group came to be and how its message was delivered first to the Prime Minister and Premiers and how it was heard more widely. Two years later American scientists asked Peter to tell them how he got the ear of John Howard, as George Bush wouldn’t listen to them at all. This paper, ‘Speaking Truth to Power’, talks of the two cultures and ways of resolving political and environmental conflicts. It deals with the problem of returning flows to the Murray, tells the Wentworth story again and describes their Blueprint for a Living Continent and the NWI. Finally it warns against advocacy groups and junk science. Finally, there are no papers about the Lake Eyre Basin because Peter didn’t write any. His notes show that he was interested in environmental flows in the Lake Eyre Basin as well as eutrophication and phosphorus load in waterways. He related to community members, including aboriginal people, station owners and tourism operators. “This is not my country”, he said. He was a member of several committees and chose to lead, not by putting his brand on ideas and decisions, but by facilitating others to tell their story of their country. The Introduction and vignettes tell something of his Lake Eyre involvement.

Opposite: Pages Flat Dam, Adelaide Hills, South Australia. (Nick Williams)

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“While scientists can give us a measure of what we should do with rivers, the fate of our rivers will depend on politicians having the courage to follow scientific advice.” Peter Cullen

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Peter Cullen the Man Vicky Cullen December 2010

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s you walk into the lounge room of the Cullen residence, a four bedroom 1970s house in suburban Canberra, you will feel right at home. There is a stunning vista of vineyards, horse paddocks, the Molongolo River valley and the misty blue Brindabella Range in the background. Peter and I bought this house in 1973, two years after we were married, and now, in 2010, recently widowed and retired, I have settled here again.

You will see memories of Peter all around you. On the wall above the fireplace is a masterpiece of calligraphy art, ‘This Land’, by Dave Wood that is reproduced on the cover of this book. The original is inscribed: ‘Presented to Professor Peter Cullen by the CRC for Fresh Water Ecology and the University of Canberra on his retirement June 2002. Old Parliament House, Canberra’. On the right of ‘This Land’ is a painting of Big Red, the sand dune which overlooks Birdsville. As Chair of the Lake Eyre Basin Advisory Committee, Peter attended meetings in various parts of the Basin, including several at Birdsville. The large photo on the left of the fireplace is a bird’s eye view of cattle droving at a time when the Cooper Creek was in flood. We bought this from Galway Station on Cooper Creek when we visited in a light plane. Peter wanted to see their flood irrigation scheme designed to use the times of flood to

grow pasture. The small painting of the landscape on the Oodnadatta track near Marree shows a mound spring and a derelict water tower near the old railway track, a memory of a wonderful 4WD holiday in 2005, when there was a meeting of the Lake Eyre Basin Committee at the Innamincka Pub. On the sideboard nearby is a glass pyramid inscribed ‘Australian Water Association, Phillip Hughes award 2003, Peter Cullen’. On the mantelpiece is a dried, mounted piranha fish inscribed ‘Peter Cullen razor sharp protector of Australia’s aquatic life. Happy sixtieth birthday from Gary and Lana Jones’. Nearby is a clear glass figure of a scuba diver swimming: ‘A Scuba excellence award of the Diving industry and Travel Association of Australia, for services to Diving Education (1992)’. There is also a picture of members of the National Water Commission, begun in 2005, these last two representing the beginning and the end of his professional life’s work, from the seventies until 2008.

Opposite: Looking west over the Brindabella Ranges from the hills behind Chapman, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. (Jeremy Robertson)

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A collection of photographs in the lounge room reflects how important family life was to Peter. He was so proud when I became one of Australia’s first Anglican woman priests, and equally so of our daughters, Michelle and Belinda, both successful and attractive young professionals in the fields of psychology and financial planning. Our wedding photo sits alongside a series of family photos with the children: in the backyard when very young; at primary and then high school and at graduations; Peter with his first grandchild Joshua (they look so similar!), and finally the family he left behind in March 2008–Vicky (Nanna), Belinda, Michelle holding Josh eight months, and her partner Leanne. A photo of me holding Amy Peta, born in February 2010, has just been added. On the wall above the sideboard is a large fractured clock, some of its quarters slipped downwards. You can still read the time, just! This clock was a birthday gift for me, bought in Stockholm and carefully transported home. He said it was a comment on my use of time–typical Peter humour! More paintings show stages of early and later life– one by Peter’s father Lawrie of yellow poplars and a clear blue creek, the landscape near Tallangatta where Peter lived as a boy; a misty road in northern Victoria overhung by gums and a lush mountain forest of tall gums and wattles painted in 2006 by a Gunning artist. Finally, just around the corner you can see a beautiful photograph of an old red gum overhanging the River Murray, ‘Blueprint for a Living Continent Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, November 2002’, signed by all thirteen members. This is the culmination of the story you are about to read–the story of Peter Wray Cullen, Australia’s Water Man.

HIS EARLY LIFE Peter was born in Melbourne on 28 May1943. The Cullen family, his father Lawrie, mother Marge, big brother Ron and Peter lived in North Balwyn, in a house surrounded by roses. Lawrie was a celebrated rose grower and his wife won

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many prizes for flower arranging. Peter’s father was an engineer with State Rivers and was appointed to oversee the moving of the town of Tallangatta when the Hume Weir was being built. Peter’s mother had been a legal secretary before her children were born and she was also a talented pianist. She was proud of her father, sometime Mayor of Essendon. All the family were enthusiastic Essendon supporters and Peter spent many Saturday afternoons glued to AFL games on the telly, especially in his later years, barracking for Essendon. He was ecstatic when they won the premiership in 2000. Peter’s parents shared a love of classical music. They had a circle of friends who met to play records and regularly attended symphony concerts in the Melbourne Town Hall. Years later, when Peter and I became very busy with our professional lives, Peter bought us a subscription to the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Those five nights were sacrosanct–very rarely did we miss going to those concerts together. Peter began school at East Kew Primary but, when he was seven, the family moved to Tallangatta. He had vivid memories of swimming in the Tallangatta Creek and the Mitta River aged seven to ten. He had a pony, a chook and a pet lamb, Darling. When it grew up it was sent to the butcher; Peter wouldn’t eat lamb for months in case it was Darling he was eating. Life was free and fun. He would ride his bike for miles at the weekend, but once a snake got caught up in the front wheel and flew up at him. Peter could never stand snakes! In an interview with Daniel Connell of the National Library he reminisced:

“I remember houses being put on low loaders and carted down the road. My father was very involved with the design and development of Tallangatta and all the negotiations. I’m sure there were a lot of tensions, but from our point of view we were made very welcome in that rural community. I think that’s what gave me a great love of the Australian countryside. I was

involved with farmers and droving cattle and riding horses and all those great things. I did my primary schooling in that environment and I think that gave me an initial connection with the water industry and the things it did. There was great excitement in its development phase at that time. I also gained a great connection with the land and I broke with the family tradition–my father and brother were both engineers. I decided to do agricultural science and I’m sure my primary schooling was part of it.”1 Most of Peter’s high school years were spent at Balwyn High School. He must have been a trial to his teachers because he always aimed at achieving a 50% grade; any more was wasted effort, he got bored and didn’t try. In year ten he missed the mark, got below 50% and was told he couldn’t do maths in year eleven. He said, “Oh yes I will. I’m going to be a scientist. My father will talk to you.” He did do maths, but his results were such that he needed to repeat Matriculation to get a Commonwealth Government Scholarship.

SCUBA DIVING During his last few years at school Peter became interested in spear fishing and scuba diving, and went on to meet divers all over Australia. When he was just twenty he won the Victorian Scuba Championship at San Remo (he won it a further six times in subsequent years). He was also Australian scuba champion three years running from 1969-1971. One of his most memorable dives was on the Gilt Dragon, an early Dutch wreck off Western Australia (WA). Every Christmas a group of diving friends would meet at Eden on the New South Wales (NSW) south coast. His friends Joan and Peter Harper from Sydney remember Peter arriving in his ute, packed to the gunnels with cheese and wine, best rump steak and the right cooking utensils to make a gourmet meal on the camp fire. It was at this time, about 1964, that divers discovered Picanninie Ponds, an incredible series of underwater sinkholes, in the middle of a paddock near Mt Gambier in South Australia.

Above (top): Peter Cullen. Above (middle): Peter and Vicky Cullen, Wedding Day, 1971. Above (bottom): Peter and Vicky Cullen. (All images from Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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The water was an amazing clear blue, hundreds of metres deep. It was a fantastic dive but was closed a few years later because several divers died. Sharks were also a problem on the coast of South Australia; one diver lost his leg that year but was soon back in the water. These incidents raised Peter’s awareness of the great dangers inherent in diving. In 1967 Peter was lost at sea off Maroochydore north of Brisbane during a spear-fishing competition. When the boats returned to shore Cullen was missing. “How could you lose anything that big?” quipped a friend. But it was serious, because the small boats had only half an hour’s fuel. Peter Harper calculated where the current would take him and they went out and motored around and there he was, floating quietly along,

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buoyed up by his wet suit top, heading straight for the Maroochydore Pub. He told the story after recovering from more than five hours in the water. He had realised he was lost when he could no longer see the boat, so he swam for a while, then wondered if he should ditch his weight belt. No, that weight belt was specially made for him by a friend because he could never buy one long enough. So he unhooked the belt, unthreaded the lead weights, dropped them one by one to the bottom of the ocean and refastened the belt. Then he saw a forty-four gallon drum floating nearby –maybe he should clamber up on it and wait to be found. As he swam closer he saw half a horse attached to a big hook under the drum. Realising it was a shark trap, he quickly made the decision to head for shore several miles distant. Luckily he was a strong swimmer.

I had been teaching languages at Balwyn High for two years when Peter was appointed to teach biology. As we got to know each other, he told me his parents were planning their first overseas trip and his mother wanted to learn French. So each Wednesday I gave Mum a lesson and stayed to dinner. We became engaged in August, some months after his parents had left for Europe, but they had already bought an engagement present! Guess where Peter took his bride for our honeymoon: Dunk Island off Townsville. A yacht moored at the pier and offloaded an esky filled with chilled wines and camemberts. The other part of the wedding present was revealed when the yacht returned and I met Peter’s friends who took the happy couple up to Cairns. He wanted to show me how he had spent the time when he didn’t contact me the previous summer. He was at sea!

At this time Peter saw a great need to do something about the unacceptably high death rate among scuba divers, often during their early years in the sport. He saw a need for a local standard for instructors. Together with three friends, he looked at standards and accreditation bodies in the USA and England and decided Australia needed similar structures. The new organisation was to be called the Federation of Australian Underwater Instructors (FAUI). He contacted dive shops in NSW and Victoria and asked them not to deal with instructors who were not qualified. By this time I was working at Monash University training language teachers. I adapted teaching methods to teaching Boyle’s Law and other important physics concepts and to the practical skills of clearing a mask and entering the water safely in full diving gear. Peter taught the advanced skills and, together with friends, set both a practical and theoretical exam to be done on the last day of the course. The first course was held in Sydney in summer 1972 with twenty instructors. In the next four years courses were held in all States; the Brisbane one in January 1974 ended on the day of the big flood. Peter’s mother-in-law was not impressed that her pregnant daughter was examining divers in a flooded pool at Mt Gravatt Teachers’ College! We barely caught the last plane out before the airport closed. January 1975 saw us flying across the Nullabor on Boxing Day while Darwin was coping with a cyclone. Six-month old Michelle experienced her first summer of 45°C temperatures, while her parents examined divers at Busselton in WA. FAUI existed for a few years after Peter moved to Canberra, but it could not run like a diving club and gradually folded. However, the object was achieved: today no instructors can hire equipment or fill air tanks without showing a card to prove they are qualified. Above (top): Peter Cullen diving at Picanninie Ponds, South Australia. (Peter and Joan Harper) Above (bottom): The main outlet creek for the Picanninie Ponds, South Australia. (Bill Doyle) Opposite: The main wetland of Picanninie Ponds, South Australia. (Bill Doyle)

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A Daughter’s Perspective When I think of my Dad I remember waking up each morning to the sound of his tip tapping away at his computer. He got up early each day and headed straight to his study with a cup of freshlybrewed coffee to write and occasionally gaze out the window. He never minded being interrupted, but would return to typing as soon as my sister or I wandered off. His writing seemed to come easily to him and I don’t remember him ever complaining about work or in any way resenting it (though he also enjoyed a good holiday). Dad always had piles of journals and papers beside his big comfy recliner in the lounge room and he’d be reading away while we watched telly, chatted or played music. Mind you, he’d sing along if we played his favourite songs and was happy enough to stop working and play cards, monopoly or table tennis with us, if we asked him. Dad took us to the library every Saturday morning and would encourage us to browse (and buy!) in bookshops whenever we were travelling. Our Christmas stockings always had a few science books in them...while Dad never pressured us to do brilliantly at school, he and Mum did always assume that both of their kids would go straight to university and get a degree, before moving onto other life adventures (which we did). As teachers, our parents both valued education and wanted us to know how to learn, how to question and how to communicate clearly. I remember Dad being very supportive of me doing volunteer work. He helped me to reflect on how each organisation I was involved with was operating, as well as learning the skills involved. I particularly remember him driving me and two boys who lived nearby to a series of evening science lectures that formed the basis of the training for us to become explainers at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre. He absolutely loved those lectures which were full of

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fun science demonstrations! All three of us did go on to volunteer at the Centre during our final years of school. Dad was a generous parent who gave my sister and me a lot of freedom and trusted that we would learn from whatever mistakes we made along the way. I think he took a bit of a scientific approach to life. He was open to new ideas and curious to see what would happen, rather than being too judgmental or opinionated about our choices. His advice was sparing and offered only when sought. With hindsight, I think my father fairly strategically created learning experiences for us, e.g. by loaning Belinda and me a car and telling us to work out how to share it. We got pretty good at seeking information from each other, being assertive and finding win/win solutions, in order to both get where we needed to. Dad would help us throw whatever kind of party we wanted for our birthdays (memorably he once made homemade pizzas from scratch for one of Belinda’s) but he’d want us to pitch him the concept, make a plan ahead of time and have a bit of a verbal review afterwards about what went well and what we could have done to make it go more smoothly. He liked us to negotiate for what we wanted and evaluate things afterwards. When I hear about some of the contributions my father made in his work life, e.g. communicating scientific concepts simply, and encouraging knowledge-based decisions, I am not surprised as these are things he did at home as well. He was often the rock in our family, staying calm and rational in the midst of any chaos, disagreements or stress the rest of us might be having. It seems he also did this in his work life, where his opinions were often sought by people with competing political interests in environmental debates. I am really proud of my Dad and hope to pass many of his ideas and attitudes on to my own children.

Michelle linmore psychologist Peter’s Daughter

HIS EARLY RESEARCH When he had completed his Bachelor of Agricultural Science at Melbourne in 1966, Peter had expected to go teaching in a high school, as he was bonded to the Education Department. However, one day when he was playing golf he met some of his lecturers who asked if he had applied for a research grant. He had not thought of that but they assured him he would probably get one and, a few months later, to his amazement, he found himself doing a Master’s degree in Agricultural Science. He was interested in irrigation, having done some vacation work up on the Murray. He set about watering to different depths and, lo and behold, he got roots growing to different depths. He was working in the Department of Agricultural Engineering and was required to do a fourth year engineering subject in hydrology and some more third year mathematics. He jokingly said he was doing an engineering degree backwards but never got to do the first year subjects. He did, however, do an arts subject which was required for engineering students: he chose philosophy and found it fascinating. He lectured in the engineering faculty for a couple of years, while people were on sabbatical, and so was introduced to tertiary teaching. Then in 1969 he went high school teaching. Peter’s school teaching career lasted only one year. Although he enjoyed year 12 biology, he did not have the patience to teach maths to unwilling year nine students! Still he was very glad to be trained in teaching, even if he did do a Diploma of Education at the same time as his Master’s degree in Agricultural Science. Melbourne University only discovered in October that he was enrolled in two full time courses at once. Too late to stop him! After Balwyn High he returned to teaching in the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering. At that time he was doing research into using brown coal to condition sandy soils growing vegetables. He would bring home sacks full of spinach for freezing, but we couldn’t eat more than three lettuces a week. At this time he did his very first

work on rivers: ‘Some measurements of water pollution in the Yarra Valley’ (1971). In 1972 Peter began work in the public service, with the Port Phillip Authority. Now his interest in coasts and their management became more scientific. His challenge was to rehabilitate the Seaford foreshore by fencing off paths and planting Marram Grass. In Peter’s words, ‘It was very interesting because it was a state government co-ordinating body trying to co-ordinate three or four warring departments who didn’t want to be co-ordinated.’ He had a working relationship with the minister Bill Borthwick and learned things about politics that were very useful later on.1

“I am really proud of my Dad and hope to pass many of his ideas and attitudes on to my own children.”

Above: Cullen family photo. (Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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NEW DIRECTION–LECTURING IN NATURAL RESOURCES AND OVERSEAS TRAVEL Late in 1972 Peter got a phone call asking if he would be interested in starting water pollution courses at the newly opened Canberra College of Advanced Education (CCAE). ‘Send me the ad. and I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘Oh there’s no ad; just put in an application.’ So Peter went for an interview two days before Christmas and came home to ask if I’d like to move to Canberra. In May Peter started at CCAE and so did I–part time in the School of Teacher Education as well as teaching at Deakin High. We bought our house with the beautiful view. During the 1970s and early 1980s Peter was lecturer in Resource Management in the School of Applied Science at CCAE. He enjoyed the teaching and was publishing papers on coastal

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conservation, water quality, recreation on coasts and park management. In 1975 he ran a coastal management workshop at Jervis Bay and realised that he needed to go overseas if his work was to progress. At this time our coasts were still pristine and uncrowded but he could see that one day there would be enormous pressure from developers and tourists. Australia needed to learn to manage heavily-populated coastlines. In 1976, accompanied by Michelle, aged two, and Belinda, three months, we set off on a tour of ‘coastlines of the world.’ We visited Malaysia and then spent a few days in the Greek islands to get over jet lag. The German tourists thought we were mad when we jumped off the rocks with babies in our arms and swam around in the sea. I could understand every word they said! We went to Rome and Venice and the Rimini coast of Italy, then to the French Riviera. Our eyes were opened to problems of managing overcrowded beaches with rows and rows of deck chairs. In Nice I sought out a doctor for Belinda’s six-month

check up and vaccination. The doctor examined her and exclaimed “Elle est belle Madame!” He went on to say we should have lots more beautiful children. Peter asked what he’d said and when I explained, he said, “No way! We’ve reproduced ourselves, that’s enough for the planet.” We continued to La Grande Motte near the Spanish border and spent a morning talking with Monsieur le Maire of Montpellier. I translated, but it was evident he understood every word of Peter’s questions about managing the growth of the tourist resort and dealing with the mosquito problem. We went by train to Switzerland and then by boat on the Rhine from Basel to Bonn and flew to England. As we drove along the south coast Peter got the idea for his next sabbatical which would focus on heritage coasts in southern England and Wales. We started on the coastline of the USA with a wonderful week in Bar Harbour in Maine. (Peter took me back there in 2006 so we could eat lobster again and enjoy swimming and boating.) Then we explored the coasts of Virginia and North and South Carolina, especially looking at National Parks and their management, then across to San Francisco where Peter worked at the University in Berkeley and explored parks and coasts in the west. He made some good friends in the coastal management field and gave lectures about resource management in Australia. That first sabbatical may sound great fun, and so it was, but it was absolutely vital to Peter’s career at the university and to Australia’s coastal management. It led to papers like ‘Parks and people, the Yosemite experience’ (1977), ‘Coastal management options for Australia’ (1978), ‘Conserving coastal wilderness, and planning for boating facilities on the coast’ (1979). At CCAE Peter was lucky to be working with Peter Rudman, an innovative educator in Natural Resources, who taught him to look beyond the traditional disciplinary structures. Alongside his work on parks, coasts and management issues he was beginning to work on water pollution–

measuring, sampling and asking about the nature of river health. Was it just concentrations of chemicals? Maybe flow was also important? He was moving towards a more holistic view of water. It was an exciting time and Peter became a senior lecturer and eventually in 1987 acting head of Applied Science. During this time the School developed exceptional social relationships. Peter was good at such things. Sue Randell (nee Carolan), his secretary at the time, reminisces:

“I have many fond memories, including the very prestigious wine tasting club in Applied Science with Vic, Peter, Richard and others seeming to know so much about wines. I remember I cried when Peter didn’t get the job as Head of School...He was much loved by all the secretarial staff...Recently we were very thrilled to see him on that ‘Tinnie down the River’ thing with Tim Flannery. Looked to be enjoying himself with a bottle beside the Murray. I smile when I think of your early days of ordination when Peter was so proud of you but wondering how he was going to handle the parishioners. From memory the partners of your peers liked a good red wine or two which probably helped.” When Peter had accepted the position in Canberra he had asked for a boat to help in his water research. It was provided at the CCAE centre at Jervis Bay where work on coastal management was carried out. This facility was also useful for bonding the young Natural Resources staff and their families. We usually spent one or two weeks down there as soon as exams and corrections were finished in early December–a good time of eating and drinking, discussions, boating and swimming. Peter was often seen driving the Zodiac inflatable filled with small children and their parents. One of our favourite treats was fresh mussels collected while snorkelling off the rocks near Wreck Bay.

Opposite: The built-up coastline of Surfer’s Paradise, Queensland. (Zak Sherwood)

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During the eighties and early nineties his work on parks had increased. Every summer he ran a School of Park Management which trained and inspired many park rangers. Peter was beginning to move into areas of policy and conflict management in natural resource management. His second sabbatical continued these interests. In 1980 we went to Cheltenham, England for six months to work on the heritage coasts. Later Peter said that maybe he was covering too many areas in his first ten years of teaching but with hindsight they were all excellent underpinnings and gave him a good breadth of understanding.

When working on Kosciusko National Park and the health of the Thredbo River Peter discovered a real passion for inland waters. There was a difference with streams that froze in winter. He decided to go to the Limnology department at Uppsala University in Sweden. There are lots of lakes in Sweden and the University had a very good reputation in the field. In 1985 our children were nine and eleven and we sent them to a Swedish school in winter. They learnt to ski, speak some Swedish and what it was like to be a foreigner in another country. As for me, I improved my Swedish which I had studied in Bonn, met several women priests and explored the Swedish Lutheran Church. Peter began to suspect I was about to change careers. At the end of 1988 Peter was made a Professor and I was ordained Deacon in the Anglican Church. We threw a spit roast party for our friends in Canberra called ‘New Beginnings, the Prof and the Rev’. This phase of our lives together was to last nearly twenty years. Peter was working on land use management and conflicts in use between recreation and water pollution on coasts and rivers–Port Phillip Bay and the River Murray for example. He was also interested in Australian attitudes to the bush and conflict in park management. His interests in agriculture and soils came into play again with such work as ‘Water Quality in Rural NSW’ (1989) and ‘Land Use and Declining Water Quality’ (1991). In 1989 he wrote his first paper on climate change: ‘The Greenhouse Effect: Parks, Conservation and Climatic Change in Southern NSW’.

FROM COASTS TO RIVERS AND LAKES By the nineties he had moved away from coastal management because he could see that there was no framework to make things happen. Developers and local councils seemed to make decisions without looking at the big picture. Already in the 1980s he had worked on Lakes Burley Griffin and Ginninderra in Canberra, and later he did some work on the new lake being made at Tuggeranong.

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The Canberra College of Advanced Education became the University of Canberra (UC) in 1990 and in 1991-92 Peter was Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science. A student wrote this about his teaching:

“In 1991 I was a student in Peter’s class at UC. He had a unique method of assessment which we all found very challenging. We had a verbal discussion/interview with Peter and other lecturers to assess how much we had learned.

The class was a very practical one with opportunities for us to exchange ideas with lecturers, tutors and students. This innovative approach gave us a chance to formulate our own thoughts and initiatives before we went out into the ‘real world’ and worked in our chosen field. It helped me enormously to think about what I truly believed in and also to negotiate when others had different opinions. He was truly inspirational and taught us some very basic lessons in scientific thought.”2

THE COOPERATIVE RESEARCH CENTRE FOR FRESHWATER ECOLOGY Peter enjoyed running the Faculty of Applied Science but he considered the highlight of his university career his time as Chief Executive Officer of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Freshwater Ecology. In 1993 he won government funding for this CRC. There had been a huge thousand kilometre algal bloom on the Darling River. Peter began to think that

engineers and economists had been running the water industry for too long and it was time to put ecology, the health of rivers, in the centre. In the CRC he pulled together some of the best ecologists in Australia, in universities, CSIRO and government. He also appointed a journalist, an action which drew some criticism; six months later the critics could not understand how the centre got so much press coverage. Peter began to speak out on water issues. He was up front and told it how it was. Rarely did he get muzzled. This was the advantage of working at a university.

Above: Thredbo River, New South Wales. (Jack Heywood) Opposite: Belinda about to open a lock gate on a canal near Chester, England,1981. Michelle is at the front of boat and Peter is driving at the back. (Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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He decided he needed some training in leadership and attended the pilot leadership workshop run by CSIRO called ‘Achievement through teams: Leadership in R&D’ (Research and Development). There were twenty-two scientists led by four facilitators. All the participants seemed to have similar personality types, surprise, surprise! Peter came home to ask what my Myers Briggs type was. When I told him he exclaimed “Oh dear, we only have one thing in common–intuition”. I got out my books and showed him that we were very compatible as a couple because we were so different. During this time his work covered the following fields–salinity, heritage rivers, river health, water resources and biodiversity, sustainability and the Great Barrier Reef. He led a task force of the prime minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council to develop a National Action Plan for salinity and water. He encouraged regional communities with dryland salinity

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issues; he worked on environmental flows in rivers and pioneered the approach of identifying ecological assets and the flow regimes needed to maintain them. Added to this, he was becoming increasingly interested in communication between professionals from various disciplines. Early in the life of the CRC, he hosted a weekend workshop on a houseboat on the River Murray. Scientists, water managers, engineers and local government representatives were brought together. The papers were excellent, as were the food and wine. Discussion of the River continued non-stop as our tea breaks were spent on deck watching the water and reflecting on it. Peter developed an innovative approach to delivering ecology to the water industry by the creation of ‘knowledge brokers’.3 The development of this concept can be seen in the first five papers in this book. He also shared his strategies with others. Dr Anne Campbell, who was managing the Association of CRCs wrote:

“He was a key advocate for the CRC programme and really helped greatly to raise awareness about it with Parliamentarians and also the Media who would turn to him for some clear and compelling explanation about what was the CRC ‘animal’ and why it was important for collaborative science. He was such a champion of the value of communication–particularly science communication.” The year 2000 was, in Peter’s words ‘an eventful one’. He spent a week in hospital with kidney problems and was diagnosed with sleep apnoea. In March he briefed the prime minister on land and water issues and advised on the Olympic rowing course. On World Environment Day in Adelaide he was highly commended for the prime minister’s prize for environmental leadership. In August he made a presentation to Federal Cabinet on water issues for Australia. On a personal level our black labrador Cinders had to be put down at age fifteen. 2001 began with Peter and me, together with Gene Likens, an American ecologist, running an ethics workshop at Monash University for science researchers and students. Then in April Peter went to the USA to address the World Bank in Washington. In the next few months he gave papers all over Australia on many topics, including agricultural education, biodiversity, a water strategy for the Lake Eyre Basin and aquatic reserves in the Murray Darling Basin. He even addressed the clergy spouses on Australia’s water and gave an address at Charles Sturt University’s theological faculty on the ethics of water. He advised several politicians and was in demand for media interviews, including with George Negus, Richard Carleton from ‘60 Minutes’ and the ABC’s Four Corners. In 2001 Peter’s contribution to the University of Canberra was recognised when he was awarded a Doctor of the University honoris causa. At the end of this year Michelle booked a holiday for the family on Lake Eildon, though we did wonder if there would be enough water to float a

houseboat. As a family we’d enjoyed many boating holidays–every Easter on the Hawkesbury River, canal boats in England and Wales and the Gota Canal in Sweden. This trip was an opportunity for Michelle to introduce her partner Leanne to the family and Peter spoke about it at their commitment ceremony in 2003. He told the story of how Michelle dropped Leanne’s treasured mobile phone into the water and he observed with interest to see how their relationship would cope with this. He concluded that Leanne’s reaction boded well for their future.

Above (top): Peter is made Doctor of the University of Canberra with Vicky and Michele, 2001. (Vicky Cullen’s collection) Above (bottom): Vicky, Peter, Michelle, Leanne and Belinda on a houseboat on Eildon, family holiday, 2002. (Vicky Cullen’s collection) Opposite: Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland. (Michael Kriegal)

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RETIREMENT By 2002 Peter’s health was beginning to fail. He had a real scare when he began to go blind because of diabetes. We were living at Gunning as I had finally realised my dream of being rector of a country parish. Peter said, ‘You moved to Canberra for me so I’ll move to Gunning for you’. It was an hour’s drive on beautiful country roads, but he didn’t need to go the CRC every day and his study at Gunning was a great place to write. I had visions of driving him around or maybe hiring a chauffeur to drive his Audi. I was already reading articles and newspapers to him and we made the font 20 point on his computer. Peter had an excellent group of specialists looking after him–a cardiologist, a diabetes specialist, a renal specialist, a podiatrist and now the eye surgeon came into the picture. He had successful laser surgery on both eyes and his sight was restored. Still he decided it was time to retire. He had been training his successor Gary Jones who later put up the next bid for the CRC and it became eWater. In June 2002 Peter was farewelled from the University of Canberra after thirty years. He called himself jokingly ‘a Pensioner from Gunning’. After his retirement Peter had that unique opportunity to speak freely, unfettered by any institution, bound solely by his knowledge, his values and his integrity. THE WENTWORTH GROUP On 10 October 2002 Peter gave a paper at the International Rosenberg conference on water policy at Old Parliament House. We were staying at the Hyatt, but he came back at 3.30pm and said: “I have to drive to Sydney now.” I tried to dissuade him as he was really tired, but he would go! That evening was the birth of the Wentworth Group. You can read the story in the final two papers in this book, ‘Turning the Tide: Does Science change Public Policy?’ and ‘Science and Politics: Speaking Truth to Power’.

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At this time, due to the drought, water issues were very prominent in the media. The Group wrote a five-point plan which hit the media the next morning. Nick Grimm reported on the ABC’s AM: “It is no mean feat to gather together several prominent and influential Australians for a meal and come up with a succinct blueprint to change the Nation.” In 2010 as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority announces its plan for the Basin, the Wentworth Group members are still speaking out in the media. Peter would have been happy with this plan. MORE MEDIA, BOARDS AND HONOURS From February to May 2004 Peter was Adelaide’s ‘Thinker in Residence’. He gave many workshops and lectures and as he said, didn’t have much time to think! One innovative idea was to mentor a group of ‘young thinkers’, ten scientists who had just finished their post-graduate studies and were working in the government departments which had sponsored the ‘Thinker’. They met every couple of weeks, heard a paper from their mentor and shared their own work and experiences with each other. This mentoring concept has been continued by both the Wentworth Group and the Peter Cullen Trust and the NSW government has funded a Cullen scholarship for a post-graduate student. In 2004 after returning home from Adelaide, he conducted a consultancy on future options for Melbourne Water. Also in that year he received an Order of Australia ‘for service to freshwater ecology, particularly in the areas of policy development, implementation and sustainability in relation to water and natural resource management, and to education’.

Gunning Grieves Three weeks ago the people of Gunning and its environs farewelled their local Anglican Rector, the Reverend Vicky Cullen, and her husband, Professor Peter Cullen. After speeches from representatives of Anglican, Uniting and Roman Catholic communities and the response from the rector, Peter Cullen rose to speak. He thanked the people he had met in the village communities and the local farms for what they had taught him about land and water, and he paid special tribute to all who had taken him and his wife into their homes and given their hospitality and friendship. This couple was looking forward to retirement in Canberra. The secular community was also represented and those of us who were there will never forget this man, an environmental genius, whose generosity of spirit and decency will long be remembered by the Gunning community, who mourn his loss and grieve with his wife and family.

Jenny gLeeson reTired LiBrarian, naTionaL LiBrary oF ausTraLia, canBerra

Above: The Telegraph Hotel, Gunning. Opposite (top): St Edmund’s Church, Gunning. Opposite (middle): The Rectory at Gunning where we lived 1999-2008. Opposite (below): The Gunning post office. (Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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LAKE EYRE AND OTHER TRAVEL IN AUSTRALIA Peter was on more than one Lake Eyre committee. To quote Professor Richard Kingsford the current chairman again, “He adeptly chaired joint meetings of the Scientific Advisory Panel and the Community Advisory Committee. From traditional indigenous owners to mining interests, Peter brought out the best in people.”4 As chairman, Peter attended several meetings at Birdsville, and our younger daughter Belinda accompanied him on one occasion. There was a champagne supper on the dune Big Red as the sun went down beyond the vast deserts and dry lake, then, after a fast and slippery descent in a 4WD the meeting continued in the pub. The next day Peter asked Belinda to take notes on the Lake Eyre Basin (LEB) meeting while he attended a meeting of state ministers. Later, as he was summing up the deliberations of the Advisory Committee meeting, referring to his computer screen, someone remarked, grinning at Belinda, “It almost convinces us that he could be in two places at once”. This was a small example of his ability to think outside the square. Peter’s work meant meetings in various parts of the Basin; I went with him to Alice Springs, Longreach, Marree and Innamincka. Peter wanted to show his family his beloved outback and accepted an invitation to stay at Innamincka Station, when there was a meeting at the Innamincka Pub. We drove a

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4WD, stayed overnight in pubs, had picnic meals and swam in waterholes along the way. Peter showed us the Mound Springs on the Oodnadatta Track and the Dig Tree several days later near Innamincka. We read the tragic story of Burke and Wills and bought books on Australian history. Our trip back from the Strezleki Track to Arkaroola in the Flinders Ranges was scary because it had rained, but Peter was so pleased he could still drive a 4WD in very difficult conditions. On the way home we stayed at Broken Hill and drove to the Menindee Lakes which are very important to the Murray Darling system. We could not drive across to Gunning because there were floods everywhere, so we went south and stayed at Mildura, driving home to Gunning via Balranald, Hay and Wagga. It was after Peter’s retirement that we really began to explore our own land. We flew to Perth and came back on the Indian Pacific across to Sydney– first, Kalgoorlie with its mines and brothels, then three days of amazing flat desert with kangaroos and emus and little tufts of saltbush, then an hour’s stop at Cook where we explored the school, the one shop and the water towers which used to fill the steam engines. We had two Australian cruises, the first around the Kimberley coast from Darwin to Broome. Mostly Peter sat on deck and enjoyed the view, while I got off and explored. Two years later we sailed from Cairns to Thursday Island, which included some snorkelling. Peter was overjoyed to be able to get into a mask and fins again though he wouldn’t have dared dive with a tank.

THE LAST TWO YEARS 2006-07 In 2006 Peter and I made our last substantive overseas trip to the USA. He gave the keynote paper at a conference in Alaska before about 3,000 scientists who wanted to know how he got the ear of the prime minister. Afterwards we went our separate ways, he to Montana and Oregon, and I to Chicago for a spiritual direction summer school. We kept in touch by email and met up in Los Angeles for shopping and rest before flying home.

An interview with Margaret Throsby in May 2007 threw new light on Peter the man. For favourite music he chose some classical pieces: Mozart’s ‘Piano Concerto 21’, reminding him of his parents’ love of music, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty Waltz’ with its turbulent periods of energy and quieter periods of reflection and Grieg’s, ‘Peer Gynt’, ‘Anitra’s Dance’–morning moods, haunting, icy fiords, crisp clear frosty mornings. This led on to reminiscences about scuba diving. His other choices related to social commentary: Cleo Laine’s ‘Send in the Clowns’ drew comments about how we need to manage ourselves, and not blame others. Peter was adamant that environmental decisions needed to be based on scientific research and ‘the clowns’ reminded him of hairbrained schemes dreamed up by radio shock jocks

or focus groups. An Eric Bogle fan, he chose ‘Now I’m Easy’–‘No drought or starving stock on a sewered suburban block’. It reminded him of the Australian landscape, with its country dust and mud and its harshness and beauty which we have not always understood. We must learn to live with nature rather than trying to tame it; we cannot drought-proof or fire-proof it. He had a fascination with the lack of understanding and the mistakes we have made, and a wish for knowledge based-decisions, bringing science into the management of land and water.

Above: Braided channels, Eyre Creek, Lake Eyre Basin, southwest Queensland, 2009. (Matthew Turner) Opposite: ‘Big Red’, the sand dune near Birdsville, South Australia.(Igor Makunin)

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A leader for the CRC for Freshwater Ecology I have appreciated Peter as a research colleague for many years, but it was his leadership of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology that affected me most. Peter had the foresight to support fundamental research on the biodiversity and ecological processes of rivers in Australia’s arid interior. As a result of CRCFE funding, teams of ecologists from several universities and state agencies joined in expeditions to Cooper Creek to study fish, flows and bugs, and enjoy the hospitality and support of landowners. A significant body of new knowledge has emerged from the ‘Dryland Refugia Research Program’ and helped to make the case for protection of the dynamic flow regime and boom and bust ecology of Cooper Creek, and other arid-zone floodplain rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. A potential wonderful outcome will be the declaration of Cooper Creek as a Wild River under Queensland legislation.

In his vigorous championship of the MurrayDarling, Peter paved the way for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and a new vision for this over-allocated river system. Without his tireless efforts, his outspoken commentary and his engagement with farmers, citizens, water managers and government, the Murray-Darling might have continued to degrade. Now there is a chance – a last ditch chance – to restore the biodiversity and ecological services of this iconic river system. It is a shame that Peter is not here to offer incisive comment on recent developments, as our community struggles to come to terms with the realities of water shortages and new principles for sharing scarce water resources. My final encounters with Peter came through membership of the Aquatic Ecosystem Advisory Committee (AEAC), established to advise the National Water Commission on ecological matters and research priorities. Meetings chaired by Peter were always dynamic, challenging and fun, for he was a delightful man to work with, no matter how intense and difficult the debate, nor divergent the views around the table. Peter had enormous capacity to extract the best from those around him, and to meld disparate material into a sensible and coherent end product. He was a true river warrior, and we need more like him, if we really do want to protect and restore rivers and achieve a more sustainable future for people and nature.

PROFESSOR ANGELA ARTHINGTON AUSTRALIAN RIVERS INSTITUTE GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, Queensland

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Peter listed the books which have had the most influence on his thinking: Karl Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations, John Passmore’s Man’s Responsibility for Nature, Donald Schon’s Reflective Practitioner and Fischer and Ury’s Getting to Yes. He also loved Australian poetry, often quoting Dorothea McKellar’s My Country and John O’Brien’s Said Hanrahan, but also William Wordsworth’s Daffodils which he quoted to me in the Lake District of England. An avid reader, Peter could not do without his daily newspapers and magazines like Time, Choice and New Scientist. He read many novels, especially mysteries and thrillers, along with the latest scientific, management and philosophical books.

“A significant body of new knowledge has emerged from the ‘Dryland Refugia Research Program’ and helped to make the case for protection of the dynamic flow regime and boom and bust ecology of Cooper Creek, and other aridzone floodplain rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin.” Above: A view of Lake Nappanerica from the top of the sanddune ‘Big Red’, near Birdsville, South Australia. Opposite: The Cooper Creek’s north-west branch emptying into Coongie Lake with Lake Toontoowaranie above. (Images by Matthew Turner)

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Some more authors and books that influenced Peter’s thought: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge:Towards a PostCritical Philosophy 1958. Edward De Bono, Six Thinking Hats, 1985 (and other titles). Aaron Wildavsky, Speaking Truth to Power: the Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, 1979. David Collingridge and Colin Reeve, Science Speaks to Power, 1986. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students, 1987. Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers: History and Future Impact of Climate Change, 2005. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, 2005. Brian Walker and David Salt, Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World, 2006. Gary L. Chamberlain, Troubled Waters: Religion, Ethics and the Global Water Crisis, 2008.

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In June 2007 our first grandchild Joshua was born early on 30 June at the Canberra Hospital where our first daughter, Michelle herself, had been born thirty-three years earlier. By 10am Peter and I were there cuddling Joshua and, by the end of the day, mother and baby were home. Peter was delighted to have a grandson and really enjoyed relating to him as he grew and laughed and rolled. There are photos of the proud grandpa at his baptism which I celebrated a few months later and, on Christmas Day, Peter fed him his first solid food–mashed pumpkin. At the age of two Joshua realised Grandpa was not around, though we talked of him and showed his photo. “Where is Grandpa?” he asked. Michelle looked at me: “That’s a question for you, Mum!” Our very last trip was to New Zealand in December 2007 where we visited friends and relatives and Peter gave his last public paper, Adapting to Water Scarcity: A Global Challenge for the 21st Century. That was it. The only other publication was a chapter in David Lindenmeyer’s book Ten Commitments: Reshaping the Lucky Country. The week he died we were meant to be in the Kimberley relating to indigenous groups and buying pearls at Broome, but it wasn’t to be. These two years were the height of Peter’s career. His voice became well-known on the radio, especially the ABC, and his face in the newspaper and on TV. As his health declined, I had to persuade him to get people to come to him, not drive to Canberra all the time, and by late 2007 every other day some media person came to Gunning to talk with him. I found the easily accessible waterways where photos could be taken and made sure he did not have to stand too long. In one month we had a TV crew from New York, a reporter from Le Monde in Paris and another from Der Spiegel in Germany. I had a lovely joke with him when he asked what Peter was called. I said ‘Mr Water’ and then started translating it, finally coming up with a diminutive endearment Herr Tröpfelchen, which translates something like ‘Mr teeny weeny drip’. The reporter took one look at Peter and burst out laughing. I had

trouble justifying myself to Peter, especially when my comment was reported word for word in the German press.

PETER’S CAPACITY TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE One of the most striking aspects of Peter Cullen’s life and work was his capacity to influence a broad range of people and thus achieve positive and creative results. This ability springs from several sources. Firstly, he communicated well. Peter was a master of simple language and of metaphor; he hated ‘academic’ language which was so complicated it clouded meaning. He always remembered Professor Leeper at Melbourne University, who made him correct every chapter of his thesis until it was perfect English. As an academic himself, Peter developed the ability to explain scientific principles in a way that could be understood by non-scientists. His ability to look at a situation and reduce complexity to a number of simple points is demonstrated in many of the papers in this book, a technique he also used on TV and radio, or talking to the prime minister. He used terms like ‘understanding’ and ‘knowledge’ rather than ‘information’. He invented the concept of ‘knowledge brokers’ to describe people, often trained teachers like himself, who had this ability to communicate scientific knowledge to those who needed to use it. He had a way of communicating with sharp, short, clearly focussed ideas that are evident in the papers he wrote. He embraced Powerpoint very early and used it to great effect in his lectures. When he was president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) he started ‘Science meets parliament’. Various scientists were invited to present their views in a speech just ten minutes long, timed to the minute and recorded on videotape before they actually presented it to the parliamentary committee. This ensured that the ideas were very clearly and concisely presented.

“Peter was a master of simple language and of metaphor; he hated ‘academic’ language which was so complicated it clouded meaning...”

Peter Crabb, a fellow scientist wrote, ‘Professor Peter Cullen was a big man with a big ecology eye. The celebration of his life at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture was a wonderful tribute to a man who had done more than anyone to bring about changes in how we regard and use this nation’s water resources. He was well aware of the dangers of exceeding the carrying capacity of this land and its water . . . He spoke without fear or favour, but with compassion, generosity and decency. He was also a man of deep spiritual faith and his passionate concern for the land was an expression of that faith. He saw Australia’s water problem as basically a moral issue, for greed was at its root. Many times he said, ‘do not covet thy neighbour’s water’ and for Peter, the freshwater ecologist, ‘neighbour‘ was not limited to human beings.

(peter crabb, ‘Be fruitful and multiply - not anymore’ in Zadok perspectives no 99 Winter 2008)

Opposite: Peter with his grandson, Josh. (Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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In October 2007 Peter was chosen by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top ten Australians with covert power. As they put it, “his background may be science and academia, but he is gifted with the ability to speak the language of everyman and to put politicians at ease, making them more amenable to making tough but unavoidable decisions”6. Peter wrote many letters to premiers and prime ministers, keeping them in the loop so they could be informed as they made decisions6. Professor Richard Kingsford in Lake Eyre Basin 2009 wrote: “Peter’s natural talent for communication ranged from one-on-one to facing the national media. He engaged as comfortably with the Prime Minister as the grazier and this reflected his great grasp of what mattered. He had a wonderful ability to paint a word picture with distinctive ‘Cullenisms’”7. Secondly, Peter drew from many disciplines. He was well-educated, enjoyed music and read widely. His interaction with his wife and family forced him to draw from different sources– philosophy, theology, psychology, finance–to make his meaning clear. This meant he was a very human person, able to communicate with audiences far beyond scientists. I remember his discussions with Michelle about the meaning of ‘happiness’, when she was preparing a staff seminar for her colleagues in the counselling centre at the Australian National University. He related to Belinda both in discussions about financial planning and Bible quotes which were relevant to water. In March 2003 she presented her Dad with a giant print Bible so he could check for himself. As Gene Likens says, “He drew on the bits of the Bible he saw as having great powers of communication, so he used them.” Peter Cosier’s dad, the Reverend Roy Cosier, remarked, “The Biblical setting is filled with water references because the people of the Bible lands, like we in Australia, lived in a part of the world where water is in short supply. I can relate passages like Isaiah 43:19 to Cullen’s work: ‘Behold I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

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I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.’ Only dreamers like Peter Cullen shall be able to foresee such things and strive to make them a reality in a hostile land.” (pers. comm., used with permission). It is interesting to read the words of Eric Bogle’s song, ‘Safe in the Harbour’, which Michelle chose for his funeral: ‘You deep water dreamer, your journey is over, You’re safe in the harbour at last.’ He had an incredible capacity to see the big picture and for applying scientific knowledge to management. He could recognise good ideas, synthesise and promote them. As he put it, “I try to listen and understand the various interests and values of the players, and craft solutions. I haven’t got a vested interest”8. Thirdly, although he was an introvert, Peter related well to people and their needs. Professor Gene Likens, when reviewing the CRC, noted that he had very good staff and cared for them, often providing a listening ear for a personal problem. He sent several of them to the leadership training he had done, which made them more effective. The CRC structure forced him to rely on his staff to collect the information, which he then synthesised. It also made him communicate with decision-makers. When working on the plan for managing water in the Murray Darling Basin, Peter was always aware of the needs of farmers dealing with less water9. He saw clearly that many were struggling in areas where there would never be reliable water and suggested ways of them moving off the land while retaining their integrity and their livelihood. He provided a listening ear to farmers at Gunning during the drought and learned from them too. He was building good relationships with indigenous leaders in the Lake Eyre Basin and in the Kimberley. He respected their connection with the Land which he also loved, and in turn they respected him. He knew that they had knowledge of water sources in the desert which would be lost soon, as traditional people were moved, and he noted the sad story of Burke and Wills who did not trust Aboriginal people.

Finally Peter’s character, his integrity, his wit, his generosity and his appearance all contributed to his ability to influence people. Peter was humble, at times underestimating the power and worth of his role. Once, in the months before he died, I suggested he offer to resign from an important committee which was giving him a hard time for speaking out. He really had not considered how significant his presence was and that they could never accept his resignation as the press would have a field day. He always said, “we don’t know all the answers, this is the best we can do for now”. Peter never felt driven to copyright his ideas–if someone else could use them all to the good. He had a generous spirit and had his work disseminated on the internet in Word, so that it could be freely copied, not on Acrobat which is a ‘read only’ format. “If someone takes that idea, I’ve got plenty more,” he said. He never got a PhD and prided himself on being a Professor with a Master’s degree. He never stopped thinking and inventing new approaches and wrote chapters in books when invited, but never a book of his own. He did not have time. Peter’s size was an advantage in that people did not forget him, but his smile, his sense of humour and his integrity were also vital to the impression he made. Richard Kingsford puts it like this:

“No person moved so effortlessly between the worlds of science, policy and management. He cajoled, pressured and, if that didn’t work, embarrassed governments and their bureaucrats into doing the right thing for Australian rivers. His disarming wit and incisive mind were a lethal combination. In the words of Tim Flannery, ‘Peter was like a great jolly hangman. He could tell politicians the truth and they would still like him.’”10 Wentworth Group member Mike Young said that Peter showed by his actions how you influence people. He spent an immense amount of time setting up and maintaining networks. For example, he went to Victoria to attend a function with mayors – local government people are always

Above (top): Marree Pub. Above (middle): Cooper Creek ferry crossing. Above (below): The Burke and Wills Dig Tree at Bullah Bullah Waterhole, on the Cooper Creek, Queensland. (Vicky Cullen’s personal collection)

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Peter Cullen: Chair of the Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Advisory Panel Relatively few people outside the Lake Eyre Basin knew that Peter also led some of the government advisory processes for this mighty river system. This was a long way away from the tumultuous water world of the Murray Darling Basin, with its intractable problems of declining river health and increasing salinity. The Lake Eyre Basin covers a large part of inland Australia with its large rivers, the Georgina-Diamantina and Cooper Creek, eventually flowing into Lake Eyre during large floods (Map). Peter Cullen chaired the Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Advisory Panel. He invented this entity, knowing and hoping that the political machinery would not only recognise the critical role of science in water management but would provide the unique opportunity to avoid making the mistakes of the Murray Darling Basin on the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. He saw that scientists could play an important role. Importantly, he also convinced the governments of the Lake Eyre Basin and, best of all, the communities that science was valuable. This was no easy feat. There had been momentum behind listing the Lake Eyre Basin as a World Heritage Area in the early 1990s, driven by scientific information which caused a backlash in the community. Most was forgotten when scientists, conservationists and the community successfully defeated a proposal to grow cotton on Cooper Creek in the 1990s. Out of all of this, governments of the Lake Eyre Basin recognised that they needed to implement good governance of the rivers, with advice from the community. The

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Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernment Agreement was established and Peter saw the opportunity to help out. He was well-connected within government and highly respected in the scientific and general communities but, most importantly for Peter, this was also deeply personal. Peter loved this community, their country and most of all their rivers. The Lake Eyre Basin was a breath of fresh air for someone who watched, fought and often despaired about the ecological health of rivers and wetlands and dysfunctional communities in the Murray Darling Basin. He knew he had the great privilege to help chart a sustainability path for one of the world’s last remaining free-flowing desert river systems. His formal position as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Panel sat alongside the Chair of the Community Advisory Committee; both independently reported to ministers from the Commonwealth, the States and the Northern Territory. There was community power, populated by grass roots people and now also supported by science. Peter Cullen was a catalyst: encouraging, protecting and advising people. His relaxed and often imperceptible way of doing things belied an astute and ever strategic approach to everything he was involved in. He comfortably occupied his role as leading scientist advising community and sometimes cajoling governments, without them necessarily knowing it, but inevitably delivering on what was needed. In the Lake Eyre Basin, his gentle hand guided, like an expert navigator, the newly launched boat that formed the advisory architecture to government around the sustainability of the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin. For meetings, the Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Advisory Panel and its sibling, the Community Advisory Committee, met separately but also came together and often spoke as one voice on contentious issues, such as the use of water in the Lake Eyre Basin. Meeting places changed, allowing everyone from the group of government advisors, scientists and community to experience and understand a different part of the enormous Lake Eyre Basin, including Longreach, Birdsville, Innamincka and Alice Springs (Map).

There were three very important things that Peter helped achieve for the nascent organisation of community, government and science under the Lake Eyre Basin Agreement. First, given his background in rivers, he knew you could never take a fragmented approach, encouraged naturally by our federalist system. Rivers had no respect for political borders: you cannot see where the Cooper turns from Queenslander to South Australian. The Lake Eyre Basin and its rivers had to be managed as one entity. They were all connected and the critical thing was always going to be how to get different jurisdictions and sections of this diverse river basin to associate with the Lake Eyre Basin. Second, Peter recognised that looking after this wonderful part of Australia was not just about the environment – there was the unique social makeup of the Basin, rich in Aboriginal culture and social history. It was the rich fabric of social communities that had and always would underpin its sustainability. Peter recognised this and appointed a social scientist to his scientific panel, to sit alongside ecological and hydrological expertise. Peter also championed the edited volume ‘People, Communities and Economies of the Lake Eyre Basin’ by Tom Measham and Lynn Brake, providing the most up-to-date assessment of the people of the Lake Eyre Basin. This book brilliantly captured the emergent properties of the social system of the Lake Eyre Basin: desert time frames, funding time frames, community burnout, communications and networks of trust. Each was fundamental to understanding the social map that formed the people of the Lake Eyre Basin and their ability and effectiveness in managing this amazing landscape for sustainability. Finally, Peter was always clear that a Lake Eyre Basin Knowledge Strategy was needed to identify the main sustainability issues for the Lake Eyre Basin. This focussed on key questions, such as of how much surface water should be diverted or the ecological and cultural cost delivered by a tourism boom. Ultimately the knowledge strategy stimulated the Lake Eyre Rivers Assessment, underpinned most recently by tentative formal processes of Strategic Adaptive Management.

Map showing the Lake Eyre Basin, its rivers, borders and main towns where the Scientific Advisory Panel met.

Peter Cullen in the Lake Eyre Basin was respected and revered. He moved effortlessly between government, scientific and community circles, making friends easily and imparting wisdom in the ways of doing business effectively within government. Peter’s effectiveness was underpinned by his innate ability to grasp complex issues, but then explain them and their solutions in language that was simple and elegant. He made sense to graziers, journalists, bureaucrats, politicians, scientists and traditional owners. The Basin now has a growing identity as an entity, realising Peter Cullen’s dream for coherence, devoted to the long term management of this outstanding natural and cultural system.

richard KingsFord and geoFF LaWrence on BehaLF oF The scienTiFic adVisory paneL

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important in getting ideas across. As his wife, I accompanied him to many conferences and Catchment Management Authority meetings. He was always in demand at coffee breaks as his networks grew and grew. Two very exciting conferences were the Australian Leadership Retreats on Hayman Island where top business executives and political leaders met to exchange ideas.12 Peter gave a paper on the management of water which was heard by powerful people in widely different fields. In the words of his friend and colleague, Andrew Campbell, when he was planning the Cullen Trust:

“One of Peter’s defining qualities, in recent years in particular, was that he was seen to be beholden to no-one and thus able to speak freely. Peter was aware of his unique status and he exercised his influence carefully with respect to the science, the policy and the politics. He leaves a huge gap in so many ways, and his shoes will be impossible for any individual to fill. But it is critical in honouring his legacy that we attempt to ensure that Peter’s spirit imbues whatever we set up, and that it is not constrained in its capacity to offer an independent perspective.”11 Peter died on 13 March 2008. There was a great outpouring of grief with hundreds of people attending his funeral. They came from all over Australia–farmers, politicians, scientists, former students, colleagues, friends from university days and family friends. It was during his last two years that Peter wrote his most exciting and innovative papers. I edited them for him, at the rate of almost one every two weeks. This body of work took the science from articles in journals to influencing and framing the national agenda for water reform. I kept on saying “these need to be published”, but he never had time. When he died I discovered a folder titled ‘Recent Talks’, so here they are, together with a few earlier ones to set the scene.

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As Peter said, “While scientists can give us a measure of what we should do with rivers, the fate of our rivers will depend on politicians having the courage to follow scientific advice.” Water management agencies appear to have little interest in improving understanding of basic processes in aquatic ecosystems. Presumably such knowledge would take the skill out of day-to-day management. And yet there is unprecedented public concern with the mismanagement of water resources. Scientists have the knowledge and skills to do better. Why do they have so little influence? Now I am back living in our Canberra house and working as a retired priest at St John’s Canberra where I started in 1988. Peter is sorely missed, not only by me and the girls, but by the water industry, environmentalists, politicians and the Australian people as a whole. His attitudes and ideas are still current, especially now that the long awaited Murray Darling Basin Plan is being discussed. He would have been able, somehow, to mediate between planners, environmentalists and farmers in a way that is sorely needed. Although many of these papers have been on the Wentworth Group website for two years, maybe they will spark some new ideas and practices among Australians who care about the future of this land and our water.

ENDNOTES Quote from recorded interview with Daniel Connell, National Library Oral History Section.

1

2

Hazel Rath, with permission.

Cullen, P. (1995) The Knowledge Base for the Water Industry, 15th AWWA Federal Convention, 2-6 April 1995, Sydney. (See Paper 2, p.57) 3

Lake Eyre Basin (2009) Ministers’ Report to the Community, p.6. 4

The Definitive Analysis of Power in Australia, Australian Financial Review, October 2007, p.80. 5

Peter was still listed under twenty true leaders after his death: Financial Review BOSS True Leaders - Who stands out in Turbulent times, August 2008, Vol. 9, p.35. 6

Richard Kingsford in Lake Eyre Basin (2009) Ministers’ Report to the Community, p.6. 7

Peter Cullen in The Definitive Analysis of Power in Australia, Australian Financial Review, October 2007, p.80. 8

Cullen, P. (2007) Facilitating Landscapes and Communities in Transition, Natural Resource Management Facilitators, 19 September 2007, Canberra. (See Paper 20, p.283) 9

Richard Kingsford in Lake Eyre Basin (2009) Ministers’ Report to the Community, p.6. 10

Andrew Campbell in Memo Honouring the Legacy of Professor Peter Cullen, June 2008, Queanbeyan. 11

Run by Australian Davos Connection (ADC), in conjunction with World Economic Forum. Committed to improving the state of the world. (Peter was invited in 2006 and 2007, and I went with him in 12

2007.)

Opposite (top): Members of the Wentworth Group partake in a tree planting day. Opposite (below): Launch of the Peter Cullen Trust, 13th March 2009 Parliment House Canberra (Gary Jones, John Langford, John Thwaites, Michele Linmore, Vicky Cullen and Belinda Cullen.)

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Knowledge needed to manage Water Systems Paper 1

The Turbulent boundary between Water Science and Water management

Paper 2

The Knowledge base for the Water industry

Paper 3

Science brokering and managing Uncertainty

Paper 4

Delivering limnological Knowledge to the Water industry

Paper 5

Knowledge investments Underpinning national Water reform Dead trees on the river murray floodplain behind the Hume Dam,victoria. (bill Strong)

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“Scientists commonly hold strong values about desirable outcomes, and should be welcome in the political debates as society grapples with the various issues. However, they should not expect that their scientific standing gives them any special right to decide value questions for society. Their science needs to inform the debate, not replace the debate.”

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The Turbulent boundary between Water Science and Water managment peter cullen

freshwater biology volume 24, pages 201-209 1990

l

imnologists tend to believe that an understanding of the environment, and the processes going on in it, are fundamental prerequisites to the effective, sustainable management of a natural resource. it disturbs such scientists to find that those charged with managing the resource often do not share this simple act of faith. Water managers often see scientists as people you call when you have a problem that does not respond to their standard recipes. They view limnology as dominated by the curative rather than the preventative model, in a similar way to medicine. Water management agencies appear to have little interest in improving understanding of basic processes in aquatic ecosystems. presumably such knowledge would take the skill out of day-to-day management. and yet there is unprecedented public concern with the mismanagement of water resources. Scientists have the knowledge and skills to do better. Why do they have so little influence?

government resource management agencies are being forced to develop a more businesslike orientation and look to privatize or commercialise functions that would have been unthinkable five years ago. along with such freemarket ideas comes the contradictory push for strong central control under the guise of coordination. much the same is happening in education and research (mccomb, 1989). natural resources are managed to provide a range of benefits to society. Water and land are the primary resources to which people apply their ideas and technologies. presumably the objectives are to support an economy that provides jobs and agricultural products. These objectives must be achieved in a sustainable manner, since we appear to be moving from a period of resource exploitation to one of resource management. Just ‘mining’ the natural resource over a period of 50 to 100 years may eventually become unacceptable to the emerging light green politicians.

governments are clearly dissatisfied both with the effectiveness of the management agencies and with the contribution of research to these problems if the frequent reviews and reorganizations of both sectors are any indication. opposite: Drowned river red gums by the murrumbidgee, new South Wales. (bill Strong)

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1. Description Inventory of what exists in the system and identification of the key processes and functions. 2. Diagnosis Analysis of past environmental damage and the present condition of the resource. Identification of problems, including causes and consequences of ecological disturbance. 3. Prediction Assessment of the capability of the resource to support various functions. Identification of possible hazards, special values and probable ecological effects of specific resource uses. Water meets a variety of community needs. Traditional uses such as extraction of water for agricultural, industrial and domestic uses and its use for waste removal are now joined by instream values that require water resources to support recreation, tourism, fisheries and nature conservation values. Two critical problem areas are emerging:

4. Prescription

Problem 1

Advice in formulating management actions. Routine measurements or monitoring to provide a feedback loop for management on the efficacy of management actions and incidence of violations.

How can society choose between the often conflicting ways in which a resource can be used to meet national needs? Do scientists or managers have anything useful to contribute to these value debates? Problem 2 Once we know what we want to achieve from a water resource, how can scientists and managers co-operate to achieve this in a sustainable, costeffective way that minimises undesirable side effects? What can scientists contribute to these problems? Both of these types of problems require inputs from a range of disciplines. Scientists can contribute in five main areas.

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Recommendations on the requirements to maintain the resource within acceptable limits of change. Includes instream flow requirements, water quality criteria and dam outlet structure requirements. 5. Implementation

These scientific inputs are necessary, even though they are not sufficient, to the solution of both types of problem identified opposite. It is important that we admit there are limits to what science can contribute.

Social choice in limnology An example of the boundaries to science may be found with the issue of how much chlorophyll is undesirable in eutrophication management. The chlorophyll standard used as a boundary between eutrophic and mesotrophic waters developed in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development was 8mg/m3. This figure is a

professional judgement on the transition between the two categories, and is quite arbitrary. The assumption that this judgement is universally useful and applicable is one that needs examination. is a chlorophyll standard developed in an environment such as Sweden appropriate in new guinea, South africa and australia? The colour of water that individuals find offensive is a learned response based on what they are used to. in some parts of the world most water bodies are green most of the time, and applying standards from more temperate regions may impose unreasonable costs on local communities. The social issue in regard to eutrophication is “how green is too green?” (cullen, 1989).

TenSionS beTWeen ScienTiSTS anD managerS There has been little scientific study into the usefulness of science in natural resource management. Some work has been done looking at the scientific inputs to coastal planning in california where the scientific input was seen as useful, but not crucial (crandall, 1980). The reasons for this are as follows: scientific experts are often wrong; scientific experts are often contradictory; scientists often take on the philosophy of the agency that employs them; most scientists err on the side of caution; many issues are not related to science but to values; most coastal ecosystems are so dynamic that prediction is very questionable; non-scientific information is often more persuasively argued. in developing the california coastal plan, scientists were used to review reports developed by planners rather than prepare scientific reviews of information as the first step. planners felt that time deadlines were very tight and that this prevented scientific studies. The aim was to use what was known rather than to commission new knowledge. planners were critical of the contribution made by scientists in this planning process for the following

reasons (clark, 1978): scientists seemed to have a problem with coming to an agreed conclusion on the generally imperfect data that was available; scientists had difficulty in communicating their work effectively without surrounding it with many conditions and qualifications; there was a lack of motivation amongst scientists to participate wholeheartedly in the planning process; scientists were driven by the need to publish in scientific literature and were less interested in the application of their ideas.

above: Water coming out of the Talbingo resevoir into blowering Dam, new South Wales. (image by arthur mostead used with the permission of the mbDa) opposite: chifley Dam is a popular location for family recreation and water sports including sailing, new South Wales. (image by irene Dowdy used with the permission of the mbDa)

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The scientists’ views of planners were no more complimentary: planners were inadequately trained to interpret complex data; planners did not know where and how to find information; planners know so little of biological sciences they didn’t know what they didn’t know. Scientists felt isolated and underutilised and believed planners needed to improve their communication, not only about the facts of an issue but about their thinking frameworks used to look at problems. These tensions between science and planners have been well documented for Californian coastal planning. I believe the same attitudes and concerns interfere in the collaboration of scientists and the managers of water resources.

Understanding the cultures It is necessary to appreciate that the cultures pervading science are quite different from the cultures that pervade management. Without appreciating these cultural differences we will continue to be frustrated at the inadequate communication in both directions. Within professional ranks there are various mindsets inculcated during training and professional socialization. They can be parodied.

Engineers don’t care why it works as long as they think it does. Scientists don’t care if it works or not as long as they understand why. Economists don’t care either way if the internal rate of return is OK. Managers don’t know unless someone bothers to tell them. Planners know how it should have turned out.

What is science? Karl Popper’s view of science requires a hypothesis (or a conjecture on how the system is likely to perform under some condition) and a rigorous test in an attempt to disprove the hypothesis. The goal is prediction through understanding. The dominant cultures of science include: sharing and openness through publication, conference presentations, travel; honesty–limitations of data/ evidence; emphasis on peer review; organised scepticism; peer rewards from quality of insights, experiments, analysis; peer rewards for ability to select appropriate problems that have intellectual difficulty rather than immediate usefulness; low status of data collection unless it is to test some hypothesis; higher status for explanatory theories over empirical models; some independence about what problems scientists will work upon. Some common misconceptions of science Science is widely promoted as the ideal of intellectual inquiry. It is supposedly rational and empirical in that it is based on observations rather than faith. Governments see science as the provider of new technologies and of economic recoveries. Non-scientists rarely understand that scientists accept and reject hypotheses as working assumptions on the basis of the probability of the evidence rather than on the basis of ‘truth’. This leads to three common and interconnected myths of science (Collingridge & Reeve, 1986).

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myTH i: Science yielDS THe TrUTH many people believe that science finds and explains truth. This seems to me as unacceptable as the proposition that lawyers or economists find truth. popper suggests everything is conjecture and can be challenged. To avoid anarchy the rules of science require that no conjecture be discarded until it can be replaced by a better one. Scientists may seek truth, but rarely do they believe that any accepted truth of the moment is beyond challenge. an advance in science involves demolishing what had previously been seen as truth. myTH 2: eXperTS can be eXpecTeD To agree if science discovers the truth, practitioners should recognise this and agree when it is reached. many are confused by conflicting claims made by scientists and believe that when scientists disagree it is because one is using a flawed method or is a mouthpiece for some interest group. The whole process of science is about disagreement. The old view is challenged and may overturn the accepted view. Take the pons and fleischmann claim to have discovered nuclear fusion in the cold. new observations have led to frantic activity to repeat and extend their experiments and review basic theories. Sharp criticism of the assumptions, methods, explanations and proof of all protagonists are the normal way science progresses. conjectures followed by refutations. myTH 3: Science iS a UniTy if scientists find truth, then science must be essentially a unity. Disciplines may use different methods, but they all get to truth. even if they cannot understand work from another discipline, scientists accept it as truth if it is accepted by disciplinary peers. The reality is that disciplines differ in many ways. communication across disciplines is difficult,

above: a couple fishing in the backwaters of the river murray in Wallpolla State forest, victoria. (image by corey brown used with the permission of the mDba) opposite: blue-green algae at the junction of the river murray and Darling river, april 2009. (image by ioJ aerial photography used with the permission of the mDba)

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unless an individual is trained in both disciplines. Many advances have been made when people from one discipline challenge the accepted wisdom of another discipline. For example, fisheries biologists have long been dominated by models of predation and harvesting as controllers of a population. Other scientists have models that are dominated by nutrients and producers as the determinants of the resulting ecosystem. These arguments about top-down control versus bottomup control are raging in our science at present.

The culture of management Managers have as their goal the delivery of benefits to some group. These might be abstract or generalised (policy) or specific (service delivery). Managers make decisions in order to reduce risks and they make pragmatic decisions to try to achieve this. Decisions are normally made with imperfect information and there is little pressure to review subsequently the assumptions in the light of effectiveness. There is often pride in the ability of managers to make decisions with little knowledge, and a culture which does not encourage quantitative evaluation and accountability. Technical skills are not directly valued in organisational hierarchies, and professionals have to become managers if they seek advancement to higher levels. Science is valued as a weapon in the ongoing conflict with other interest groups or agencies for power, influence and resources. Scientific outcomes, and the kudos of success, may be less important than staking out the turf to keep other players at bay. Public sector management appears to be undergoing a paradigm shift at the moment, and so there are two conflicting models (Paterson, 1988). (a) The bureaucratic model. The bureaucratic model has rules that are made to be followed. Following procedure is more important than particular outcomes. These systems are

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characterised by due process and formal procedures, rule books, secrecy and avoidance of performance review. The system rewards rule conformity, error avoidance and attention to detail. (b) The managerial model. The managerial model is characterised by quantifiable outcomes that are more important than following set processes. Services are seen as products to be delivered to customers. There are devolved responsibilities within an externally set cost framework, and managers are assessed through cost-effectiveness reviews. Hence economic rationality replaces the legal and procedural framework of the bureaucratic model. The organisation is seen as a tool in the hands of the executive manager or Minister, and is responsive to short-term political agendas. Rewards are for achieving output targets and nonachievement may be punished. It creates an environment where there must at least be a facade of progress, so if a problem is intractable there will be attempts to abandon it so at least the impression of progress can be created by moving on to new and relevant problems (Schon, 1971).

Opportunities for science Hopefully the emerging managerial paradigm will be more opportunistic about using science where it can help achieve the desired outcomes. We need to be opportunistic and ensure the managerialists understand what we can do and how science can help achieve their organisational outcomes. Let us not imagine such people will have a wish to fund science for its own sake–they are likely to be fickle if the promised benefits do not turn up. If managers are about scanning futures and selecting decisions that minimise the risk for their political masters, we need to show how science can help. Science provides access to a substantial knowledge base that allows a wider range of options to be identified. Science helps evaluate options at least so the sillier ones can be discarded. Science can measure outcomes and provide feedback if managers are brave enough to seek it.

briDging THe gUlf appreciating the different cultures within which scientists and managers operate is one step in improving communication. both groups have different needs, but there are common interests where the needs of both groups may be met, perhaps in win-win situations, where both get more than they may have got without collaboration. There seems little point in investing in research to develop more accurate predictive models until the information we already have is used to manage the resource better. There is a key problem of technology transfer, which has been addressed in many other fields that might give us leads as to improving transfer in the water industry. Sabatier (1978) identified a number of variables that affect the influence of technical information on decision-making.

credibility of information source credibility is partly determined by the resources available to the source and the prestige of the source. prestige is important in gaining access and for giving legitimacy to the advice. The skills of the source are important in demonstrating an understanding of the problem and presenting the information in an understandable and relevant form. These aspects may be more important than the substance of the advice. The source’s ability to bring sanctions by going to higher levels or the press if ignored is also relevant.

content of message perceived validity of the information which is partly a function of consensus amongst reputable scientists.

perceived relevance to problem at hand The manner of presentation is important in that it needs to address the decision maker’s needs, be concise, contain explicit recommendations

and contain clear identification of the relevant variables.

Timeliness of message Technical information is more influential the earlier it is provided. When the decision is imminent, or the decision-maker has already taken a public stand, information is used primarily to legitimise that decision.

political and policy context expertise seems more effective in collegiate decision-making environments than in hierarchical systems. consensus is conducive to influence. When conflicting advice comes from otherwise credible sources, both may be disregarded.

perspective of decision maker (consumer of information) Decision-makers will be influenced by their: •

Willingness and ability to understand technical information

•

orientation towards making decisions based on substance or towards servicing the needs of constituents

•

ability to influence the advice being offered to ensure that it is as palatable as possible

other work has demonstrated that many practitioners, be they private individuals or government agencies, are resistant to change. The self-interest of players is a powerful force in avoiding the adoption of new approaches to solving problems, and for the adoption of incremental strategies. Several strategies are used to minimise the threat of change (Schon, 1971): selective inattention to the new idea; counter attack to contain or isolate the new idea; co-option to absorb or defuse the new idea; adopt minimal change involving renaming, restructuring.

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Developing Sustainable Water Policy in Australia ...i would like to express my deep regret that, as a community and as people living in the murray Darling basin, we have lost professor peter cullen. i want to acknowledge his enormous contribution to the environment, natural resource policy, freshwater ecology and the management of our water resources, particularly within the basin.

“flying blind hasn’t worked and we must know how much water we have, where it is and how it is being used. We need to know the health of our waterways.” on managing water scarcity, he said: “believing we could meet the water needs of these communities by fixing a few leaking taps and having shorter showers was always a fantasy.” on the murray Darling, he said: “We don’t have all the answers – nobody does – but before we start laying bricks and mortar, we have got to get the foundations right, otherwise the cathedral will tumble with the smallest of tremors.” and on climate change, he said: “We’re doing a wonderful experiment in global warming at the moment, but by the time it gets through peer review there might not be many humans left on the planet.”

professor peter cullen played a significant role in the development of sustainable water policy in australia and his analysis will be sorely missed. He was particularly skilled at bridging the gap between science and policy and practice of water management. He had a flair for using language that made complex issues accessible and got the point across. He was always helpful to me when i asked for his advice and opinion and he was extremely generous. i do not believe he had any partisan nature in terms of who he advised on water policy. There are some “cullen-isms” which i think should be put on the record. on the importance of water accounting, he said:

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We need to realise that that is the kind of language that gets across to people. let us hope that there are other scientists and other leaders who also learn the ability to put complex matters into very human language because that is how we communicate with people and get results.

dr deB FosKeY LeGisLaTiVe asseMBLY oF ausTraLia 1 aPriL 2008

THe role of ScienTiSTS WiTHin managemenT agencieS The traditional linkages between science and management are weak. management agencies employ some staff with scientific training. They rarely use them effectively as scientists. i have caricatured some public science employers as recruiting good young scientists and within two years turning them into good technicians and in another two years into poor technicians. These organisations rarely understand the scientific reward structure (see peres, 1963), which involves finishing work, submitting it to peer review, publishing it and presenting it at conferences. Some agencies see these things as indulgences, so scientists are swung in and out of problem areas, rarely writing up properly and, if they do, often being published by the agency in the ‘grey literature’, rather than being subject to peer review and open examination. of course there are some honourable exceptions from this depressing picture, although scientists themselves have been very critical of the organisational frameworks in which they are expected to work (Sparrow, 1981). resource management agencies need to be clear about why they want scientists on the staff. if it is more than just a facade then they either want them as practising scientists who are trying to solve problems or they want them as scientific information brokers. i doubt any individual or small group can really handle both roles.

THe ScienTific broKer The best australian model of scientific information brokers would be the bureau of rural resources established in the Department of primary industry and energy. The bureau is charged with identifying national and overseas research trends, seeking opportunities for applying the results of research and development work and providing independent scientific advice on natural resource issues. its independence is assisted by it not being an active

doer of research and so not a competitor for scarce research funds. it may well be that various agencies that establish scientific groups believe they are getting a broking function but that this becomes subverted by the scientists preferring to dabble in research investigations. often both functions end up being done poorly. This is an understandable pressure since academia promotes the idea that high status in science is given to those who stretch the boundaries of knowledge and that other functions, such as applying knowledge, teaching or the transferring of ideas, are all rather second-rate scientific functions. The broking function is formally established in some research-industrial organisations. The bell Telephone (USa) laboratories have research scientists and ‘systems engineers’ who act as linkage agents between researchers and production people (Havelock & benne, 1969). The more successful research funding agencies do more than just act as auditors and as gatekeepers to research resources. They take on a broking role and transfer information amongst researchers and between researchers and the industry. another strategy is to encourage the development of formal and informal networks between researchers and managers. academics establish course advisory panels and use industry staff in specific lecturing roles. The industry can involve researchers in advisory groups, ad hoc task forces, secondments and as consultants. The australian Water resources council, a federal-state coordinating body, has attempted to develop these sorts of networks through its specialist working groups. another powerful broking function can be provided by the growing group of environmental consultants. These consultants often commission scientific work or reviews that are directly relevant to the problems of their clients. The issues of professional ethics and quality control in such consultant reports are beyond the scope of this paper.

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The funding and management of water research The Australian Water Research Advisory Committee (AWRAC) has revolutionised water research in this country, and has paid the price by being abolished. This is not the place to evaluate the successes and failures of AWRAC. AWRAC requires applicants for research funds to be explicit in how they anticipate transferring the results of the research to industry. This seems likely to be as ineffective as the earlier model of expecting managers to beat on laboratory doors.

“If science is to make a contribution to the management of water resources, it must be both good science...and science that is relevant to the problems/issues at hand.” AWRAC forced communication across the research-management semi-permeable membrane through its partnership grants. Industry was encouraged to put up research funds, which could be matched 50% by AWRAC funds. For the first time industry started to own the research function, and started to care about it, and could influence it. Researchers who wanted to access these resources moved from trying to sell their current research fads to the industry and started listening and trying to diagnose the problems of industry that might be amenable to research. This strategy is the basis for the government’s latest research funding policy (Kerin & Cook, 1989). AWRAC had less success with its attempts to identify research priorities. The priorities it established, and the reviews it commissioned, were worthwhile. The National Conference to debate research priorities was a failure due to poor management of the processes of the Conference

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which ended up as little more than a lobbying ring. There are dangers in the search conference approaches in that non-fashionable ideas do not get funding and a conformity in the paradigms being investigated can develop (e.g. see Carpenter, 1988). The breakthroughs will come when people do something unexpected, which is hardly likely to be identified by these groupthink exercises. This picking of research winners is a difficult question, since time is one of the unpredictable elements. What is the appropriate mix between ‘blue sky’ or fundamental research and the applied research that solves immediate problems? I take a shamelessly utilitarian view of science. We are funded to provide benefits to the society that pays us. Some of these benefits may take a while to come through, but long term investment is normal in natural resource management, whether it be planting trees or exploring for minerals. Success in science is demonstrated by the success by the predictions generated (Rigler, 1982). In this utilitarian view we invest in research in the expectations of payoffs. As with other investments we should spread our risks. Perhaps the separation of basic and applied is no longer useful and we might be better thinking of likely times to application for research investments. Despite my utilitarian view, I do not think the freemarket solution to research investment as being pushed by the Australian Government is likely to be effective at sponsoring other than short term proposals to apply knowledge to problems. The present approach has ensured that we have no long term limnological reference sites in Australia by which we can judge change.

Better science might have a better impact If science is to make a contribution to the management of water resources, it must be both good science, in that it conforms to accepted standards, with some evaluation of the likelihood of the predicted outcomes; and science that is relevant to the problems/issues at hand.

managers might suggest we have not done well on the latter. much of the biological work that is undertaken is descriptive rather than predictive. i accept that some description is a precondition to prediction, but i believe we have not made sufficient efforts to gain an understanding of the key processes in aquatic and riparian systems. if we are to be more useful, we need to do better science: •

move forward from description to more serious hypothesis-testing and experimentation to identify key processes and linkages (likens, 1985).

•

make our conceptual models of ecosystems apparent and try to improve them beyond the simplistic equilibrium models now in wide use (Harris & griffiths, 1987).

•

Start considering time as an important variable in ecological research (carpenter & Kitchell, 1987) and demonstrate that predictions can be based on an understanding of annual variation (peters, 1986) and on generation times (connell & Sousa, 1983; Harris, 1986). argue for long term baseline sites and adequate time for experimental studies.

•

Stop pretending that involved deterministic models will provide management answers, retain them (as research tools are needed), but accept that simple empirical models such as that of oecD-vollenweider have proved effective management tools despite the lack of functional understanding (Schindler, 1987).

•

consider scale more seriously and be more honest about the limitations of laboratorybased bioassay tests or microcosms of whole systems.

•

Seek understanding of ecosystem processes (lehman, 1986) but accept that empirical predictive limnology is essential if we wish to have any water resources left to work on.

•

be more critical of the predictions made in environmental assessments and other planning/management studies. no longer allow hypothesis formulation to masquerade as scientific outcomes. Demand a higher level of science even if it is only in the search for analogues to transfer if we cannot attain understanding.

•

accept the contributions of both the lumpers and the splitters and appreciate that holism and reductionism are both useful tools through which we may gain understanding and predictive power (mclntosh, 1985).

•

mccomb (1989) raises the question of how much blame the education system needs to take for environmental degradation. The blame needs to be shared with the limitations of our science. as well as seeking a more critical look at the assumptions and the primitive tools for predicting ecosystems, we need to raise the acceptability of science that is used to solve real problems. We need to develop a status for information brokers.

conclUSionS The boundary between water science and management continues to be a turbulent one, in that there is much dissipation of energy as heat. Science is a necessary input to effective management, but is not sufficient. There are other considerations in the making of choices and the minimising of risk. Scientists need to appreciate that the rationalanalytical model that supposedly drives science is not shared by the rest of the society who operate in a bargaining-conflict containment mode. The rationality we like to claim and use in our marketing of science often disappears when we are attacked. This is obvious when we look at the responses of scientists to the present cut-backs and amalgamations of universities. enlightened rationality and impartial observation quickly are subordinated to self-interest.

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It is hardly surprising then that where academic studies support the preconceptions of politicians/ managers they are regarded as penetrating and insightful, at other times they are impractical, ivory towered, academic and a clear drain on the taxpayer. Managers need to understand that science does not deliver set ‘truths’ that can be converted into policies. The very process of science demands no such truths; everything can be challenged. Managers and politicians, misunderstanding such scientific conflict, and discount scientific advice because of the lack of total agreement, even if there is widespread consensus. Scientists are also risk managers. Scientists and managers have both failed to develop an effective boundary. A system that puts untrained people in charge of complex ecosystems can only work if those people have access to adequate advice. When they know so little about the systems they manage that they do not even know what they do not know, and if the technical expertise is isolated from such managers, then we have a recipe for disaster.

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There are some steps that would lead to better management of water resources: encourage management agencies, funding agencies and research agencies to develop and value the scientific broking role to facilitate the transfer of information in both directions; provide status and prestige to good brokers of information as we do to good research scientists; review the expectations of scientists and the management agencies that employ them and then ensure the environment in which they work lets them achieve either good scientific research or good information transfer (beware of claims that both will be achieved); encourage networking arrangements that let scientists and managers interact in a manner that will enable trust and respect to develop over time; improve the quality of our science, and trust proven scientists more than at present; accept that prediction is our aim in limnological research and the criteria by which we should be judged (description and explanation may be necessary preconditions but they are not sufficient); accept that scientists need to give advice in formulating and evaluating alternative management strategies (this advice must ensure managers are made aware of the essential scientific understanding of the particular system of concern).

Acknowledgments Many of my colleagues have helped in the development of these ideas. In particular I wish to thank Ian Smalls and Ian Lawrence. Ron Cullen, Richard Norris and Roger Wettenhall all provided helpful comments on an earlier draft. Peter Cullen is Director of the Water Research Centre at the University of Canberra in Australia. This is an edited text of an address given by Professor Cullen on being presented with the 1989 Jolly Award of the Australian Society of Limnology.

referenceS & fUrTHer reaDingS carpenter, S. (1988) complex interactions in lake communities. Springer. new york. carpenter, S.r. & Kitchell, J.f. (1987) The temporal scale of variance in limnetic primary production. american naturalist, 129, 417-433. clark, J.r. (1978) natural science and coastal planning: the california experience. in: protecting the golden Shore (ed. r. g. Healey et al.). conservation foundation, Washington.

likens, g.e. (1985) an experimental approach for the study of ecosystems. The fifth Tansley lecture. Journal of ecology, 73, 381-396. mccomb, a. (1989) after the first 200 years: the future of ecology and ecologists in australia. presidential address to ecological Society of australia, geraldton. in: australian ecosystems: 200 years of Utilization. Degradation and reconstruction (ed. D.a. Saunders). Surrey beatty & Sons, Sydney. mclntosh, r.p. (1985) The background to ecology. concept and Theory. cambridge University press.

collingridge, D. & reeve, c. (1986) Science Speaks to power. The role of experts in policy making. frances pinter, london.

paterson, J. (1988) a managerialist strikes back. australian Journal of public administration, 47, 287295.

connell, J.H. & Sousa, W.p. (1983) on the evidence needed to judge ecological stability or persistence. american naturalist, 121, 789-824.

peres, l. (1963) research organisations and the control of incentives: the case of an australian scientific organisation. australian Journal of public administration, 11, 330-349.

crandall, T. (1980) The role of science in planning for california’s coastal zone. proceeding 6th annual conference. coastal Society, San Diego. cullen, p. (1989) Social choice, risk and determinism in water quality management. Hydrobiologia, 176/177, 1-5. Harris, g.p. (1986) phytoplankton ecology. Structure, function and fluctuations. chapman & Hall, london. Harris, g.p. & griffiths, f.b. (1987) on means and variances in aquatic food chains. freshwater biology, 17, 381-386. Havelock, r.g. & benne, K.D. (1969) an exploratory study of knowledge utilization. in: The planning of change (eds W.g. bennis. K.D. benne and r. chin). Holt rinehart & Winston, new york. Kerin, J. & cook, p. (1989) research. innovation and competitiveness. policies for reshaping australia’s primary industries and energy portfolio research and Development. australian government publishing Service, canberra. lehman, J.T. (1986) The goal of understanding in limnology. limnology and oceanography, 31, 11601166.

peters, r.H. (1986) The role of prediction in limnology. limnology and oceanography, 31, 11431159. rigler, f.H. (1982) recognition of the possible: an advantage of empiricism in ecology. canadian Journal of fishery and aquatic Science, 39, 1323-1331. Sabatier, p. (1978) The acquisition and utilization of technical information by administrative agencies. administrative Sciences Quarterly, 23, 396-417. Schindler, D.W. (1987) Detecting ecosystem responses to anthropogenic stress. canadian Journal fishery and aquatic Science, 44, (Suppl. 1), 6-25. Schon, D.a. (1971) beyond the Stable State. public and private learning in a changing Society. penguin books, Harmondsworth. Sparrow, J.g. (1981) Science in a public service environment: are statutory authorities the answer? australian Journal of public administration, 40, 293305.

opposite: a paddle steamer left high and dry by low water levels near goolwa, South australia. (image by arthur mostead used with the permission of the mDba)

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“By now we should have learned that praying for rain is no substitute for good planning”. Peter Cullen

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The Knowledge Base for the Water Industry Peter Cullen 15th AWWA Federal Convention Sydney 2-6 April 1995

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he managers of water resources need to develop a clear knowledge strategy to assist in the management task. They need to understand what knowledge is needed for day to day operational decisions, as well as what is needed for longer term planning. The accuracy and precision of data need to be specified and the levels of uncertainty understood. A strategy for providing essential knowledge either through in-house staff or through external knowledge providers needs to be spelt out.

INTRODUCTION The managers of water resources are under more pressure than ever before. Population growth is intensifying the traditional demands on water, and the rising standard of living is increasing the overall demand on water resources per capita. As well as this, new demands are being articulated for environmental flows and for water for recreation. At the same time as the demand is increasing, the resource is being degraded by mismanagement of catchments and the storages themselves. The various interest groups seeking to use water resources in particular ways have developed a sophisticated approach to publicity, bargaining and lobbying. The players nowadays know how to get their views effectively into the bargaining arena. They are much more professionally

competent and can argue technical detail, methodology and the limitations of predictive tools with management agencies. They can no longer be fobbed off with lines about agencies being the technical experts. No longer is there any assumption that technical experts or indeed state agencies have the public interest at heart. The tools and models we use to predict how a resource will respond to use or pressure are also under threat. We used to operate with quite simple cause-effect models. They were simplistic, and we knew their limitations. however, now the stakeholders are well aware of the limitations and are themselves capable of using cause-effectconsequence models that might identify a ripple of effects that could cause impacts for 50 years or more. We do not have good enough tools to justify many of our analyses in this new framework. Interest groups are able to shoot us down on the basis of our weak predictive tools. Our response is at times to become so cautious we are neutered– we effectively walk away and leave a decision to the even more ignorant–who do not even know they are ignorant.

Opposite: Children playing in the River Murray. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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land and water, even though some interest groups have captured perhaps more than their share of the public resource. These failures to achieve sustainability are one factor in the structural reforms taking place in the water industry.

TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE AND UNCERTAINTY The information explosion of the last fifty years seems to keep increasing at an exponential rate. Few of us are able to keep up with the new information becoming available, certainly across a broad range of fields as is essential for managing natural resources. What is There–Resource Inventory, Monitoring Quantity and Quality The inherent difficulties of natural resource management are compounded when rapid organisational change means there is a loss of institutional memory and the skill base available. The whole organisational framework in which we manage water is changing in ways many people do not understand. Even the disciplinary base is changing–we now have economists and generic managers leading agencies rather than the traditional engineer. The water industry has been dominated in the last eighty years by the engineering profession. This ‘can do’ orientation has built a significant infrastructure which has had an incredibly important impact on the health and well-being of Australians. To many the ‘building’ phase is largely over, and the orientation of the water industry has moved into managing the resource. The importance of economists and economic paradigms has increased since the sixties, and now several water agencies are led by people with an economic training. If the water industry is to develop into an ecologically sustainable form it will also have to be economically sustainable. Yet the water industry is about managing an ecological system. Governments have expressed concern that the existing water industry has not been able to provide sustainable management of

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Managers clearly need to know the extent and condition of the resource they manage at any time, and are interested in how these elements change over time. This sort of information is collected either by periodic resource inventories or surveys, or by regular monitoring that provides a flow of information that must be stored, processed and presented if it is to have any value. Managers concerned with supplying water for some extractive users might be interested in the following information in terms of instant condition, rates of change or seasonal patterns: •

Rainfall, Evaporation

•

Streamflow

•

Volume of water stored

•

Volume of water entering and leaving a storage

•

Quality of inflow, storage and outflow

•

Quality of water delivered with respect to the proposed use

•

Guidelines for interpreting water quality

•

Inventory of infrastructure and condition

UNDERSTANDING ThE LINKAGES IN ThE SYSTEM Managers may need more sophisticated information to manage the hydrological cycle and may need to understand the linkages between these information elements to help them make predictions about the resource in the future should things change. Melbourne Water undertook catchment studies to help understand the linkages between catchments and water quantity and quality in the Mountain Ash forests east of Melbourne. Clear felling led to an increase in water runoff initially, then a decrease as the understory developed with high transpiration, then an eventual increase as the forest regenerated. This cycle might cover twenty-five to thirty years and shows the importance of long term studies to understand some of these processes. The linkages that managers must understand might include: •

The relationship between rainfall and run-off for different catchment conditions

•

The relationship between water quality and pollutant load

•

The relationship between flow conditions and fish breeding/maintenance

UNCERTAINTY IN ThE DRIvING FACTORS Water managers know the uncertainty of the rainfall that drives our system. Australia is not only a dry country, but one with a variable and unpredictable rainfall. I recently undertook a water quality study where I was given ten years of water quality data to interpret. Unfortunately, seven out of the ten years were well below the long term mean rainfall. We do get long runs of dry years. The El Ni�o Southern Oscillation is becoming better understood and has serious consequences in terms of rainfall in southern Australia. We now have a predictive capacity of some six months

Above (top): Mountain Ash Forest, victoria. (Jason Beringer) Above (bottom): Mildura Weir, River Murray, victoria. (Carolyn Clarke) Opposite: Mark Stinsun checking the water quality, Narrandera, New South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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for these events. Greenhouse effects and climate change are postulated, and some reports now suggest that the observed change in CO2 is leading to the predicted temperature changes. Managers have to learn to cope with these uncertainties in our knowledge base. Uncertainty in System Linkages There are many weak links in our understanding of the water systems we manage. We do know that phosphorus is the key nutrient in causing algal blooms. For some of us this means we look to reduce phosphorus entering our waterways– through better sewage treatment, better land management and the reduction in phosphorus in detergents. There are other (minority) views that human phosphorus is irrelevant in comparison to the massive amounts of phosphorus coming from soil erosion. There are uncertainties as to the availability of phosphorus from different sources. This is a complex problem to do with the rate at which phosphorus comes off and re-attaches to particles in the water column and on the bed of the river/lake. Managers at least need some assessment of how good are the understandings of the linkages important to their management.

Monitoring Usage and Predicting Demand There is a long lead time in designing, building and filling of new water storages. There is a view that we are through the dam-building phase and we now just manage what we have. This is a nonsense. We will build more dams when it is necessary to do so, when the dam makes financial sense and when environmental impacts can be kept to acceptable levels. Water agencies make projections about future water usage based on predictions of population change and predictions of per person usage. Demand management is fashionable at the moment and it will be interesting to see how public education and pricing changes will change demand in the long term. The politics of water have always been very powerful. Clearly giving water away at well below its real costs encourages consumption and, as we move to full costing, it may mean we have some spare capacity. Assessing New Approaches and Gadgets Water managers are frequently told by researchers, salesmen and charlatans that they have the solution to all the problems. Barley straw for instance was touted as a solution to toxic blue-green algae. New gadgets for capturing water quality data and new computer systems are pushed at the water industry every day. How does a water manager assess the various claims being made by the proponents of these ‘innovations’. Is there economic advantage in being an early adopter (high risk but possible high status) or a late adopter? Assessing External Impacts Our growing appreciation that what we do at Shepparton may have impacts at Mildura means water managers must now be aware of impacts of their activities over a large geographic area and over long time scales. The community is

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demanding a higher standard of professionalism in such matters. COMMUNITY ASPIRATIONS AND CONCERNS The community includes people with a diversity of values and a diversity in their level of knowledge. The water industry needs to help educate the community and needs mechanisms to listen to community concerns and facilitate the resolution of conflicts in how we use water resources. The community groups are often better equipped to integrate the various disciplinary inputs with the community wishes than the agencies and their myriads of co-ordinating mechanisms seem to have been able to achieve.

IDENTIFYING AN ORGANISATION’S KNOWLEDGE NEEDS KNOWLEDGE NEEDS

SCIENTIFIC OPPORTUNITIES IN WATER AGENCIES We never have the resources we would like or that we think are needed to understand and manage a resource. Limited resources have to be used to achieve strategic goals. how might scientific resources be used in a resource management agency? •

Acting as scientific brokers, ensuring managers are aware of the current scientific knowledge about particular issues (Librarian)

•

Monitor the resource so we know its extent and condition (Inventory)

•

Testing various management strategies to evaluate their effectiveness (Evaluation)

The organisation needs to identify the types of management decisions it will need to make and identify the sorts of information they need to make the decision in a responsible and accountable way.

•

Identifying cause-effect models so we understand how various factors (e.g. stream flow) affect the resource (Research)

Some managers pride themselves on their ability to make decisions with inadequate information, and see this as the art of the manager. I accept this in that we never have perfect information. however managers who cannot be bothered finding out what is known, or who are inadequately trained for the job they are doing, are in my view negligent. I expect the remedies of the law will become more common to rectify these problems if the water industry itself cannot clean up its act.

•

Developing and testing predictive models so that we can predict how a resource may be affected by a mix of management and/or natural factors (Research)

Water authorities clearly need certain types of knowledge to make their operational decisions, and they need information for longer strategic planning. They may also decide that a strong knowledge base gives them power in resolving conflicts with other agencies and other water interests. They may decide to collect information as this is the only way they can get what they need in a timely way.

Above: Brochures such as the ‘helping you save water in the garden’ are published to educate the community. (Used with the permission of Smart WaterMark) Opposite: Blue-green algae growth in Gum Swamp Sanctuary near Forbes, New South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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He Built Bridges of Trust Peter Cullen through his personal engagement, his relationships, his writing and public speaking was able to form bridges of trust, that opened up communication avenues of many different forms. He used these diverse avenues to connect science to people, to community and to policy and found ways to speak truth and wisdom to power. Peter would have to be one of the best communicators of water science that we have yet to see. His message was clearly expressed in straightforward, everyday language. He set out to do that very deliberately. He could see that there was all this knowledge out there in the various literatures but it just wasn’t getting through to ordinary people. And he set himself the task of pulling this knowledge together, searching out all the bits of the jigsaw, putting them on the table, integrating them, taking an overview but then expressing meaning and insight in really clear language for the layperson and decision maker. That was really his great gift. Whilst he made it look simple it was not and Peter worked very hard at doing that…at getting the words right for the time, the people and the place. It was something that he really was determined to do....be it in a kitchen, a woolshed, or in the great hall of parliament house.

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The consequence was that while Peter has a strong publication record in the international scientific literature much of his writing sits outside the traditional science literature. It is this writing that has influenced and continues to influence what people, politicians and communities actually think and do. He wrote into very many different venues and his papers in this book serve to demonstrate that. There is repetition here because the same stories need to be told to different audiences in different ways. He wrote a huge number of significant reports into the grey literature, newsletters, conferences, opinion pieces and many speeches which were never published. As an academic he took a huge risk in doing this but Peter had such integrity that he was happy with that risk of losing academic respectability if he could see his strategy paying dividends by influencing and reforming thinking and what was actually done on the ground. His writing nearly always gave light to what was the causal issue of our folly and without blame but with wit, he would lift his readership to seeing the next steps and a new way forward. He distilled what was known and pointed the way ahead. Peter was very articulate. He painted with both tongue and pen. He was able to take the complex scientific issues, and turn them into simple, clear, accurate language. He was master of metaphor:

•

“By now we should have learned that praying for rain is no substitute for good planning”.

•

“Disconnecting the fuel gauge might be one way to stop worrying about how much fuel might be left, but it’s a pretty stupid strategy”.

ThE CONCEPT OF RESEARCh

By using all these means Peter bridged science to people, policy and politics. he pioneered and found ways to bring science knowledge into the conversation and experience of people and communities. Yet he often had to speak and write uncomfortable truths. But because Peter was an enormously compassionate person with insight and empathy with those who held very different views he was able to speak and write with courage what needed to be said, in ways that never attributed blame, were always inclusive and always gave a way forward. his writing and speaking usually softened the hard facts with a mix of science, compassion, honesty, wicked good humour and ideas for the future. The titles of his papers and their headings reflected his lovely wit and humour. he helped us uncover our own folly. In what he wrote Peter was able to retain the trust and respect even when these folk strongly disagreed with him…there was room for further listening, conversation and change. That was how Peter loved, lived and wrote.

John WiLLiaMs

Research is defined as investigating or enquiring into some subject. If this enquiry is sufficiently critical it may lead to the production of new knowledge, which is the role of science. Research, in its wider usage, seems to nowadays cover anything from reading an article in the newspaper to experimenting with a new gadget to lift manhole covers. But this is not science. Karl Popper,who has been a critical influence on the development of scientific thought, coined the term ‘Conjectures and Refutations’ for one of his books on science (Popper, 1969). Popper saw science as a series of conjectures that required imagination and creativity to develop some explanation (hypothesis), followed by refutations where serious attempts were made to try and disprove the hypothesis. Non-scientists commonly embrace three misconceptions of science (Cullen, 1990). MYTh 1. SCIENCE YIELDS ThE TRUTh Many people appear to believe that science finds and explains truth. Popper however suggests everything is conjecture and can be challenged. To avoid anarchy the results of science require that no conjecture be discarded until it can be replaced by a better one. Scientists may seek truth, but rarely do they believe that any accepted truth of the moment is beyond challenge. The results of the scientists’ search for truth are normally better than alternative approaches such as guessing, authority, faith or astrology. MYTh 2. ExPERTS CAN BE ExPECTED TO AGREE

nsW CoMMissioner For naTuraL resourCes ForMer ChieF Csiro Land and WaTer a FoundinG MeMBer oF The WenTWorTh GrouP oF ConCerned sCienTisTs

If science discovers the truth, then scientists should recognise this and agree when it is reached. Many are confused by conflicting claims made by scientists and believe that when scientists disagree it is because one is using a flawed method or is a mouthpiece for some interest group. Yet the whole process of science is about disagreement. The old view is challenged and may overturn the accepted view.

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Myth 3. Science is a Unity If scientists find truth, then science must lead to an agreed unified view. Disciplines may use different methods, but they all get to truth. The reality is that disciplines differ in many ways. Geologists, botanists, wildlife biologists, ecologists and limnologists will all look at a water body through different eyes and bring different assumptions to different problems.

THE KNOWLEDGE PROVIDERS In-House or External Providers? Once an organisation has decided what information it needs, it then must make strategic choices as to how to acquire and process the information. Is it best done in-house or should outside knowledge providers be used? For small organisations there is little real choice in specialised areas–they do not have the scale of work to justify an in-house operation. Larger organisations do have to make a strategic choice. The Sydney Water Board, under its previous management, was attempting to be an integrated resource management agency based on a wholeof-water cycle framework. In this mode they developed an extensive scientific capacity. This is now being privatised as Australian Water

Technologies (AWT) as the Board has now done an about turn and is heading ‘Back to Basics’. Under this model the Board will supply water that it buys from the Department of Water Resources, meet standards established by a Catchment Assessment Commission, policed by an EPA and priced by a Pricing Authority. Regardless of the organisational frameworks set by governments, water organisations need to have a whole-system perspective if they are to effectively manage the resource or interface with other organisations.

The Quality of Research and Information Research needs to meet two objectives: • Excellent research must be designed and carried out to lead to a clear outcome •

Research needs to be into important problems that will make a difference to our understanding and/or our management of the resource

These are not trivial problems. While managers have an excellent understanding of the symptoms that cause them problems, they often have inadequate understandings of the ecosystems they manage to be able to identify researchable questions. This interface needs much more effort from both researchers and managers if we are to get a payoff from research that solves management problems. The cultural differences between the two often get in the way of effective communication. The boundary between users and providers of knowledge continues to be turbulent. Traditionally managers have distrusted researchers as not being prepared to give useful information and demanding large sums of money to do long studies that are often inconclusive. Researchers, on the other hand, distrust managers who may have fancy Masters of Business Administration (MBA) but

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can’t even spell water and have only a layperson’s knowledge of water systems. Would you let an MBA undertake brain surgery on you or do you seek specialised training and knowledge? The issue of quality control in the information also needs to be addressed. Many agencies have long runs of data collected at considerable cost. To get a return on this investment the organisation must convert data to knowledge. This requires analysis and interpretation of the data. This activity is commonly neglected and means there is no feedback to guide the development of the data collection. This has resulted in some agencies collecting poor quality data for years and not even knowing it. Bodies charged with allocating research funds normally rely on peer review processes where other scientists critique the proposal to see if it is scientifically sound and will lead to a meaningful outcome. Many of the ‘industry drive’ research funding bodies are often weak in their scientific capacity and have trouble identifying promising proposals from those seeking to repeat work already done, or those that cannot lead to a useful outcome. Publication and the refereeing process is a key quality control device in science. If organisations decide to bypass this they should make sure they put some accountability step in place.

IN-hOUSE PROvISION Organisations that recruit science staff need a clear idea of what they expect from them and need to put them in a management framework that allows them to produce appropriate outcomes. Most agencies seek ‘knowledge brokers’, scientists who know their field and keep up with the literature and provide up-to-date information to the organisation. It is unusual for a management agency to be able to provide the right sort of environment for creative research to be undertaken.

ExTERNAL PROvIDERS Universities have a reward system that promotes those who publish in the international literature and those who bring in substantial funds. Universities now do most of the basic research in Australia. Many also undertake more applied research into the problems of industry, especially those coming from the old CAE sector where such industry linkages were valued. CSIRO is now required to generate some 30% of its income from external sources and so is keen to undertake industry-funded studies. The Divisions often have large research programs underway that, if relevant to your problems, can be harnessed through these links. There are also Project Offices in some of the Institutes that are able to put together large integrated studies that pull specialist resources from across the organisation. Consultants will rarely undertake research but are normally able to quickly identify a state-of-the-art response to a particular problem. They often have direct links with knowledge providers. Specialised organisations such as the Bureau of Meteorology not only can provide a stream of data, but can undertake special studies as required.

Above: Researcher records data as part of the Narran Lakes Project, New South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: Scientists measuring salinity in the Coorong, South Australia. (David Paton)

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Collaborative Knowledge Providers–the CRCs The Government has established the CRC program in an attempt to build a new partnership between knowledge providers and knowledge users. The objectives of the CRC Program are: •

To contribute to national economic and social objectives through supporting long term high quality research

•

To capture the benefits of research by industry

•

To promote cooperation in research by strengthening research networks

•

To promote the linkage between researchers outside educational institutions with the education programs

At this stage some 62 CRCs have been established. Each gets about $2 million a year Federal CRC funds to put with industry and researcher funds. In the case of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology these funds total almost $10 million a year. The CRC has been established to provide the ecological basis for the sustainable management of Australian waters.

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To achieve this the CRC is going to have to develop new knowledge to come up with better, more cost-effective solutions to water issues. The research programs we are undertaking have picked important problems relating to environmental flows, eutrophication, the management of exotic organisms and the assessment of water quality. But we are more than just knowledge providers. If the collaboration intended in the CRC program is achieved, both researchers and industry people are going to learn from each other to gain new insights into how we go about our work. Since each of the partners brings its own institutional culture to the partnership, this process will never be smooth, but the interactions can stimulate creative ideas. Our aim is to maximize these interactions in order to stimulate this learning process and to encourage creative thinking. Our core business is not about building better and cheaper mousetraps. We may do so but it will be incidental. Our role is to bring ecological ideas and dimensions into partnership with the other disciplines in the water industry. Many of these ecological ideas already exist. Research may be needed to test them under Australian conditions and to develop them further to meet our needs. But we are not bereft of ideas on how to do it better. Some of these can be put into place now and we can and must evaluate the outcomes in management terms. The outcomes of the CRCFE are going to be of various types: •

New operating methods and design manuals which we hope partners will adopt and put into day-to-day management. We have also negotiated arrangements with major engineering consulting company Sinclair Knight Merz to help transfer these ideas to professional practice.

•

Education and training for new entrants to the industry as well as established professionals. Some of this professional continuing education will be done in partnership with the Australian Water and Wastewater Association.

•

Joint problem solving with industry partners. In some ways these are studies to scope what is already known and what might need further research on particular problems. The CRC has already run such workshops on the hawkesbury River and on Albert Park Lake.

•

Acting as a clearing house for new ideas, and sponsoring conferences and other ways of getting ideas into Australia and, where appropriate, out into professional practice. We have run a major international conference on Biomonitoring which has had a significant impact on the development of the healthy Rivers Initiative.

•

Generating new knowledge and understanding of how our aquatic ecosystems work which will lead to better ability to predict future conditions.

•

Participation in policy debates where CRC scientists contribute knowledge to government, agencies and the public. We have taken a role in the debate on phosphorus in detergents. We have also focussed attention on some of the disease risks associated with fish farming in the MDB.

•

help partners develop appropriate responses to particular situations. We have assisted Melbourne Water with its Search Conference on Information Needs and the MDBC and the ACT Government on Algal Management Strategies.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS It is an exciting time to be a knowledge provider. The research business is changing, with structural change like CRCs and strong government pressure to get industries funding some of their own research. The water industry itself is in great turmoil and much institutional learning is being lost. As the industry fragments on either geographical lines, as in victoria, or on functional lines, as in NSW then we have opportunities to rethink

what are the real information needs and what are appropriate ways of getting the information. It is clear that organisations within the water industry need to identify the knowledge needs and develop a strategy by which the knowledge can be provided in an appropriate form.

REFERENCES & FURThER READINGS Cullen, P. (1990) The Turbulent Boundary Between Water Science and Water Management. Freshwater

Biology, 24, 201-209. Popper, K. (1969) Conjectures and Refutations; the

Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Above: Carp caught in a cage at Lock One near Blanchetown on the River Murray. They will be processed for crab bait and supplied to local fisherman in Robe, South Australia. Opposite: Scientists conducting an annual bird survey of the Coorong, South Australia. (Images by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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“Governments must govern rather than retreat to referenda.” Peter Cullen

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Science Brokering and Managing uncertainty Peter Cullen - CRC for freshwater ecology The Great Barrier Reef: Science, use and Management Townsville 25-29 november 1996

I

start from a simple proposition. In managing natural resources, knowledge is better than ignorance. This seemingly simple proposition is in fact quite radical in the australian and international context of resource management. Knowledge can come from experience or from the systematic development of knowledge that we know as science. Regardless of the source of the knowledge, the challenge is the intellectual interfaces between those who produce or act as custodians for knowledge, and the potential users of that knowledge. Brokering refers to bringing together those with the knowledge with those who need the knowledge. The public do not trust experts. Substantive experts in particular disciplines, or even process experts (managers?), are seen as often not understanding the particular problem, being sales promoters for some favoured technological fix, or just on the take for research funds. on the other hand in a crisis situation there is a symbolic value in carting some expert a long distance (the expertise increases exponentially with the distance) to give advice. If the advice is unpalatable it will be ignored or sabotaged. a recent toxic algal bloom led to warning signs being placed around a lake. These were removed by local residents concerned with the economic impact on the local tourist industry. That is public involvement in the nineties.

Managing any natural resource is about managing uncertainty. Managers seek to make decisions that minimise risks to the resource itself, and to the various interests concerned, especially the political ones. The challenge for resource managers and politicians is the setting of clear and useful objectives as to what the resource is meant to achieve for society. There is a great temptation to keep these objectives ambiguous, so as to maximise support from the various interests. This can work well until a conflict arises, when the agency can be made to look indecisive and weak. The interests involved all tend to believe that their interest is the most important and that their proposed use of the resource produces benefits that far exceed the costs. often of course the benefits are captured by one group and the costs are borne by others. If the costs are to be borne by future generations and taxpayers, they may not even have a voice at the negotiating table.

opposite: early morning with Chifley dam at full capacity, new South Wales. (Image by Irene dowdy used with the permission of the MdBa)

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Whilst resource managers aim to minimise uncertainty and risk for their political masters, they often have a very limited understanding of the risk. Much of the risk is driven by climatic factors, and our length of record is relatively short, and the climate may well be changing anyway in ways we do not really understand. When you consider that runs of dry or wet years may last a decade, it becomes obvious why early settlers made so many poor decisions, for which we are still paying the costs in terms of land degradation.

“Managing any natural resource is about managing uncertainty.” Resource management has been partly driven by experienced managers in state agencies, and partly driven by landholders. Both of these groups had certain levels of expertise. This can be considered the technocratic model of resource management. The current fashion for community involvement introduces new players to the resource management arena–ones with great commitment, but at times little knowledge or experience, and also ones who may not have to pay any personal costs for poor decisions. This can be considered the democratic model of resource management, and the ways we can deliver technical input to this process are still being explored and developed. Landcare and its derivatives have demonstrated the power of community groups to provide an integrated approach to a problem and get solutions adopted. This has involved genuine public ownership of a problem and real publicbased decision-making–not just an opportunity to participate or even be involved with someone else’s decision-making, In this difficult arena it is easy to see why fashionable although simplistic solutions emerge that are widely adopted before they are seen to fail. Charismatic individuals promote these solutions which are adopted without the careful scrutiny of propositions we would expect in science.

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The Contribution of Science By science I refer to the thinking processes characterised by Karl Popper (1969) that require a hypothesis (or a conjecture on how the system is likely to perform under some condition) and a rigorous test in an attempt to disprove the hypothesis. The goal is prediction through understanding. In order to achieve such understanding scientists, must spend energy describing and cataloguing phenomena before they can establish and test hypotheses about causal relationships, which will lead to predictive models. It is an interesting paradox that, in technically complex resource management issues with a heavy scientific involvement, there is commonly little preparedness to accept any scientific view as a way forward. The situation can almost be caricatured that for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert. Collingridge and Reeve (1986) argue that more knowledge does not necessarily advance rational policy making. They argue that science often encounters either an under-critical or an over-critical environment. In the under-critical situation there is already a consensus on the best way forward, and this ensures ready and uncritical acceptance of research that supports this pre-judgement. In the over-critical mode, the political adversaries are sharply divided and any scientific claim is subjected to intense scrutiny from scientists from the rival camps. The result is endless technical debate (Jasanoff, 1990). Science is often invoked in environmental conflicts for its symbolic value rather than for any of the sorts of substantive outcomes discussed above. Research programmes can be established, laboratories commissioned, eminent scientists recruited or at least invited to visit, and conferences sponsored. Such activities show that governments or companies care and such apparent inputs to the scientific process seem to be reassuring to the press and the public.

The BoundaRy BeTWeen SCIenCe and ReSouRCe ManaGeMenT I have described this boundary elsewhere as turbulent (Cullen, 1990). Managers and scientists come from different intellectual traditions and work in markedly different cultures. They have a fairly poor understanding or tolerance of each others’ cultures. Given the biophysical and the social uncertainties of resource management, it is easy to see why some scientists have disdain for resource managers and may regard them as unskilled, unprincipled or uncaring. They commonly have the view that, if we use the best scientific advice, then we can minimise these uncertainties and come up with better management approaches. This technocratic view is perhaps best encapsulated in the title of a book by Wildavsky (1979) ‘Speaking Truth to Power’. Resource managers, on the other hand, often have unfortunate experiences with scientists. There has been little scientific study into the usefulness of science in natural resource management. Some work has been done looking at the scientific inputs to coastal planning in California where the scientific input was seen as useful, but not crucial. The reasons for this are as follows: •

Scientific experts are often wrong

•

Scientific experts are often contradictory

•

Scientists often take on the philosophy of the agency that employs them

•

Most scientists err on the side of caution

•

Many issues are not related to science but to values

•

Most coastal ecosystems are so dynamic that prediction is very questionable

•

non-scientific information is often more persuasively argued

“Managers and scientists come from different intellectual traditions and work in markedly different cultures. They have a fairly poor understanding or tolerance of each others’ cultures.” Resource managers know that simple technocratic solutions, born out of a ‘rational’ model are not workable. They operate in a bargaining environment where they seek solutions that maximise the benefits to a range of powerful interests. These interests have become more wide ranging in the last thirty years with the emergence of a more democratic model of decision-making following the moves to public participation and now public ownership of natural resource issues.

above: Goondiwindi Landcare co-ordinater Mathew fletcher with local farmer neville Boland on the property Mandeena. Looking at plans of where contour banks under landcare have been put in and evaluating their success. (Image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of MdBa)

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Table 3.1 Contributions of Science to Environmental Conflicts Science can contribute to environmental management and the resolution of environmental conflicts in several specific ways.

Description

Inventory of what exists in the system and identification of the key processes and functions. This may include identification of values of both a short term, and a long term nature.

Diagnosis

Analysis of past environmental damage and the present condition of the resource. Identification of problems, including causes and consequences of ecological disturbance.

Prediction

Assessment of the capability of the resource to support various functions. Identification of possible hazards, special values and probable ecological effects of specific resource uses.

Prescription

Recommendations on the requirements to maintain the resource within acceptable limits of change. Normally based on predictive models that can be run over an appropriate time period. The selection of the appropriate time period is critical and often done poorly.

Implementation

Advice in formulating management actions. Routine measurements or monitoring can provide a feedback loop for management on the efficacy of management actions and information on the number and extent of violations.

Limitations on the Contributions of Science and Scientists Well-trained scientists are skilled at identifying the assumptions of their own argument and that of opponents. They also have a keen appreciation of the limitation of particular measurements and predictive tools or models. Science advances by subjecting new propositions to vigorous challenge using these various tools. Non-scientists often believe that there exists an agreed scientific truth that can be transmitted to policy makers. I do not believe science ever finds an immutable truth. It finds a series of what are hopefully better and better approximations of

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the truth, that serve as good working models until they are replaced by a better ‘truth’. We all know that scientists are an argumentative lot, and that it is the challenging of assumptions, of methods of measurement and interpretations of data through which better hypotheses are developed and may eventually replace the earlier ‘accepted truth’. Scientists tend to be most interested in and to focus and argue about areas of ignorance; managers are concerned to find knowledge that is not under challenge. This disputation can be unsettling to resource managers and the general public who have an expectation that there is some truth and the scientists will find it. When they hear disagreement

they often fail to appreciate that this is the fundamental process of science; rather they are likely to believe one or both scientists are flawed or have been bought off by one of the competing interests. a second widely held fallacy is that science can be value free. Perhaps the most sobering example is forestry, which has failed to take on board the widening range of community values, both in their management perspectives and in the science that advised such management. The results have been catastrophic for forestry and the forestry profession which persisted with a simple production model long after the community had identified a much wider range of benefits that come from forests. Similar problems have been evident with other natural resources, including irrigation and fisheries agencies, that have taken a blinkered view of the resource they manage, which is reflected in the science they listen to.

effective resource management requires an ability to detect emerging community values and to ensure a knowledge base is developed before significant conflicts arise. Many resource agencies have scientific advisory committees, and others have a knowledge strategy which sets priorities and ensures appropriate research is undertaken. It is apparent that many of the questions managers raise of science cannot be answered by science as it is practised, at least in the short term. Scientific fashions of the last fifty years have been for reductionist science that looks at particular processes. Studies of whole systems, such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Murray darling Basin or the Lake eyre Basin, seem largely beyond us both because of their spatial and temporal scale and because of the disciplinary boundaries we

above: Measuring and recording the growth of lignum from a dry environment a month ago to a wet environment, narran Lakes, february 2004. (Image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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An Influential Champion I knew Peter in the world of science policy through my work in CSIRO at the interface with government. It was some time before I realized that he was married to Vicky, whom I had known longer. Peter stood out as a person who had a deep understanding of water-related science, a firm grasp of policy issues, a passion for achieving necessary changes, and the capacity to communicate lucidly and persuasively with all involved–other scientists, public servants, politicians and the media. This combination is rather rare, and Peter earned enormous respect for the skill and integrity with which he carried influence, not least inside the scientific community. His leadership was the more effective because it was accompanied by his trademark smile and sympathetic understanding and respect for his fellow scientists, even when he felt they might not be acting in the most effective way. He was such an influential champion in significant part because he was such a gracious, as well as committed, human being.

BETH HEYDE SCIENTIST CSIRO MINISTERIAL Policy Advisor

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erect to compartmentalise knowledge. Large scale scientific studies are rare, and it is even rarer to find such studies being seen as excellent science. A notable exception appears to be the Port Phillip Bay Environmental Study, undertaken by CSIRO and collaborators, where a simple conceptual model of the system evolved with growing understanding of the system, and was used to establish hypotheses of critical linkages that required testing.

The Boundary Rider Problem in Science Scientists jealously guard the boundaries of their science, and will savage non-scientists who have the temerity to meddle with what they consider is a scientific question. The drawing of sharp boundaries between science and policy seems crucial to the political acceptability of the advice (Jasanoff, 1990). This boundary is often negotiated between the scientists and the managers. When the boundaries hold, the advice from the scientific community can be invested with an unshakeable authority, almost regardless of the quality of the actual science or advice being given. When the boundary is breached, the decision moves to more public arenas such as television, and the expert’s role is diminished. We have another interesting boundary example before the Australian courts at present. There is an investigation underway about the health impacts of passive smoking. The scientists concerned apparently decided to only consider ‘peer reviewed’ science. The tobacco lobby has objected that this is a device to exclude the data and the conclusions they seek to put before the inquiry. In my own area, I am aware that work done by industry lobby groups, or even done by reputable scientists funded by such lobbies, is discounted. This is a serious challenge for science. We promote science as rational, being based on observations and conclusions from those observations; yet in some ways we ignore these guidelines for deciding truth and sometimes use a criteria such as the source of funding.

SCIenCe and enVIRonMenTaL ConfLICTS There are several characteristics of environmental conflicts: •

They have several different parties involved

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They have several different issues of interest to different players

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There is uncertainty about how the ecosystem will respond to various operations and possible accidents

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environmental information, especially predictive models, is often poor and not available to all players

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There is uncertainty about how the various political players will act

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There are high emotions since all participants believe strongly in the virtue of their own position and the self interest of all opposing positions

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The conflicts are very public, being played out for the evening TV news, so it is easy for participants to get locked into extreme positions and find it hard to back down

Below: an artists impression of nutrient cycling in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria. Plants absorb nutrients. Marine animals graze on the plants and recycle the nutrients. animals on the seafloor burrow through sediments in search of food and, in doing so, irrigate the seabed with vital oxygen.

CSIRo, Port Phillip Bay enivronmental Study: The findings 1992-1996, ISSn 1324-7905. (used with permission of CSIRo PuBLIShInG. Image supplied courtesy of Melbourne Water.) http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content//library/publications/reports/rivers_and_creeks_reports/Port_Phillip_Bay_environmental_Study.pdf)

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b. Value Elements Value elements involve more fundamental belief systems about the importance of things, like our cultural responsibility for land, wilderness, conservation, development and use of resources and so on (e.g. Martin, 1991). Players need not have any personal involvement, nor even to know the area at all, to have a strong position on these values. People can co-exist with different values but conflict arises when players feel that another set of values is foisted on to them.

c. Data Elements Data elements arise when people lack the information to make wise decisions. They may be misinformed about likely outcomes or may disagree about what data is relevant. The relevant data may not exist, or may be held by some of the players who decline to share them. Players may not trust the data provided by other players, or may not accept the relevance of data that does not support their position. They may disagree on the appropriate techniques to analyse or interpret the data.

d. Labelling Elements

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There are five elements that are common in environmental conflicts. All elements may be observed in a particular dispute, or some may be more dominant than others. The different elements require different strategies to resolve them.

Labelling elements enter a conflict when players label other players with negative labels that may introduce misconceptions and stereotypes. ‘Greenies’, ‘dole bludgers’, ‘miners’ and ‘blacks’ can all be used as pejorative terms to avoid listening to what the people are saying and responding to the substance of their concern.

a. Interest or Distributional Elements

e. Structural Elements

Interest elements refer to the self interests of the people involved. Players may be competing to exploit a resource for mineral extraction or for tourism against those who are the present beneficiaries. They have a personal financial involvement in the outcome and believe that it is necessary to sacrifice the interests of others so their needs can be met. They may not even recognise the needs of others.

Structural elements are introduced by the organisational structure we erect to manage the resource. Conflicts between parks agencies and minerals and energy agencies and between resource use and environmental protection agencies are common. Significant conflicts may occur between state and federal interests. These conflicts tend to be driven by forces outside the people in the actual dispute. The actual players

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may have limited authority to do other than represent their agency/state viewpoint.

When SCIenTISTS dISaGRee

advocacy Science It is common for scientists to appear on several sides of an environmental issue, sometimes as ardent advocates of one particular outcome. as someone once quipped, “for every Phd one can find an equal and opposite Phd.” for those of us who appreciate the process of conjecture and refutations of science, this is no more than the healthy tension between conflicting interpretations that shows the essential process of challenge which is integral to science. Lay persons tend to see such assertions not as inputs to a scientific dialogue but as the outputs of science that are obviously flawed since they cannot agree. as Susskind and Cruikshank (1987) point out, such ‘advocacy science’ tends to cancel itself out causing non-scientists to ignore the scientific element entirely since “if they can`t agree, how are we supposed to?” advocacy science, where scientists see themselves as technical spokespersons for a particular viewpoint, can lead to a ‘battle of the print-outs.’ The size and presentation of the printout becomes a substitute for arguing for the appropriateness of conceptual and computer models and their underlying assumptions. Bellett et al (1990) identify the inequality of power and resources in such adversarial proceedings relating to the health impacts of ‘agent orange’ in the Royal Commission environment. I argue that such advocacy science is a prostitution of science that does not contribute to wise solutions of problems, nor to the professional standing of science.

rhetorical devices to sway opinion even when there is little conflict over the substance. a statement like “There is no evidence to show...” might mean there is no data, there is inconclusive data, or the analyses undertaken are not relevant or are incomplete. It does not mean there is evidence to support the counter view. This is a debating device to disparage the opposing position, yet non-scientists might think such statements show a strong conflict over the substance of the debate (ozawa and Susskind, 1985).

“for every Phd one can find an equal and opposite Phd.” Scientists may also cause confusion by presenting facts in selective ways. The same fact can be presented in different ways to support differing perspectives. In the debate in the aCT on the addition of fluoride to drinking water it might be claimed that ten people in the aCT will suffer fluorosis if the water is treated. alternatively, the same assertion could be presented in terms of only 0.003% of the Canberra population being at risk from fluoride poisoning. Such rhetorical devices imply scientific disagreement when there may be no disagreement on the facts.

disputes over Methods Scientists tend to embrace favoured approaches to particular problems, often founded in their training or available equipment. This can lead to disagreement with those who favour other methods. an example would be in trying to assess the likely damage of a release of contaminated water into a stream. Some would choose to use

Is there Real disagreement? It is first necessary to determine if there is a genuine conflict between scientific parties in a dispute. Scientists are often skilled in using

opposite: Jet Ski hire on the River Murray, near the Goolwa Barrage, South australia. (Richard Woods)

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laboratory toxicity studies, where the impact of the contaminants on test species is assessed under standard conditions. Others would argue that such data has very limited application in the field, where a mix of species experience varying environmental conditions over daily and seasonal time scales. These scientists might argue that biological monitoring of the stream is the only way to determine such impacts. Yet others would put fish or other test organisms in the stream in cages and observe their longevity. Such strategies are only appropriate to document impacts, not predict them before discharge. All methods have various strengths and limitations. Honesty about both is a prerequisite to advancing our knowledge.

Errors and Repeatability There can be errors in measurement and in logic. Results that are unexpected are usually treated with caution until other scientists have been able to repeat the measurements. Other errors can be introduced by different methods of interpretation. For example how reasonable is extrapolation beyond the range of actual measurements? How valid is any surrogate measure that may have been adopted? How valid are the statistical tools that have been applied?

Resolving Science Intensive Conflicts

Data Availability If our society seeks wisdom in the resolution of environmental conflicts, such settlements must be built upon all the relevant information that can be made available at the time, and a clear identification of the remaining uncertainties (Dorcey, 1983). I argue that scientists have a professional responsibility to the community to help clarify the data elements in any environmental conflict. This is a fundamental responsibility of any group calling itself a profession, and it is a responsibility at both the individual and at the

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professional association level. Organisations like the Institution of Engineers enshrine such aspects in their code of ethics. Since many environmental scientists are employed by government agencies the role of the professional associations such as Australian Society of Limnologists and the Environment Institute of Australia are particularly important. Advocacy science is undesirable since it rarely leads to all relevant information being available and to the uncertainties being admitted and analysed in terms of risk analysis. Advocacy science, where uncomfortable data is ignored or suppressed, is a parody of what good science should be. A better outcome would result if scientists cooperated to minimise the risks of being wrong. A working approach that ensures all the best technical evidence is incorporated regardless of which ‘side’ it seems to support is essential to wise outcomes and to the professional integrity of scientists It is normal in science to share data and observations as support for particular theories or interpretations. Scientists may restrict access to data while they are interpreting it, but seek to publish their findings as soon as possible. This is unlike the normal adversarial legal proceedings where information may be restricted in an attempt to surprise opponents. In environmental conflicts there are real dangers if one player (a government agency or a developer) is seen as trying to suppress information. This may escalate the value element of a conflict where one group is seen to be trying to foist its views on the wider community. The Hydro Electricity Commission in Tasmania in the great dam debates operated as though the data elements were the key to the conflict, and they were restrictive about what data they released. The conflict was eventually resolved on value elements, not data elements. There is a community expectation, now enshrined in various Freedom of Information Acts, that

if public money is used to collect data on the environment, then that data should normally be public property available to all. Certainly as a principle of conflict resolution the wide availability of data seems a prerequisite to identifying satisfactory outcomes that meet the needs of all players (dorcey, 1983). Creative solutions to problems are unlikely to emerge when critical data is kept secret.

This is obviously an area where scientists might do a better job in a substantive sense than administrators or lawyers, who seem more concerned with process than substance when involved in administrative reviews and appeals hearings. The activities of political lobbyists in these standard-setting exercises are also a concern that a joint fact finding approach could overcome.

Scientific forums Professional associations have a role in providing a forum where the various scientific viewpoints can be argued. It may be that such meetings can come up with conclusions that can be communicated to the parties involved and the press. The very likelihood of an independent scientific scrutiny might well temper some of the wilder claims of protagonists.

Joint fact finding In many conflicts there will be inadequate data, or lack of agreement on what data needs to be collected to address the issue. Science normally works by trying to break down an issue into a series of questions. There are considerable advantages if the various players can agree on these various questions and agree on what data is needed to test a key assumption about which there is disagreement. If there is limited trust between the parties, it is useful to collect jointly or commission the collection of the required data. It is then difficult for one party to attempt to disown or discredit the results at a later stage. This joint work might extend to the collaborative building of forecasting models such as used in the adaptive environmental management approach of hollings (1978). a specific area where joint fact finding might be productive in australia is in setting appropriate standards. It seems inappropriate to import standards from other environments, or to allow advocacy science to dominate the process.

above: new South Wales fisheries staff member Michael Rodgers conducting a fish stock audit at Gil Gil Creek. The fish are stunned temporarily, with 500-1000 volts of electricity, scooped up, measured, weighed and then released. (Image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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“Our organisational arrangements for managing resources rarely allow integrated whole system management, and commonly introduce quite artificial boundaries between interests and scientific disciplines that take considerable energy to manage.” Facilitation There is a growing literature on approaches to resolving environmental and other disputes (e.g. Susskind & Cruikshank, 1987, Fisher & Ury, 1981) and an emerging role for a third party to act as facilitator or mediator to help the parties reach agreement. Such help from a third, independent party holds promise in science-intensive conflicts. The facilitation role involves mainly managing the processes by chairing the discussion and ensuring an orderly resolution, or at least orderly addressing of the various issues. Mediation goes beyond just helping with process and helps with substance as well. The mediator becomes an active explorer of the issues, challenging evidence and framing critical questions to all parties. Both facilitation and mediation roles can demand the use of plain English by the various protagonists in a bid to widen understanding. Periodic progress reports identifying what there appears to be agreement about as well as what remains as disagreement can help to structure the debate and show all parties that progress is possible. The third party might help all players by admitting he does not understand some aspect and seeking a further explanation of it.

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The mediator may regularly paraphrase the arguments on both sides and identify common ground and common assumptions. This may lead to rephrasing of the key questions into an answerable formulation, and it might lead to the parties altering their positions. Scientists have the opportunity to make significant contributions to help resolve environmental conflicts. They can only help, because there are many non-scientific elements in most conflicts, which have to be resolved through the normal political mechanisms. There are often data elements in environmental conflicts, and the scientist can help by ensuring all participants understand what we know about a particular system, and the uncertainties and risks of various courses of action. There are conflicts which do not take place in the formal arena of an Advisory Committee or Public Inquiry. The debate about the desirability of removing phosphorus from detergents is such an example in which I was a protagonist. There are a number of interesting features of this debate: •

Views are very strongly held by players.

•

Published papers and evidence does not seem a significant element in forming these views. Many protagonists do not know the scientific literature in the field.

•

Participants commonly attribute improper motives to participants with differing views. Insults are common.

•

Science is often seen as a tool to bludgeon one’s opponent (the thickness of the printout) rather than a means of finding a way forward.

•

There is often not an effective bargaining arena where opposing views can be presented and argued. Proponents argue in the press or through private lobbying and rarely directly exchange information with those of opposing views.

SuMMaRy and ConCLuSIonS There is an increasing diversity of pressures on our natural resources, and an intensification of the pressures due to population growth. our organisational arrangements for managing resources rarely allow integrated whole-system management, and commonly introduce quite artificial boundaries between interests and scientific disciplines that take considerable energy to manage. The ecological sciences often get confused in the public mind with environmental dogma in the political context. The ability of ecology to make useful predictions is limited, but is increasing.

RefeRenCeS & fuRTheR ReadInGS Bellett, a.J.d., McCullagh, P.M., Selinger, B. & Steele, e.J. (1990) evatt Revisited: Interpretation of Scientific evidence. Search 21, no 2, 52-54. Collingridge, d. & Reeve, C. (1986) Science Speaks to Power. The Role of experts in Policymaking. frances Pinter Publishers, London. Cullen, P. (1990) The Turbulent Boundary between Water Science and Water Management. freshwater Biology, 24, 201-209. Cullen, P. (1977). Involving the Public in Water Management. Proceedings aust. Water and Wastewater assoc. national Conference, Canberra.

Managing natural resources and managing science have in common that they are both operating in a conflict management environment where outcomes are decided by bargaining between different viewpoints. Science is no more rational than resource management in this regard, despite the wish of scientists to occupy the moral high ground of rationalism. The scientific community needs to understand the game it is playing in. Playing tennis when everyone else on the same ground is playing golf is not the way to harmony. Scientists are going to have to develop better skills in conflict management, and how knowledge can contribute to better decisions if they seek to maximise their influence.

hollings, C.S. (1978) adaptive environmental assessment and Management. no 3 International Series on applied Systems analysis. International Institute for applied Systems analysis. John Wiley, Toronto. Jasanoff, S. (1990) The fifth Branch. Science advisers as Policymakers. harvard university Press. Martin, B. (1991) Scientific Knowledge in Controversy. The Social dynamics of the fluoridation debate. State university of new york Press. ozawa, C.P. & Susskind, L. (1985) Mediating ScienceIntensive Policy disputes. Journal Policy analysis & Management, 5, 23-39.

dickson, d. (1988) The new Politics of Science. university of Chicago Press.

Popper, K. (1969) Conjectures and Refutations; the Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

dorcey, a.h.J. (1983) Coastal Management as a Bargaining Process. Coastal Zone Management Journal, 11, no1/2, 13-40.

Susskind, L. & Cruikshank, J. (1987) Breaking the Impasse. Consensual approaches to resolving Public disputes. Basic Book, uSa.

fisher, R. & ury, W. (1981) Getting to yes. negotiating agreement without Giving In. Penguin.

Wildavsky, a. (1979) Speaking Truth to Power. The art and Craft of Policy analysis. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

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“It is expected that by 2025 two thirds of the world’s population will be living with water shortage.” Peter Cullen

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Delivering limnological Knowledge to the water Industry Peter Cullen - CRC for freshwater ecology SIl xxVIII Congress melbourne, 2001

T

he water industry has been developed by the engineering profession to deliver water supply and sanitation services to rural and to urban users. It has been dominated by considerations of the quantity of water and its reliability, but there is no doubt that the industry has provided one of the most important public health measures the world has seen. I intend to address the issue of how we deliver limnological knowledge to enable the water industry to meet its emerging environmental obligations. limnology has developed as an applied science, seeking to provide useful solutions to the practical problems faced by civilisation (likens, 1998). we commonly work at the field scale. Despite this practical orientation, many limnologists are frustrated by the fact that it is hard to transfer scientific insights to the water industry. There are surprising difficulties in transferring ideas and approaches and long lead times in the uptake of ideas. my observations are based on my experiences in Australia a land of low, variable and unpredictable rainfall, where it might be imagined that water would be valued as an important resource. we are all aware of the global water crisis (Gleik, 1998). Available fresh water represents less than half of one percent of the total water stock. we

know that thirty-one countries face water stress and that over one billion people do not have adequate access to clean drinking water. It is expected that by 2025 two thirds of the world’s population will be living with water shortage. And yet, as maude Barlow (2000) told the Stockholm water Conference last year, “we have diverted, polluted and depleted our resource at an astonishing rate, as if there were no reckoning ahead”. The challenges of water are well known to Australians. we live in a land of flood and drought, both of which are seen by rural Australians as natural disasters needing government handouts. we have extracted so much water from the murray Darling that less than 20% of median flows reach the sea, and algal blooms and the closure of the river mouth are common concerns. The outbreak of cryptosporidium in Sydney’s water supply did at least sensitise the community that water comes from catchments, and that catchment protection is fundamental to safe water supply.

opposite: River murray, South Australia. (Graeme Dandy)

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Given this situation in Australia one might expect a strong symbiosis to have developed between the water industry and the research community. Such a symbiosis is now slowly developing but research organisations and funding agencies are both concerned about the poor uptake of new ideas by the industry. An ongoing challenge for us is how do we deliver our knowledge so as to help the water industry meet its environmental and other obligations? Given the widespread acceptance of the importance of the issues, we must ask why is this the situation? •

Are our messages wrong?

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Does the industry not see what we say as relevant?

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Is the water industry unable to understand what we say?

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Is it that we often present a ‘public good’ argument rather than meeting the needs of extractors?

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Do we present our ideas badly?

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Do we fail to engage their attention?

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Is the industry unable to respond to our messages (Barr and Cary, 2000)?

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Is it that the industry has trouble articulating its knowledge needs?

The Response of the Research Community Research funding organisations have responded to the perceived poor uptake with two main strategies.

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They have sought to have potential users of the research involved in setting the research agenda.

•

They have required research teams to develop and deliver technology transfer plans for each research project.

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1. Involving users in setting the research agenda There is no doubt that uptake of new knowledge is easier when the recipient appreciates that there is a need for the new knowledge. The users of knowledge are aware of at least some of the issues they confront. It is an easy assumption then to think that research will be more effective if the needs are established by the users, and this is now the pattern for many of the applied research funding sources in Australia. There is a risk that short term economic elements get the research attention rather than longer term social or ecological aspects. The focus tends to be on production aspects rather than avoiding degradation, achieving long term sustainability or minimising externalities, which many users do not want to think about. This model assumes that the users of the knowledge do have sufficient understanding of the systems of concern, and sufficient understanding of the potential of various research tools and approaches to make informed judgments. There is a tendency to focus on symptoms rather than causes. These funding fashions require changing the way scientists identify research problems and how they develop their research projects, as well as transfer the findings (Johnson, 2000). In some cases the scientists are largely excluded from the setting of the research agenda. This is as flawed as the previous model where the user was excluded (Keen and Stocklmayer, 1999). There is now a view that setting research priorities requires an effective dialogue between knowledge producers and knowledge users, rather than a simple contracting model. The failure of the purchaser-provider model becomes obvious when the purchasers do not know enough to know what they are buying, and the sellers are only concerned to sell their services to make money.

2. Research groups being responsible for technology transfer Research funding bodies have been requiring research groups to take the responsibility for technology transfer (Grayson et al., 2000). Such technology transfer plans have to be incorporated with the funding proposal. There are a number of assumptions with this approach: •

That research teams have the skills and resources to carry out this task

•

That scientists will be motivated to do this work and it will be incorporated in their reward structures

•

That the individual research project is the appropriate unit of knowledge to disseminate

•

That the technology transfer process can be incorporated within the period of the research project and does not need to extend beyond this

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That the research teams have access to the likely user

3. Changing the way research is done There is no doubt that the traditional disciplinary science has led to remarkable achievements. But such science has been less successful in tackling many of the more complex environmental problems we now face, and many people are now realising that we need to develop more genuinely multi-disciplinary teams to address such problems (Gibbons et al, 1994). By multi-disciplinary research we are thinking well beyond just splitting a problem up and letting various teams work on the sub-components hoping that someone will be able to put the pieces together at the end. we are talking genuine collaboration where the different disciplinary specialists collect and interpret data together, and allow the intellectual tensions between them to produce new insights (Cullen et al., 1999).

Above: myponga Reservoir, South Australia. (Clinton Phillips)

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How do Professionals Actually Seek Knowledge? Professionals use a variety of strategies in their seeking of knowledge, but Johnson (1996) has identified what seem to be some common characteristics: •

People seek until they find the first acceptable answer

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They give up searching for knowledge relatively quickly

•

They rarely keep searching for the ‘best’ answer

•

They are receptive to new knowledge when they have a concern–relevance

•

They tend to seek knowledge from someone who is easily accessible and trusted-salience

•

They are likely to accept an idea if the sources are consistent–regardless of the authority of source–gullibility, naivety or laziness?

•

They tends not to seek knowledge from high status individuals who might laugh at the question–safety

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They prefer face-to-face communication if possible–builds trust and puts an obligation on provider

•

They seek information that can be understood rather than references or reprints-synthesis

•

They commonly have little tradition of library use and often use poor seeking techniques

Knowledge seeking is an active energy-using process. However it is dominated by the law of diminishing returns–the more you know about a topic the less likely a pay-off from seeking further knowledge. Resource managers describe the knowledge exchange problem from their perspective. They

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may have less developed strategies for actively seeking information than those on the research side: •

They are very busy, with many messages bombarding them

•

All messages are peddling something, and the assumption is that the providers main concern is self-interest–selling something

•

Many of the messages are conflicting

•

Is the message based on quality science? How do I know?

•

What are the risks of embracing or ignoring a message–do I understand enough to assess the risks?

•

Do I trust the sender?

•

Do I have the opportunity for dialogue to test my understanding?

•

Will I appear ignorant–fear of being put down?

Resource managers have indicated that they seek up-to-date, concise overviews of current understanding of a particular area. This might be in the form of regular updates or of specific briefings on issues of concern. The material might be informed and expanded by the findings of current research projects, but the new knowledge must be embedded with the old knowledge in an easily assimilated form. The material needs to be presented in the user’s context, with an understanding of the knowledge base the reader brings to the topic. The level of complexity of the material needs to be carefully managed to ensure a match with the understanding of the user. They have indicated they are less interested in plain English summaries of the findings of particular research projects. They did not see the individual research project as the appropriate unit of knowledge to transfer to them (Cullen et al., 2001).

Thinker in Residence There’s no better description of Peter Cullen than ‘Thinker in Residence’, the post he took up in Adelaide in 2004, appointed by the most waterobsessed state government in the country. “oh it’s marvellous down here” Peter told me, “Vicky and I have luxurious accommodation including a very large spa bath”. when I pointed out the obvious, he was of course ready for me. “Ah but I use less water in a spa bath than anyone I know. how much room do you think there is for water when I get in?” wherever he was and especially at home in Gunning, Peter was Thinker in Residence. he never stopped thinking and passing on the pearls. for so many years Peter was the ‘go to’ man for state and federal politicians as the water crisis became increasingly overwhelming. As a journalist, I marvelled at his clear message when he wanted to be clear, and his fence sitting when he wanted to play politics with Canberra. I remember a rather funny day at Gunning, a rare occasion when Peter was out-foxed by a minister’s early release of a report. he was very cross all day, but also rather admiring of the tactic. If you were lucky on the day, Peter’s mischief and irreverence made a background briefing from him almost salacious! But he used these skills well and always to further the cause of strong and groundbreaking science. As a mentor for young scientists and people like me he was invaluable. for grown-up scientists, his peers, he was the oasis of ideas. And around a board table, let’s say he was forever in demand. Peter was ever determined to talk face-to-face to decision-makers, to the science community and to rural communities and he would quite often schedule mad days where he’d be on two planes, and/or long drives in order to speak at three venues; an extraordinary feat, when you think of how hard it was for Peter to get around. Bless him.

he said so many important things in his life, but this was a goodie.

“Sometimes science hasn’t been asked. Sometimes science has got it wrong, and sometimes science has got it right but has failed to transfer the knowledge to where it can be used. In this context, governments have cleverly dismantled the technical services that used to deliver such knowledge and replaced them with a new concept know as ‘wishing’.” like so much of what the great man said, this is even truer today, than in 1999 when he said it.

TiCKY FuLLerTon auThor, JournaLisT rePorTer For aBC Four Corners and PresenTer For aBC LaTeLine

Above: A back water of the River murray is filled during the 2011 floods. Chowilla Game Reserve, South Australia. (Bill Doyle)

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“We are exchanging knowledge between a culture of science which is dominated by excitement as to what we don’t know, to an engineering ‘can do’ profession that is interested in what we do know.”

Barriers to the Exchange of Knowledge In our context of exchanging limnological insights to the water industry we face some particular issues: •

We are exchanging knowledge between a culture of science which is dominated by excitement as to what we don’t know, to an engineering ‘can do’ profession that is interested in what we do know (Cullen, 1990).

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The language and models used in limnology may not be familiar to many engineers in the industry.

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The industry is going through a change from domination by professional engineers to domination by managerialism and there has been significant technical de-skilling within the agencies.

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Science funding is now very tight and researchers are expected to get funds from industry. This encourages researchers to be marketeers of particular approaches or of scaremongering to attract resources. The industry is very aware of these pressures and commonly discounts information from scientists as being self-seeking.

The Concept of Knowledge Brokers Given these observations about how resource managers actually seek information, the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Freshwater Ecology in Australia has developed some new approaches to the technology transfer challenge. The CRC program of the Australian Government provides long term (seven year) funding for consortia of knowledge providers and knowledge users who can develop an appropriate program of research, education and technology transfer. The knowledge exchange function is so important to our survival as a research organisation and to the

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management of Australia’s water resources that it needs professional attention, rather than expecting research scientists to do it as an add-on extra. we see knowledge exchange as a two-way process where we contribute knowledge, but where we also listen and help draw out the user’s understanding of the system. The concept of broker is to bring together for mutual advantage, rather than just selling some solution. Knowledge brokers are people with a strong technical base and with strong communication skills. They are synthesisers and packagers of knowledge rather than creators of new knowledge. They are motivated by focussing existing knowledge to solve a problem rather than selling their favourite research tool, model or their next set of experiments. They need good people skills and good project management skills.

Knowledge brokers may be located in the offices of our industry partners where their everyday presence allows trust to develop and where they are readily accessible for discussions. They often help formulate the problem as a preliminary part of the process, and may transfer approaches from other organisation or situations that we have dealt with. many of the issues that now come to the CRC are handled directly by the knowledge brokers who either have sufficient knowledge to deal with the problem, or can get it quickly, sometimes by a phone call or email. Knowledge brokers maintain a repository of all of the reports and papers published by the Centre, and are familiar with the research projects and teams within the Centre. Above: mount Bold Reservoir, South Australia. (Aaron King) opposite (top): Researchers conducting a bird survey in the Coorong, South Australia. (Tom Bradley) opposite (bottom): Birdwatchers conducting a behavioural study of wading birds in the Coorong, South Australia. (lydia Paton)

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Peter in Gunning Both Vicky and Peter were very helpful to us in the early stages of our planning of the upper lachlan water Summit. There are a number of reasons why the event exceeded our expectations of the impact it would have. But the major factor contributing to its success was Peter. he helped us greatly with our planning, his participation made it much easier to attract other quality presenters, he was a major drawcard for the event and his opening presentation was just right. we were very happy to learn recently that Peter saw his involvement in the Summit as one of the highlights of his time in Gunning. we had been looking forward to keeping Peter informed about developments arising from the event and seeking his advice from time to time. while we will not be able to do this, we are even more determined to build on the start made at the water forum to galvanise members or our community to join together in planning how we can adapt to the warmer, drier and more variable climate that will be our lot for the future. In his life, Peter made a significant contribution to the protection of Australia’s environment and water resources. he also made a much appreciated and valuable contribution in our little corner of the world here.

BoB sPiLLer seCreTarY JerraWa CreeK LandCare GrouP, GunninG

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Knowledge brokers may prepare overview materials on emerging or important issues, and these reflect the most up-to-date scientific understanding of the issue with highly professional communication and design work. The research staff contribute their knowledge but do not have to do much of the work. Knowledge brokers provide ‘Joint Problem Solving workshops’. These are used when the industry partner has an issue, but the actual question or the boundaries of the issue are not clear. we put together 2-3 day workshops of 8-15 people, roughly half from industry partners and half from the CRC (knowledge brokers and research staff). These are discussion sessions with few structured presentations. The idea is to develop trust and allow all participants to develop their personal conceptual models of the system of concern. Through this process much richer conceptual models are developed by all participants and real learning takes place. This might lead to the development of a research project or a change in management strategies. Knowledge brokers design and deliver training programs to update professional staff in the water industry about relevant issues. Knowledge brokers manage the consultancy activities we undertake. This takes the project management load, and the client interface load away from the research staff, who are involved in delivering their knowledge either to the brokers or as part of the project team. Brokers have the skills to make commercial judgments as to when consultancies are appropriate for us to be involved.

Knowledge brokers are responsible for working with the research teams to develop knowledge exchange plans for each project and program. This will identify the sorts of synthesis materials that are needed. The knowledge brokers are also responsible for working with the research teams and the communications specialists to develop and deliver such materials. Knowledge brokers help with internal communication across projects, programs and sites. They might co-ordinate overview research workshops that look at research being undertaken across some theme in the Centre, both to ensure that the material they transfer is up to date, but also to ensure that research staff are up to date with the various ideas being tested. Professionals from a communication background are another important part of the knowledge exchange team but they are not sufficient. They work with the knowledge brokers. Their role is to ensure that material is readable and attractive and help keep a ‘reader’ focus on materials. They bring design skills to the team. They help keep a focus on our corporate image.

provide reassurance that their advice is underpinned by appropriate research, and that research staff will be called in directly when highly specialised knowledge is needed. •

Keeping up to date. It is important that the brokers sit in as part of some of the research teams so they are abreast of current thinking and know who are the appropriate people within the Centre to seek advice from. The brokers can form an important link between research projects and teams and the different laboratories of the Centre which are distributed across eastern Australia.

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Co-ordination. we now have four full time brokers, one at professorial level, and a Communications manager, plus a number of other staff who spend a significant proportion of their time on knowledge broking. we have knowledge exchange team meetings every six weeks to assist co-ordination and ensure that the most appropriate people are dealing with particular issues.

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Targeting energy and resources. There is never enough time and resources to meet the opportunities we see or the requests of industry. we tend to focus our energy to meet the needs of the industry partners of our organisation.

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Training and Career Development. As the knowledge exchange program stabilises, the needs of training and career development are now being addressed. Training so far has emphasised general management, communications, leadership and project management.

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evaluation and Accountability. At the simplest level it is clear that the industry partners who provide much of the funding for our Centre like the model and see benefits in the bridging activities by the knowledge brokers. we have not as yet undertaken any formal evaluation, but intend to do so.

ChAllenGeS wITh mAnAGInG The KnowleDGe BRoKInG moDel There are a number of obvious issues with this knowledge exchange model that need to be addressed. •

Resources. It does cost money. Some twenty percent of our cash resources are devoted to it. There are also opportunities for significant cost recovery from some of our activities such as workshops and consultancy activity.

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Acceptance by research staff. Research staff have largely welcomed the knowledge brokers’ help. They see the role as important, but many do not choose to, or are unable to, devote much time to it.

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Acceptance by industry. Industry has also welcomed the brokers who are able to bridge cultures and use appropriate language. They

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Concluding Comments Delivering the insights and knowledge that we develop from our research program is crucial to our success as an organisation. A substantial part of our budget comes from the water industry, not on a project-by-project basis, but as a long term commitment to improving the knowledge base of the water industry. We clearly have an obligation to deliver appropriate knowledge to repay this trust and ensure the investments are maintained. The water industry in Australia invests in our Centre expecting a number of benefits:

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They expect the research projects to focus on relevant issues and to deliver useful knowledge to the industry.

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They need the training of postgraduates, undergraduates and professional education provided.

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They seek a core of specialised staff who operate at the cutting edge of their disciplines who can be available when needed to advise the industry.

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They seek credibility and validity for their management actions from their partnership in a well regarded Centre.

These benefits are not going to be delivered by just publishing our science in the learned journals of the world. That is important and we expect it of our staff. But is not sufficient. The knowledge exchange model being developed within the CRC is just one approach to dealing with this issue, but it is one that is attracting interest and seems to be working.

RefeRenCeS & fuRTheR ReADInGS Barlow, m. (2000) Commodification of water - wrong Prescription. Proceedings of Stockholm water Symposium. Barr, n. & Cary, J. (2000) Influencing Improved natural Resource management on farms. A guide to understanding factors influencing the adoption of sustainable resource practices. Bureau of Rural Sciences. Agriculture fisheries and forestry Australia. Canberra. Cullen, P.w., norris, R.h., Resh, V.h., Reynoldson, T.B., Rosenberg, D., & Barbour, m.T., (1999). Collaboration in Scientific Research: A Critical need for freshwater ecology, freshwater Biology, 42, 131–142. Cullen, P., Andrews, K., Cottingham, P., Doolan, J., edgar, B., ellis, C., fisher, m., flett, D., Johnson, D., Perry, D., Purdie, R., Sealie, l., Stocklmayer, S., Vanclay, f. & whittington, J. (2001) Knowledge Seeking Strategies for natural Resource Professionals. workshop Synthesis. CRC for freshwater ecology and national Rivers Consortium. Canberra. Cullen, P. (1990) ‘The Turbulent Boundary between water Science and water management’, freshwater Biology, 24, 201–209. Dixon, n.m. (2000) Common Knowledge. how organizations thrive by sharing what they know. harvard Business School Press, Boston. Gibbons, m.C., limoges h., nowotny S., Schwartzman P., Scott m. & Trow m. (1994) The new Production of Knowledge. Sage Publications, london.

Johnson, A. & walker, D. (2000) Science, Communication and Stakeholder Participation for Integrated natural Resource management, Journal environmental management 7, 82-90. Johnson, J.D. (1996) Information Seeking. An organisational Dilemma. Quorum Books, wesport. Keen, m. & Stocklmayer, S. (1999) Science Communication: The evolving Role of Rural Industry Research and Development Corporations. Journal of environmental management 6, 196–206. likens, G. (1998) limitations to Intellectual Progress in ecosystem Science. In Successes, limitations and frontiers in ecosystem Science. (eds m.l. Pace and P.m. Groffman) Springer, new york.

Gleick, P. (1998) The world’s water. The Biennial Report on freshwater Resources. Island Press, washington. Grayson, R., ewing, S., Argent, R., finlayson, B. & mcmahon, T. (2000) on the Adoption of Research and Development outcomes in Integrated Catchment management, Journal environmental managment, 7 147-157.

Above: A dredge pumps sand out of the River murray mouth, South Australia. (Image by michael Bell used with the permission of the mBDA) opposite: Construction works on the hume Dam, River murray, Albury, new South wales, 1926. (Bill Strong Collection)

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“We don’t have all the answers – nobody does – but before we start laying bricks and mortar, we have got to get the foundations right, otherwise the cathedral will tumble with the smallest of tremors.” Peter Cullen

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Knowledge investments underpinning national Water reform Peter Cullen 5th australian Stream Management Conference albury Convention & Performing arts Centre, new South Wales Closing address, friday 25 May 2007

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ater reform has never been higher on the australian consciousness. We have been on this water reform journey since 1994, but unfortunately while we can agree as to what we should do, we do not seem to be able to actually do these things.

Section 25. v) of the nWi requires signatories to implement firm pathways and open processes for returning previously over-allocated and/or overdrawn surface and groundwater systems to environmentally-sustainable levels of extraction. The problem now for science and for water managers is to define just what this means.

The degradation of many of our rivers has been obvious since last century and in all the water reform agreements since Council of australian governments (Coag) in 1994 there have been repeated commitments to correcting overallocated systems. however, while water plans have secured water entitlements for irrigators, in reality little real progress has been made in restoring over-allocated systems. even the wellfunded living Murray program has only been able to achieve about half its target.

The naTional WaTer iniTiaTive The national Water initiative (nWi) in 2004 changed the situation, by stating that water plans had to clarify the sustainable levels of extraction. Therefore the nWi defines the consumptive pool and what is able to be traded between competing users. This reform put the environmental needs of the river first, rather than last as it had been throughout the twentieth century.

above: aerial photograph of rice storage with irrigation channels near Blighty, new South Wales. opposite: hay weir with dead river red gums, Murrumbidgee river. (images by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa)

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The Challenge of Defining Over Allocation

Ongoing Measurement of River Health

The 2001 National Land and Water Resources Audit included maps identifying river systems thought to be over-allocated, but these were engineering estimates produced with little consideration of the river health issues. There were also marked differences in the methods used by various states to make these assessments. This unsatisfactory situation has continued with states changing their definitions and approaches to this issue. Some are in denial that rivers are over-allocated despite the obvious degradation. Some even argue that it is not possible to over-allocate since one can only extract what water is in the river. Others who deny that their rivers are over-allocated are actively seeking to recover water for these rivers that they regard as ‘flow stressed’.

Victoria and Tasmania are the only two states that have ongoing systematic efforts to measure river health. The Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) is rolling out the Sustainable Rivers Audit at a slow pace, and there have been some efforts to measure the health of identified ecological assets such as those on the Living Murray and terminal wetlands like Narran Lakes and Macquarie Marshes.

Many States assume that sustainable yield is simply the sum of legal entitlements/allocations. This ignores the needs of ecological assets that must be maintained and ignores the timing issue by taking a simplistic annual total.

The National Water Commission (NWC) has worked with the States and developed an agreed Framework for Assessing River and Wetland Health, and it is important that we start collecting data in all jurisdictions to make these judgments. The Minister has announced $1.35 million to further trial the agreed framework in various biomes in Queensland, and it is expected that further investments will lead to it being used in other jurisdictions. Where river health is impaired, judgments have to be made as to whether changed flow patterns are the cause of the degradation or whether other factors are relevant (e.g. pollution, pest invasions, riparian damage) before remediation can be attempted.

The Determination of Environmental Flows Australia has been a leader in the determination of environmental flow rules, and in various ways these are reflected, if only partially, in many of the existing water plans. We have gone through four stages in the development of our thinking about river flow and river health: •

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Firstly, we decided that each managed river should have at least some minimum flow all the time to maintain its ecology. Some dams had minimum release rules for most of the twentieth century.

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Secondly, we moved to trying to mimic natural flow patterns by releasing a certain proportion of the inflow water to a dam. This led to a ‘hard wiring’ approach that required releases that may have been insufficient to achieve required outcomes.

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Thirdly, we developed an understanding of the various ecological processes driven by different parts of the hydrograph, and we tried to build on natural flow events to ensure these processes were enabled.

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The final approach is based on identifying the important ecological assets that must be maintained, and then deciding what are the appropriate flow regimes needed to protect them. in some ways, this is a form of prioritising, in other ways, a simplification of a complex process. it has probably led to a wider understanding, but also a view amongst some that environmental assets are little more than an irrigation field that must be watered efficiently.

The CollaPSe of aQuaTiC eCoSySTeMS The collapse of an aquatic ecosystem does not happen under average conditions, but under extreme conditions that stress the system beyond which it can recover. We have observed a number of examples over the last 20 years. When we add excess nutrients to a system, it copes for a while, but then switches from a system that may have been dominated by macrophytes to one dominated by algae. an algal system can be quite stable, and may be difficult to reverse; but an algal system is generally regarded as less desirable than a macrophyte-dominated system. The loss of river red gums in the lower Murray, and the loss of parts of the Coorong in the present drought are further examples of switches that may be irreversible.

“The loss of River Red Gums in the Lower Murray, and the loss of parts of the Coorong in the present drought are further examples of switches that may be irreversible.”

above: fairy Terns struggle to breed successfully due to limited food resources in the Coorong, South australia.(lydia Paton) opposite: nardoo grows in the wetlands as they go from dry to wet, narran lake nature reserve, new South Wales. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa)

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Australian aquatic ecosystems have evolved under a variable climate and are well used to droughts and floods. They have a natural capacity to recover from the stress of these natural events; this capacity we refer to as the resilience of the system. It is important that we develop our understanding of this resilience so that we do not inadvertently reduce the resilience. For instance one clear mechanism for aquatic organisms to hang on during no flow periods is in the deeper water holes that persist when a river ceases to flow. Fish and other organisms hang on in these refuges, and can colonize the river again when flow resumes. We have often destroyed these refuges and reduced the capacity of the system to recover from stress. We have allowed mismanagement of land leading to erosion that fills holes with sand or other materials. We may allow these remaining water holes to be pumped out to provide water during a drought. We may cause them to dry out when we extract excessive amounts of groundwater nearby.

Managing Aquatic Ecosystems in the TWENTY-FIRST Century

These switches, when an aquatic ecosystem changes from one form to another, come about when we cross some threshold – perhaps in nutrient concentration, or in flow regimes. Commonly we have been unaware that we were stressing the river so that a threshold was approaching, and some of these thresholds, such as the loss of River Red Gums, are probably irreversible.

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We are now facing a shift in climate that is likely to lead to a drying of our landscape and perhaps increased variability in our drought-flood patterns. These changes in our climate will make changes to our aquatic ecosystems and we can expect the distribution of plants and animals to change. Our system must also cope with occasional invasions of exotic plants and animals, and of course with the pressures our society imposes through the extraction of water, changing of flow regimes and addition of pollutants. The aim of river management in the twenty-first century is to retain, or where necessary, restore the resilience of the river system to cope with changes. Maintaining the various processes that drive the aquatic system is probably more important than trying to maintain some particular favoured species or community.

in our settled landscapes we have no chance of restoring rivers to any pristine condition. This is just not a possibility when we have changed the catchment vegetation and hence flow patterns. We can however seek to have a healthy river where the key ecological processes are maintained and particular high value ecological assets are protected.

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a national synthesis of the outcomes from the various river restoration projects undertaken under the national heritage Trust (nhT) program might provide further insights into best practice restoration activities.

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review on the role of floods and multiple floods on floodplain health and resilience. identify the ecosystem services provided by floodplains. Develop guidelines for floodplain harvesting. Knowledge on the persistence of various ecological components of floodplains that have been alienated for various periods of time could be important if such floodplains are to be restored.

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review of what is known about subsurface groundwater dependent ecosystem types, ecological processes and ecosystem services.

unDerSTanDing The reSilienCe of aQuaTiC eCoSySTeMS The idea of resilience provides an appropriate framework to address the question of sustainable levels of extraction: •

review the concept of resilience and thresholds as they apply to australian river systems. While some australian terrestrial work has used this framework its applicability to river systems needs to be further developed. it has been used overseas to understand switching in lake systems.

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The relationship between threatening processes and threshold responses of various aquatic organisms (fish, waterbirds, floodplain vegetation and invertebrates) needs to be understood.

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a collation of any existing data sets relating aquatic organisms to flow regimes and an analysis of these data sets to identify general principles.

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an update of previously published review of the water requirements of wetland and floodplain plants and plant communities, identifying critical ecological processes covering maintenance dispersal and recruitment.

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review of the various types of refugia by which aquatic organisms cope with extreme conditions. given the importance of refugia in the resilience of aquatic systems it is important we identify the full range of important refugia beyond deep and persistent pools.

above: goolwa Channel with very low water levels, South australia. (russell Seaman) opposite: Signs showing heights of previous floods and in the background evidence of very low water levels, river Murray at echuca, victoria. (image by irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBa)

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Finding and Implementing Creative Solutions Big man, big intellect, big heart, big sense of humour – big shoes to fill! Peter’s messages about ecology, balance, inclusiveness, understanding, honesty and above all finding solutions have been invaluable and often delivered with a twinkle in his eye, despite the serious subject matter. His time with the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council’s Community Advisory Committee helped to shape fearless and constructive advice to support all facets of the health of the Basin but particularly the once Mighty Murray. Peter’s legacy remains; he has shown that creative solutions can be found and implemented, at all levels.

LEE O’BRIEN chair of the advisory committee to the murray-darling basin ministerial council chair of the murrimbidgee catchment management authroity

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The Raising National Water Standards Program The NWC advises the Australian Government on expenditure from the $200 million Raising National Water Standards Program. The Program seeks to invest in knowledge and has nine investment areas: •

Water accounting

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Emerging markets

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Water planning and management

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Irrigation water

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Water-dependent ecosystems

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Urban water management

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Groundwater

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Northern rivers

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National assessment of water resources

The NWC has established an expert advisory group to advise the Commission on investments in this area. It is chaired by Commissioner Professor Peter Cullen and includes Professor Angela Arthington, Dr Bruce Chessman, Mr Peter Cottingham, Dr Peter Davies, Dr Jane Doolan, Professor Peter Fairweather, Dr Ray Froend, Dr Graham Harris and Professor Sam Lake. The main foci of the investments in water dependent ecosystems are: •

River and wetland health assessment

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Identification of environmental outcomes

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Determination of sustainable levels of extraction of water

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Identification and provision for high conservation value systems

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Managing environmental water

The Commission made a public call for proposals to invest in this area and received a number of proposals. Three of these were accepted for funding and have been announced by the Minister, and other areas are being further developed and will be commissioned: •

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new South Wales Murray Wetlands Working group – Minimising environmental damage from wetland recovery from inland wetlands and determining water regimes to minimise the impact of sulfidic sediments ($17,520). university of new South Wales – national water resource assessment using waterbirds to assess ecosystem health and the conservation

importance of water-dependent ecosystems and rivers ($951,578). •

Murray Darling freshwater research Centre – optimising environmental watering protocols to maximise benefits to native fish populations ($1,850,000).

above: a large area of river Murray floodplain, south of gol gol in new South Wales and Mildura in victoria, has been heavily impacted by salinity and the presence of sulfidic sediments, January 2008. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa) opposite: a view east along the headings Cliffs, Murtho forest reserve, South australia, January 2011. (Bill Doyle)

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A Systems Thinker Most natural resource scientists think in terms of compartments. Their training and reputations usually follow the classical reductionist approach leading to specialisation in a particular subdiscipline. As a result we have many esteemed freshwater biologists, fluvial geomorphologists, forest ecologists, resource economists, etc, that offer insights into how the natural domain intersects with human endeavours. But how many have the skills to bring all this together? The scale and type of problems facing a nation that endures a range of stresses to its rivers, soils, native vegetation and coast and marine environments requires special qualities to develop and articulate policies that comprehends the holistic framework in which the stresses operate. Biophysical forces that vary in time and space are but one component. Understanding the history of use and abuse of our lands and waters, the institutional structures that operate in a federated nation, and the social and economic conditions that influence the behaviour of individuals and organisations in managing our natural resources, must also be appreciated. To sit on committees, to write briefs and articles, and to present papers at conferences that bring together all these traits involves not just intellectual skills in comprehending all these components, but special powers of communication. Peter Cullen was so endowed. Early in his career, Peter confronted the complexities of coastal management. He brought to this field a love of scuba diving and hence a familiarity with marine environments. Multiplicity of agencies engaged in managing the coast in often conflicting and overlapping ways was of great concern. In 1979 he served as the major advisor to the House of Representatives Standing Committee that examined the issue of degradation of our treasured coastal resources through population and developer pressures and failures of

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governance to address these challenges. This gave him a taste of the difficulties of working in highly contested domains. This experience steered him towards what he thought at the time was a more ‘simple’ system involving freshwater ecology and use of river resources. But was it that simple? Moving into river management from a respected science base in freshwater ecology proved to be a tremendous gain for natural resource policy development in Australia. At last we had a ‘thinker’ and a ‘doer’ who could connect the dots. For instance, he made sure that over allocation of river waters could be linked to algal blooms, loss of fish stock and economic losses as well as to natural variation in rainfall and runoff. He stressed the interconnection of river flows to groundwater which he argued were grossly underestimated in any assessment of the health of our drainage basins. A holistic view of catchments from the uplands to the sea, coupled with the use of disciplines that he respected outside of science to assist communication, enabled Peter Cullen to deliver to policy makers a perspective that was unique. Clarity of thought combined with wit and a powerful intellect is unsurpassed in the history of natural resource management in Australia.

Professor Bruce Thom Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney Founding Member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists

inveSTing in The ManageMenT of environMenTal WaTer it has been challenging for governments and communities to see water being re-allocated to the environment. While there is widespread agreement that we need to ensure the health of our rivers, there is also legitimate pressure that we manage the environmental water as efficiently as possible and demonstrate the benefits to the community. Some obvious areas for activity include: •

a review of environmental outcomes of flushing flows (initially a review of what is known about flushing flows should be conducted and then possibly further experimental studies). flushing flows are often abrupt in both the rising and falling limbs of their hydrographs and the ecological value of flushing flows remains poorly known and they may be harmful.

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an exploration of the scope, benefits and constraints of mechanisms such as environmental water trusts for provision and management of environmental water.

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facilitation of a community of practice between environmental water managers across australia, which will build capacity and assist with cross border issues.

been the commitment to restore surface water and groundwater systems to sustainable levels of extraction. The challenge for aquatic scientists and river managers is to determine these sustainable levels of extraction: the challenge for our politicians is to see if they can resist the pressures of interest groups and ensure we operate within the sustainable levels. The australian government is investing to build our knowledge base through the raising national Water Standards Program. Some projects have already been announced and more are under active development. These investments give us an exciting opportunity to move forward and provide the knowledge base to allow managers to provide the healthy river systems our communities seek.

ConCluSionS The current drought has shown us how fragile both our aquatic ecosystems and the rural communities that depend on water from our rivers are. our mismanagement of our river systems has reduced their resilience to cope with natural events, like the current drought. We have lost thousands of river red gums that have survived many droughts in the past, and we are fast losing much of the iconic Coorong as it becomes hypersaline. We have been on a path of water reform over the last decade, with the 1994 Coag reforms, the 2004 nWi and the 2007 Prime Minister’s Plan for Water Security. underpinning each of these efforts has

above: aerial showing Murray Mouth and Coorong, South australia. (Department of environment and natural resources)

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The Big story on Water: Describing the Issues Paper 6

Water as a Constraint to Growth in the 21st Century

Paper 7

Water Challenges of the 21st Century

Paper 8

flying Blind: The Disconnect between Groundwater and Policy

Paper 9

Running on empty: The Risk of Continuing to Dither While the empty Light is flashing The Innamincka Choke at the eastern end of the Cullyamurra Waterhole, south Australia. (Bill Doyle)

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“We are entering a tough new world, and we have little in our past experience to help us make smart decisions.” Peter Cullen

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Water as a Constraint to Growth in the 21st Century Peter Cullen natural Resources, Mines and Water–natural Resources Conference Brisbane Thursday, 17 May 2006

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rban and rural Australians are starting to feel the squeeze on available water, and these pressures will intensify as climate change reduces water availability, and concentrations of population demand reliable water supply. Water scarcity scares people, and will lead to growing tensions in our society as all groups scrabble to grab as much of this precious resource as they can. We are almost through the denial stage, and are now entering the blame phase. Canberra, the government, unreasonable demands from south Australia (sA) and new south Wales (nsW) graziers and wasteful use of Menindee Lakes will all be used as reasons why others should change their behaviours before we ourselves should. Many of these proposals will be costly and ineffective. As natural resource professionals it is more imperative than ever that we keep an eye on the big picture, understand our resource and seek to develop innovative and effective solutions to what we confront.

InTRoDUCTIon The ongoing concentration of Australia’s urban population, in major cities such as the BrisbaneGold Coast area, sydney and Melbourne is posing major new challenges for water planning. In the 20th century, local governments and developers

decided where development would take place, and then called upon water agencies to just build the necessary infrastructure to provide water. Water planning was about the next augmentation option, and making decisions about how much water to store to ‘droughtproof’ a city. There was little regard for economic or environmental factors. Planning is about preparing for the future. In Australia we have a long history of water planning, but it has commonly been rather superficial. It has tended to be about the next augmentation of water supplies to meet the needs of growing cities. The main challenge has been timing, given the long lead time of water projects, and the amount of water to be stored in a country where three to five year drought periods are not uncommon. engineers, with little regard to economic or the ecological implications, carried out water planning. Water planning in the twenty-first century must now operate in an environment of increasing water scarcity as urban and rural demands for water increase, and we realise that some water must be left in rivers to maintain river health that is essential not just for amenity reasons but to

opposite: Chifley Dam is the major water storage for Bathurst, new south Wales. (Image by Irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBA)

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support agriculture and rural communities. Climate change is leading to less rain in some areas and seems to be leading to greater cyclonic intensity in the north. Most of the cheaper dam sites have now either had dams built, or are used for other purposes, and any proposal for a new dam in settled areas raises noisy concern from those whose current interests are threatened.

“Local governments and land developers commonly have wildly optimistic growth projections which, if realised, would have Australia overtaking the population of India in a short time.” Community Responses to Water Scarcity The 2000-2006 drought experienced in many parts of Australia gives us a foretaste of the future. People have become very interested in water, and many people know the status of the dams that supply them. They are frightened of running out of water and expect Governments to find extra water to meet their needs. There is little appreciation of widespread water scarcity, and commonly a view that other sectors are wasteful and should have water taken from them. Generally they want water and they don’t really care whom they take it from. These pressures lead to strange political ‘solutions’ as politicians want to be seen to be doing something. Commonly, with no serious planning, proposals arise for long pipelines or desalination plants that seem to be quick fixes.

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The Independent Review established by the Western Australian (WA) Government to assess the proposal for a canal from the Kimberleys to supply Perth has now reported that such a canal would cost about $15 billion and provide water at $6.50/kL (cf to around $1.20/kL for desalination). Using a canal to deliver this water would double the average water bill for a Perth household. It would indeed be cheaper to transport water by tanker when needed ($5/kL). However, this was a serious issue that an election was fought over, with proponents calling for visionary, if ruinously expensive, thinking.

Water Planning for the 21st Century Water planning is about balancing the needs of the community with the various alternative water sources that might be available to it. This balance is informed by technical considerations as to whether an option will work, economic considerations as to whether it is sensible, the risks to human health, environmental considerations as to what we may lose and social considerations as to whether a community will accept it. All states have now committed to such water planning when they signed the National Water Initiative (NWI). The NWI commits states to develop plans that recognise that the trade-offs between competing outcomes for water systems will involve judgments informed by best available science, socio-economic analysis and community input. States are required to make an assessment of the sustainable level of extraction of surface and groundwater systems, and this defines the consumptive pool available for human use. This in itself is a radical step forward, making the environmental needs paramount before water is extracted, rather than an optional add-on that characterised much water planning in the twentieth century. Moreover, if systems are already over-allocated or stressed, then states are committed to making substantial progress in returning them to sustainable levels of extraction by 2010.

Population Growth Issues Local governments and land developers commonly have wildly optimistic growth projections which, if realised, would have Australia overtaking the population of India in a short time. often a concern is expressed that these wonderful growth opportunities will not be realised unless governments give them water. In water planning it is dangerous to rely upon the growth projections of land developers and other boosters of a region. Most states have a demographic unit of some sort that provides more reliable population projections for any region. overall, our urban water utilities are planning to provide water for an additional four and a half million people by 2030, an increase of 35% although the growth expectations range from 8% (Adelaide) to 69% (Gold Coast).

In estimating likely per capita water usage in the future there are a number of considerations: •

Household size seems to be decreasing, leading to increased per capita usage.

•

Climate change may lead to hotter conditions and an increase in water use.

•

The uptake of water saving technologies like dual flush toilets, water efficient showerheads and domestic appliances may decrease overall use.

•

Whether governments will require water saving devices to be used in all new homes and whether there will be a requirement to retrofit older homes.

•

The extent to which public education and awareness about water scarcity will reduce water use is unknown.

•

How effective water sensitive urban developments will be in decreasing water consumption.

Per Capita Water Usage Issues Australian urban residents seem to use between 74-107kL/household/yr. Average consumption for the capital cities in 2005 was 84kL/person/annum and this represents a 15% reduction since 2000/01. obviously such figures will vary with rainfall and temperature, with community perceptions of water shortage and the effectiveness of demand management strategies in each city. The reduction does demonstrate how the community can save water during drought periods.

In doing these projections it may be useful to consider residential water use, commercial water use and open space water needs. Averaging across these uses may give misleading estimates.

opposite: Two children in a school garden. (Image used with the permission of the Water services Association of Australia)

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Possible Water Sources

The Greenhouse Gas Issue

In looking at possible sources of water, it is important to consider a full range of options.

Few Australians now deny that climate change is happening, and the human induced rise in CO2 is a plausible explanation. Whether Australia will attempt to reduce emissions or just seek to adapt to the changing climate and sea level is as yet unclear, although it is likely there will be increased focus on greenhouse gas emissions. In my view, comparing the greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs of any water proposal is a proper and necessary planning element.

Conventional Sources •

Taking more water from existing catchments

•

Developing new dams

•

Transferring water from other catchments

•

Purchasing water from other users

•

Groundwater

Alternative sources •

Desalination of sea water

•

Desalination of other salty water

•

Recycling treated wastewater to supply

•

Recycling treated wastewater to substitute for drinking water in various uses

•

Using roof water

•

Using stormwater from urban runoff

In considering the array of supply options, the analysis should consider: •

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Table 6.1 Australian Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Urban Water (tonnesCO2/ML)

The technical merits of the option – will it work, can it be done?

•

The cost of the option (whole of life costing per ML of water)

•

The reliability of the source and how it fits within a mix to ensure security

•

The greenhouse gas emissions of the option

•

The environmental impacts of the option

•

The health risks of the water supplied

•

The social acceptability of the option

T h i s L a n d, o u r Wat e r

2001-

2002-

2003-

2004-

2002

2003

2004

2005

0.8

0.8

0.8

0.8

Gold Coast 1.1

1.3

1.5

1.2

Sydney

0.6

0.7

1.0

1.2

Melbourne

1.0

1.0

1.1

0.8

Canberra

0.3

0.4

0.3

0.4

Brisbane

Desalination With many major cities on the coast, the idea of desalination is attractive. There is plenty of sea water. The challenges are the high energy cost and the problem of disposal of the highly saline brine. The costs vary with scale and the Water Corporation of Western Australia reports costs of $1.00-$3.80/kL. With conventional water sources reaching their limits, some communities are developing this approach. Technological improvements can be anticipated, but the future availability and cost of energy is less certain.

Recycling to supply

Recycling to Replace Potable Water

There is no doubt that we can now treat wastewater to a standard where it is suitable for water supply, and some overseas communities are now doing this. It is under active consideration in several water-constrained towns such as Toowoomba and Goulburn. We already have many examples where wastewater is discharged to streams and water is extracted downstream for further urban use. There seems considerable faith that a kilometre or so of natural watercourse provides better protection to public health than a sophisticated water treatment plant. The amount of dilution is one factor in this judgment. Water treatment can assure microbiological water quality but there are community concerns about microcontaminants from pharmaceuticals in the water supply that constrains potable use of reclaimed water.

In the 1980-1990s it was fashionable to try and avoid discharge of wastewater to rivers and wastewater was used to support agriculture. This was done to protect the environment, but had a consequence of reducing flow in some rivers. There is now a tension between Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) who seek to retain such water for environmental flows and water authorities that seek to use it for recycling. Using wastewater to develop new irrigation enterprises is now inappropriate in areas facing water shortage, where recycled water has a greater value as a replacement for drinking water

Above: Adelaide Desalination Plant construction, March 2010, south Australia. (Photo courtesy of sA Water)

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Big Dreams and Big Visions Peter was a big man – physically, intellectually – with big ideas, vision, generosity, determination, perseverance and humanity. He enjoyed life to the full and had a wonderful sense of fun. Peter had impeccable integrity and was able to straddle, be trusted by, and influence the thinking and actions of, all sides of politics in a way that few have. from my first meeting with Peter there was an immediate connection of values and purpose, but more importantly, of common interests, particularly a love of good steak and red wine – something we enjoyed regularly at Canberra’s Charcoal Restaurant. over time, I learned that Peter entertained big dreams and big visions for those things that were important to him and his country. He dreamt of science playing a greater role in informing and influencing public policy, particularly in conserving and enhancing Australia’s environment; of the Australian Alps being planned and managed in an integrated manner and being placed on the World Heritage List; of the Murray Darling Basin being managed in a way that would reverse more than a century of degradation; and of the Lake eyre Basin not being degraded in the way that other major river basins in Australia had been. Peter not only had these dreams but he contributed his considerable intellect, clear communication skills and boundless energy to

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ensuring they would be realised. for many of these causes, his retirement meant that he was able to make an even greater contribution, often at considerable personal cost to his health. His perseverance and determination were amply demonstrated in the establishment of the CRC for freshwater ecology. When the first attempt failed he was extremely disappointed and a lesser man may well have shelved the idea and moved on to other things – but not Peter!!! The rejection caused him to try harder, to refine and strengthen the concept, widen support for it and ensure that his proposal was accepted and funded by the Australian Government. The CRC, along with the Wentworth Group, of which he was a founding member and its principal spokesperson, played a critical role in advancing reform of the management of the Murray Darling Basin. He is sorely missed now. While Peter was involved in these great national issues, he also generously found time to be involved in a range of local issues and to commit his precious time to a number of Australian Capital Territory (ACT) bodies. over and above all of Peter’s significant achievements in science and public policy, were his qualities as a human being – compassionate, principled, ethical, balanced, wise, focused on family, concerned for others and a wicked sense of humour. He was very devoted to his family, providing love and support to vicky through her trials with Anglican Ministry and to his daughters as they developed into fine young women and pursued their various interests as adults. I am privileged to have known and been a friend of Peter Cullen.

GreG Fraser ForMer aCT direCTor oF enVironMenT and ConserVaTion LonG TerM Friend

“In my view urban users should pay the full costs of treating wastewater to a level where it can be recycled or discharged to the environment without harm.” in many uses such as toilet flushing and garden watering, and in some industrial uses. There are two challenges. firstly, to what level should the wastewater be treated – should it be fit for purpose or a higher quality to ensure no risks to human health? The second challenge is how to deliver it to potential uses, especially when urban layouts have a large ‘end of pipe’ sewage treatment facility on the coast. expensive pipe systems and pumping may be required to get it to users. Where the costs of connecting a new subdivision to an existing trunk sewer is high, we are seeing the development of third-pipe systems where recycled water is supplied to each block from a local sewage treatment plant. It is very difficult to get accurate costs for the various recycling demonstrations now underway. What is obvious is recycled water is significantly more expensive to produce than the price it is being sold for. Desalination is more expensive than recycling of wastewaters if we consider costs at the treatment plant, based largely on the energy required to remove salt. However, desalinated water can be pumped back to upstream storages and delivered through the existing pipe system, whereas recycled water is generally distributed through a new third-pipe system that is costly.

Periodically there are proposals to pump reclaimed water long distances to support existing or proposed new irrigation developments. The potential users of this water rarely want to pay the costs of getting it to them. In my view urban users should pay the full costs of treating wastewater to a level where it can be recycled or discharged to the environment without harm. If others then want to pay to transport this water that is fine, but that should not be a charge on the urban community or general taxpayer as it is a cost of production.

DeTeRMInInG sUsTAInABLe LeveLs of eXTRACTIon We now have useful tools for assessing river health, and many of the rivers that supply urban communities would appear to be over-allocated. The nWI requires an assessment of sustainable levels of extraction, and progress towards returning these systems to such a level. This is a major challenge for both science and for our communities. for science, we need to identify the relationship between extraction of water and changes in river health. River health impacts seem to become apparent when agricultural activities cover more than 30% of a catchment area, although distance from the river, and the health of the riparian vegetation can mediate these effects. Many catchments that support urban communities have passed this threshold. similarly, in southern streams, there is a suggestion that extracting up to 30% of the median flow may not cause great damage, but that extracting 50-60% does. This is of course a crude way of thinking about the problem, and it is necessary to be clear as to the ecological processes that must be maintained.

opposite: Peter Cullen (vicky Cullen Collection)

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However, from time to time extreme events occur that can lead to dramatic changes. Droughts, floods, fires and invasions of pest species can all trigger dramatic and sudden change that may be effectively irreversible. These more extreme events are key drivers of change and push a system across a change threshold that is commonly not obvious until after it has been reached. These extreme events need to be the focus of catchment management attention. We have seen such unexpected thresholds with dryland salinity, with extensive algal blooms in the Darling River and the loss of redgums in the Lower Murray. From the community’s point of view it is the unusual year that tips a system over its threshold, the threshold may not be obvious until we reach it, and it may well be irreversible. The community needs to appreciate these risks and make a judgment as to how close to the edge of a cliff they seek to stand. Those benefiting from the extractive use of the water should not make this decision alone, since a much wider community interest is at stake.

“Urban users consume less than 20% of the water extracted, so their capacity to strip much water from irrigators is limited.” Many important features have already been lost in urban rivers, and there is no prospect of returning to pristine conditions. The challenge is to understand the various pressures on the river and manage them as best can be done. In terms of flow it may be possible to alter the way systems are managed to find better ecological outcomes; in other cases water will have to be returned to the river if health is to be improved. This remains a major challenge for both aquatic science and for social science as communities come to grips with the trade-offs.

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Going Forward Water planning and water trading are key elements of coping with water scarcity in the twenty-first century. If we can make this work, communities should not run out of water, and developments should not be unduly constrained. However, it would be rash to assume water will ever be as cheap as it was last century.

Linking Water Availability and Development Many local authorities seem to approve subdivisions and then look around to see where the water can be taken from. It is important that planning authorities understand water scarcity and demand evidence of water availability before approving subdivisions.

Development Charges Land developers are charged ‘development charges’ to cover the infrastructure to provide water. It seems common that these charges do not relate to the real costs of supplying the water, and it seems they should. There is an assumption that taxpayers will provide the necessary infrastructure, thus removing an important market discipline as to where land should be developed.

Purchase of Water from Irrigators The community is giving irrigators a massive capital asset as they are given more secure water entitlements. The water reforms are developing water markets that will allow water to move to higher value uses. The water reform agenda means that urban communities can purchase water from irrigators, where that is a cost effective option for meeting their water needs. Governments have been reticent about using this option, fearing a backlash from communities where a farmer realises his assets and water moves from the area. Urban users consume less than 20% of the water extracted, so their capacity to strip much water from irrigators is limited.

ConCLUsIons The combination of population growth, climate change and the awareness of the need to leave some water in rivers to protect their health is leading to a squeeze on water resources and we are entering an age of relative water scarcity. We can address these issues if we improve the efficiency with which water is used in urban and rural areas, and develop a water market that will allow water to move to its most valuable uses. We need to be much smarter is designing water infrastructure and appreciate that the greenhouse gases released by some of the more energyintensive water options may well be driving the climate change we are seeking to adapt to.

RefeRenCes & fURTHeR ReADInGs WsAA facts 2005. The Australian Urban Water

Industry. Water services Association of Australia, Melbourne.

Above: Lake Littra having recently received an environmental water allocation, Chowilla national Park and Wetlands, south Australia. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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“We have surely learned from our mismanagement of surface water in the twentieth century that flying blind is not a very smart strategy.” Peter Cullen

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Water Challenges of the 21st Century Peter Cullen Agforce state Conference Charleville, Queensland Tuesday 25 July 2006

A

ustralia is facing some serious water challenges, and business as usual is no longer an option. Many Australians, both urban and rural, are concerned they will not have the water they believe they need to support their lifestyles or their businesses. We have increasing demands for water, and yet we seem to have a shrinking amount of water available to us. There is little doubt that Australians not only want to see healthy rivers but they expect water to be available to support their urban lifestyles and for agriculture to supply the food, fibre and jobs. Water management in the twenty-first century has to address these conflicting and difficult demands. There is no doubt that all who want water must ensure it is used efficiently; it is necessary to measure, manage and plan water much better than we did last century. I start with three observations on the legacy we have to work with:

• We cannot return these impacted systems to a ‘pristine’ or ‘pre-european’ state, but we need to understand that, if we push any ecological system too far, it will change to a system that may be much less desirable. Dryland salinity, algal blooms on the Darling and Murray and the loss of thousands of River Red Gums along the lower Murray are examples of where I believe we have pushed our systems too far and lost things many of us value.

THe PRessuRes On OuR WATeR ResOuRCes There are increasing demands for water from the burgeoning growth of urban areas, from agriculture where water is wealth and the recognition of governments that we have over-allocated many of our surface water and groundwater systems and that they must be returned to sustainable levels of extraction.

• Australians have caused measurable changes in the health of many of our rivers. This has impacted on fish, waterbirds, wetlands and floodplains, as well as on estuaries and coastal waters. • The health of a river is directly driven by the health of the catchment, and the land uses in the catchment determine the health of the rivers.

Opposite: Harvesting cotton near Dalby, Queensland. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Climate change is now real and unavoidable. Had we heeded the early warnings we might have slowed or avoided the present problem, but we didn’t, and so now we must learn to adapt. It seems certain that our rainfall will be more variable, and many areas that we now farm will have less rainfall. It seems that some northern areas may have cyclones of increased intensity and frequency, but we cannot yet be sure. The challenges our society faces in terms of the climate change issue are: •

Rising carbon dioxide is driving the climate change and, if we seek to slow the increase, we need to reduce use of fossil fuel. This appears to be beyond our civilisation, but we should expect some form of carbon tax that will increase fuel prices.

•

Many presently marginal farming areas will become impossible to farm. Do we have the capacity to get people off these lands or will we subsidise them to stay maximising their misery and the land degradation, and preventing viable operators getting access to more land? Drought relief is the cutting edge of this problem, and one political parties continue to refuse to address.

Other Drivers of our Future There are two other elements that must now enter into our thinking. •

Fuel prices will continue to increase–let’s start thinking of $3.00/litre–what does this do to the economics of tractor use on farms, the transport of goods and the opportunities for biofuels?

•

The threat of global pandemics will increase. Grinding poverty in undeveloped countries will mean families live in close contact to various domestic animals, and may avoid killing animals when an outbreak occurs. The implication for Australia could be a sudden shut down in global trade. Therefore it is a strategic imperative for Australia to be selfsufficient for reasons more important than doctrinaire positions about global free trade.

We are entering a tough new world, and we have little in our past experience to help us make smart decisions. Communities are frightened of change and will seek to protect the status quo if they feel alternatives might be worse for them. Politicians want bold visionary projects to show they care and are doing something, but many of the projects that come to the surface are just silly in economic, social and environmental terms.

The River Health Agenda We have developed tools to measure river health over the last ten years, and the National Land and Water Resources Audit (Anon., 2002) provided a worlds first in terms of a national snapshot of river health. Some 14,606 river reaches throughout the agricultural regions were examined and assigned an aquatic biota index (invertebrates) and a physical environment index. Each was reported separately in four bands (of un-impacted reference condition and three bands of increasing level of impairment. On the biological assessment, one

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third of the river length assessed (21,909 km) was to some degree impaired, meaning it had lost between 20% and 100% of the invertebrates that would have been expected to be found in similar un-impacted reaches. Almost one quarter of these rivers had lost at least 20% of the different kinds of aquatic invertebrates that would be expected to occur under natural conditions. The environmental assessment considered catchment disturbance, flow disturbance, nutrients/suspended solids and aquatic habitat and indicated that 85% of reaches had been modified, largely by catchment activity. nutrients and suspended solids were higher than natural in some 90% of river reaches. More than 50% of river reaches had impaired habitat, largely due to loss of riparian vegetation. We do know what is needed for a healthy river (Allan, 2004) and many catchment bodies are using nHT and nAP funds to seek to protect and restore rivers.

A Healthy River intact riparian vegetation communities - shade (temp), leaf litter, filtering Flow patterns that provide appropriate wetting to maintain particular parts of the ecosystem - maybe periodic flooding so floodplains & wetlands connect to river no blockages to fish migration control pollution - sediment, nutrients, salt & chemicals control exotics

Above: sheep drinking at a farm dam that’s exhibiting very low water levels due to the long and severe drought, urana, new south Wales, 2008. (Image by Irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: livestock in a pasture that has slowly dried up due to prolonged drought. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Governments have now committed to two new programs to improve river health. The National Water Initiative (NWI) requires governments to identify surface water and groundwater systems of high conservation value, and manage these systems to protect and enhance those values. Some of these systems have already been identified and are designated in various ways, but there has been no systematic attempt to establish a comprehensive national system of aquatic reserves. A number of important wetlands have been designated under the Ramsar convention. There are four clear reasons why we need to maintain biodiversity in our aquatic ecosystems:

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•

To meet our international biodiversity obligations (Australia signed the International Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 in June 1993)

•

To provide benchmark reference areas so we can assess how much managed rivers have departed from the natural

•

To provide ‘seeding’ sources to help recolonise downstream areas that have been damaged

•

The various aquatic species are of value in themselves, and the communities provide essential and often irreplaceable ecosystem services

However, identifying these high value conservation systems is the easy part in comparison to managing them, especially when the catchments are in private ownership, and landholders have development aspirations. some state water plans are already identifying such systems and restricting further development of water resources, which is an essential precondition to managing them. Governments still need to find appropriate ways of managing these systems, which might include payments to landholders to ensure catchment management is appropriate.

substantial progress to me means returning water to the river. It is not enough to do studies, or decide that it’s hard to achieve. The commitment is clear and seeking to redefine these words is not an option.

The Queensland Wild Rivers legislation provides an excellent framework for addressing this issue, and meets one of the commitments made by the Premier when he signed the nWI. I understand the Queensland Government is considering amending this legislation, and I know your organisation has been calling for a moratorium on its use.

This provides us with two major challenges, one scientific and one for the community:

Protecting these remaining rivers will reduce development opportunities, especially in regard to new irrigation developments (Cullen, 2003). In my view if these areas had great potential for irrigation, they would have already been developed. The Wild Rivers designation should not have great impacts on pastoral activities, but I am not familiar with the fine print of the amendments under consideration. However, there are many voters who will be very angry if the Government walks away or weakens this fine initiative.

GOveRnMenT COMMITMenTs TO ReTuRn OveR-AllOCATeD sYsTeMs TO susTAInABle levels Of eXTRACTIOn While some rural interest groups like to suggest that sustainability refers to economic and social elements, this is not the wording of the nWI. This means that, before any water plan can be regarded as nWI compliant, it will need to be demonstrated that the plan has identified the environmentally sustainable levels of extraction and commits to a pathway to ensure this is reached, with substantial progress being made by 2010.

“substantial progress to me means returning water to the river.”

•

Defining the sustainable level of extraction in a variable climate

•

Deciding our community’s approach to risking a system collapse if we get it wrong

Identifying the environmentally sustainable levels of extraction is not a simple matter. Rivers include the channel that carries dry weather flow, and the floodplain and associated wetlands that carry wet weather flow. some Australian rivers end in important terminal wetlands; others drive estuarine processes that are also important to commercial fisheries and recreation uses. The relationship between water extraction and deterioration of river health is not a simple one, and is mediated not just by water volumes but flow patterns, contaminant loads and other instream (blockages, introduced species) and catchment land use factors (Allan, 2004). This relationship is also unlikely to be a simple linear relationship, but is likely to be characterised by a marked threshold. extraction up to this threshold is likely to have only minor impacts, but then there may be a sudden change and the system

Opposite: The Coorong is a wetland of international significance under the Ramsar Convention due to the variety and number of waterbirds it supports, south Australia. (lydia Paton)

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Innamincka Where do I begin? There is so much more that can be said about Professor Peter Cullen and the impact he had, both locally and internationally than my knowledge can put into words. I first met him at a Lake Eyre Basin process directional meeting in Birdsville. It was a privilege and a blessing for me to have had the opportunity to meet such a down-to-earth person who had such a high standing in the educated world. He touched my world with his passion, honesty and genuine humility when he spoke to me; and I am a country girl. He could communicate at any level in any social arena and be understood, given his level of intelligence. The highlight of my connection with Peter was when he visited Innamincka Station, that my husband and I manage for the S Kidman & Co, for a week with his family and a friend. It was a magical time and I enjoyed it immensely. He had been talking about coming out into the channel country to see it through his eyes and view the vastness for himself and try to understand the ‘boom and bust’ scenario every one talked about. He said to me that he regretted not visiting this area sooner as it certainly puts into perspective the practical rather than the imaginative. We had a sprinkle of rain and he couldn’t believe how quickly the green tinge appeared over the ground. I might add that he was still there for work as the Chair on the Scientific Advisory Panel to the Ministerial Forum. I was honoured to have had the opportunity to spend time with Peter and his family and he will not be forgotten. I am so thankful that he had the opportunity in his very busy life to visit a part of our word he had such an impact on. I believe that the successful achievements of the Lake Eyre Basin process (initiated and driven by the community) would not have come to fruition but for Professor Peter Cullen’s involvement.

MAREE MORTON PROPERTY MANAGER, innamincka station

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may switch to another state, and this may be very hard, if not impossible, to reverse. We have already seen such system switches when phosphorus is added to rivers or lakes for a long time, and then suddenly the systems switch from ones dominated by aquatic plants to ones dominated by algal blooms. In Australia this was seen in the Darling River in the early 1990s when over 1000km of toxic algal bloom appeared in the River. A more recent example has been the current drought that has impacted floodplain vegetation starved of water due to irrigation extractions over the past decade. Thousands of River Red Gums have now died and are unlikely to regenerate. Both of these events were unexpected and the switches were sudden. Both occurred when the systems were stressed due to drought and so we must plan and manage, not for average conditions, but for the more extreme periods when the stress will be more marked. It is the extreme events that push systems over their thresholds. A challenge for science is to identify the extraction-impact function. A challenge for communities involved with planning is to decide how close to the edge do they want to be positioned, given the possibility of catastrophic change in some of these systems. The present approach being developed in Australia is to identify important ecological assets and seek to identify the wetting regimes they need to maintain them. It does not necessarily mean a minimum flow, although in situations where dams block movement of fish, this may be part of the requirement. It does not imply a wetting regime delivered over a single year, but perhaps a regime delivered over a decade, depending on the asset involved. The environmental water allocation will comprise some ‘rules based’ water that must be allowed to flow down the river, and some water licences that can be used at the discretion of the environmental manager. This water may be used to augment or extend a minor flood event to ensure floodplain wetting or extending the duration of wetting to allow a bird-breeding event

to conclude. In dry periods it may be used to flush and oxygenate the deeper pools that provide refuges for fish and other organisms.

ReCOveRInG WATeR fOR THe envIROnMenT Re-allocating water between various users and between users and the environment is an ongoing challenge. This is the reason so much focus has been given to clarifying access entitlements, separating them from land so that they can be traded, and creating a nationally consistent water market. The logic is that the government can enter the water market and purchase water to meet broader social objectives, and this was seen as a better adjustment mechanism than an arbitrary reduction of all licences. using market mechanisms to recover water is explicit in the nWI and means water will be sourced from those creating the least wealth from it.

Many irrigation communities are opposing using the market to recover water for the environment, in the hope this agenda will just go away. It will not go away and, given the climate change situation, may well get worse. We either use the market and take water from its least economic value, or we take an arbitrary 15% cut in all allocations. Taxpayers are prepared to provide funds to restore our rivers to health; farmer organisations have to understand that this is the first and simplest of the ecosystem services the community seeks and, unless the funds are used to provide the service, then there is no prospect of a wider ecosystem services payment to landholders.

Above: River Red Gums being flooded with water donated by local farmers from their allocations. These gums are on the River Murray floodplain near Bookpurnong, south Australia. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Water Planning

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As we enter the age of water scarcity it is essential we improve our planning of water resources. The essentials of going forward include:

Make serious assessments of all available options–economic, environmental, greenhouse gas, technical and social.

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Have a diversity of supplies to maximise reliability with uncertain climate futures and with terrorism risks.

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Make users pay the real costs of providing water (including the environmental externalities and management costs) so that water is used as efficiently as possible.

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Ensure wastewater charges are sufficient to allow water to be discharged to the environment without harm, or used for production if the users can pay the costs of transport.

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•

•

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Consider all possible sources of water–new dams, recycling, desalination and pricing. Nothing should be excluded on doctrinaire grounds. Treat all possible sources as a single resource and manage in an integrated way–especially groundwater and surface water. Make realistic estimates of future populations and their needs over the planning period of fifty years.

T h i s L a n d, o u r Wat e r

“using market mechanisms to recover water is explicit in the nWI and means water will be sourced from those creating the least wealth from it.” Transporting water long distances is expensive in terms of pipelines and pumping costs. The proposed channel from the Kimberley to Perth would have cost about $15 billion and provide water at $6.50/kl (cf to around $1.20/kl for desalination). using a canal to deliver this water would double the average water bill for a Perth household. It would indeed be cheaper to transport water by tanker when needed ($5/kl).

However it is not easy to fix, and much of the failure is due to the institutional arrangements we have created to manage water. Many interest groups are frightened of change and are concerned they will miss out with the changes now underway. However, in my view ‘business as usual’ is one of the high risk options for the future, with a high likelihood that communities will just run out of water and that we will not be able to provide the food and ecosystems services upon which we all depend. The key to going forward is to make the nWI work. Better measurement, better reporting, better planning, using water market to readjust and allow redistribution and better charging are the foundations for a water future for Australia.

Most of the proposals to find alternative water through pumping, recycling and desalination produce more greenhouse gases that may well exacerbate the climate change we are trying to live with.

THe fuTuRe There is no spare water lying around just waiting to be taken off to meet these growing demands. no communities want their water plundered to support profligate water use somewhere else. Water running to the sea is not wasted water, but drives important fisheries that depend on flood pulses. floodwater that just ‘disappears’ on a floodplain drives the vegetation and agricultural productivity of the land. Ask pastoralists downstream of irrigation developments whose water has been pinched how they feel about this.

RefeRenCes & fuRTHeR ReADInGs Allan, J.D. (2004) landscapes and Riverscapes: The Influence of land use on stream ecosystems. Annu.

Rev. ecol. evol. syst. 35, 257-84. Anon. (2002) Australian Catchment, River and estuary

Assessment. national land and Water Resources Audit, Canberra. Cullen, P. (2003) The Heritage River Proposal Conserving Australia’s undamaged Rivers, In Aquatic

Protected Areas. eds J.P. Beumer, A. Grant & D.C. smith. Proceedings of the World Congress on Aquatic

Australia now has an nWI which is at the leading edge of world thinking about water management. It has strong political support from the Prime Minister and state Premiers who understand the importance of getting this right as we enter the twenty-first century.

Protected Areas, Cairns, Australia, August 2002. pp. 513-520.

Opposite: large water pipes at Cambrai, south Australia. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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“Flying blind hasn’t worked and we must know how much water we have, where it is and how it is being used. We need to know the health of our waterways.” Peter Cullen

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Flying Blind: the Disconnect between groundwater and Policy Peter Cullen 10th Murray Darling Basin groundwater Workshop Canberra Saturday 16 September 2006

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ustralia is likely to become more dependent on groundwater resources in the coming decades as many areas confront real water scarcity. Before we increase our reliance on this important resource it is essential we know exactly what the resource can sustain and what are the risks we might confront. rapid urban growth on the east coast, the insatiable demands from agriculture and the growing realisation that some water must be left in the rivers if they are to be healthy, are all contributing to the looming water shortage. Demand for water is increasing at a time when rainfall and hence runoff is decreasing in southeastern australia. the last ten years have been much drier in eastern australia than the previous fifty years. Four victorian rivers show the problem– in the last decade the flow in the Wimmera, loddon, Werribee and Moorabool rivers has been between 18% and 40% of the long term average flow. the dry spell in victoria is now seen as a 1 in 400 year event, and the collapse of autumn rains means that winter/spring rain is less likely to run off a now dry catchment.

above: Powered by the wind, these windmills draw up groundwater, new South Wales. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa) opposite: the river Murray near lock three, South australia. (Carolyn Clarke)

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as purchase from others holding entitlements to water. Nothing should be discarded on doctrinaire grounds.

Planning for Water Security in the Face of Scarcity Last century, planners and governments approved developments and then called on water engineers to provide the water. It was unthinkable then that lack of water might restrict development. The engineering profession responded by building dams with scant consideration of either the economics or the ecological impacts. Now all the easy dam sites are built, and so this strategy has run its course in many parts of the country.

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Comprehensive Assessment–of the technical, economic, environmental, greenhouse and social impacts of using each of the possible sources.

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Engage the Community–so they understand the trade-offs but don’t let interest groups hold the process to ransom. Governments must govern rather than retreat to referenda.

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Spread Risk–by having a range of alternative sources.

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Plan and Approve in Advance–so lead times are understood and minimised in case climate change is even more rapid than it now appears.

The National Water Initiative In 2004 the Prime Minister and state Premiers signed the National Water Initiative (NWI). This initiative is world’s best practice, and our challenge is to implement it and make it work. The key elements of the initiative are: •

Water Access Entitlements–that give security to those holding water access licences.

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Planning Frameworks–within which governments might issue further access licences, but that implement firm pathways for returning previously over-allocated and/ or over-drawn surface water and groundwater systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction.

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Demand Assessment–realistic population projections and water usage per person for housing, open space and industry, at various price levels.

Water Resource Accounting–provides for water accounts for each catchment showing extractive and environmental entitlements and actual allocations.

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Identify all Possible Sources–the quantities, quality and reliability of catchment water, new dams, groundwater, inter-basin transfers, stormwater, recycling and desalination, as well

Water Markets and Trading–seeking a nationally consistent water market allowing water to trade to the most beneficial use, across state borders where appropriate.

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Best Practice Water Pricing

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has called for radical new thinking to confront this challenge, and we, as water professionals, have the opportunity to respond to this challenge. So what might twenty-first century water planning look like: •

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table 8.1 groundwater elements of the nWi Water Access Entitlements and the Planning Process

Enhance the security of water access entitlements. In overallocated systems this means reducing the number of entitlements.

planning process

planning processes with opportunity for productive, environmental and other public benefit considerations to be identified and considered in an open and transparent way.

adaptive Management

provide for adaptive management of surface water and groundwater systems to meet productive, environmental and other public benefit outcomes.

return of over allocated systems

implement firm pathways for returning previously over-allocated and/or over-drawn surface water and groundwater systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction.

high conservation systems

identify surface water and groundwater systems of high conservation value, and manage them to protect and enhance those values.

Water Resource Accounting

To ensure adequate measurement, monitoring and reporting systems are in place to support public confidence in the amount of water being traded, extracted for consumptive use, and recovered and managed for environmental and other public benefit outcomes.

connected systems

agree to identify by end 2005 situations where close interaction between groundwater aquifers and streamflow exist and implement by 2008 systems to integrate the accounting of groundwater and surface water use.

data

improve the coordination of data collection and management systems to facilitate better sharing of this information.

Metering

Metering should be undertaken where water access entitlements are traded; and in an area where there are disputes over the sharing of available water.

reporting

develop by mid 2005 and apply national guidelines by 2007 covering the application, scale, detail and frequency for open reporting.

opposite: a recycled water meter, South australia. (Photo courtesy of Sa Water)

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Knowledge and Capacity Building Knowledge is the key to delivering on the NWI and the foundation upon which we can meet the water needs of Australian society. We do not yet have the knowledge we need to meet these needs. We have run down our stream gauging networks over the last twenty years once the Commonwealth stopped funding this area. We have run down the intellectual skills in water agencies and some jurisdictions now seem to lack the capacity to do the job. We have surely learned from our mismanagement of surface water in the twentieth century that flying blind is not a very smart strategy. Before communities become dependent on groundwater it is essential to make sure we understand the resource–in particular what are the long term sustainable levels of extraction and what might be the recovery times and the impacts if we mine this resource. This knowledge, based on field data and models that enable prediction is the foundation upon which sustainable and secure water can be assured. The resources available for this task and the capacity to undertake it does not at this time seem adequate for the challenge.

Groundwater Lessons from the TWEntieth Century We have already made many mistakes with our exploitation of groundwater, and should recognize these and avoid them, in the future.

Connectivity–we have learned that if we overallocate groundwater then surface water will dry up after a significant lag period. Not all of our systems are interconnected, but to assume none are has been a costly mistake. This century we should assume surface water and groundwater is directly connected unless proven otherwise. Substitution–we learned last century that if we cap surface water extraction, people will substitute groundwater. Contamination–we need to understand the intake areas for our groundwater systems and we may need to control land uses on such areas to prevent contamination of the groundwater resource. The chemical contamination of the Botany Sands in Sydney has reduced options for Sydney’s water supply. Over-extraction–if we allow over-extraction groundwater levels will fall, increasing pumping costs and possibly causing the resource to fail. We have already had to commit substantial public funds to addressing over-allocation in Northern New South Wales (NSW). Saltwater intrusion in aquifers near the coast is another consequence of overuse. Waterlogging and Salinisation–we have finally learned the key role of catchment vegetation in determining the water balance and that removing deep-rooted plants can lead to rising water tables, causing waterlogging, and if there is salt in the soil profile, salinisation and the destruction of agricultural land and community assets. Encouraging Sub Optimal Use of the Resource– if we encourage or allow use of water for low economic value uses then it becomes very difficult

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“groundwater may well be an important part of the solution to water scarcity, but it needs to be understood and managed in a sustainable way and fully integrated with our understanding and management of surface water.” to recover this water to use it for more essential functions. individuals invest and expectations grow that water will be available and these people expect compensation when the water is needed for other uses.

a grounDWater Strategy For the tWenty-FirSt Century it is now obvious that many communities are seeking to use groundwater to assist with their water shortages. We have already seen this in the Sydney Metropolitan Water Strategy and in the Central region Sustainable Water Strategy in victoria. i am concerned that the knowledge upon which we are building these expectations is not solid enough, and that we might have some costly failures. groundwater may well be an important part of the solution to water scarcity, but it needs to be understood and managed in a sustainable way and fully integrated with our understanding and management of surface water. this seems beyond our current institutional arrangements. it is now time to develop a national groundwater Strategy to ensure groundwater is understood and managed along with our surface water resources. the nWi provides the framework of what needs to be done:

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Funding

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Building capacity

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agreeing on common definitions and protocols

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assessing the groundwater resource – location, quality and sustainable yield

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Public availability of data and interpretations

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incorporate groundwater into regional water planning

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identification and management of groundwater systems of high conservation value

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Measurement of groundwater being extracted

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Policing of groundwater extraction to ensure compliance

above: a floating flag indicates the level of the water table, South australia. opposite: a dead tree surrounded by land engulfed by salinity near Mildura, victoria. (images by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa)

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A Great Mentor 3. He spoke with simplicity about complexity with politicians and the public. Peter had the knack of finding the essence of an argument and could deliver it with clarity and powerful effect, using simple language and often with telling metaphors and biting truisms. One of my favourites being...“I have always felt that

knowledge was better than ignorance, and we should try knowledge in this country because ignorance hasn’t got us very far.”

Peter was an enormous inspiration and a great mentor. He taught me many things about leadership, about communications between scientists and water managers, and about relationships between organisational executives and their board and key stakeholders. For me, Peter’s great skills lay in three main areas 1. He was always well informed and never rushed to form an opinion. Over the years, Peter developed a network of freshwater scientists, across a diverse range of specialities who became his unofficial ‘advisory board’. Whenever a new issue arose, or a journalist would call, he would contact one or more of the people in his trusted scientific network to seek their opinions, and to help form his own. Consequently, he was always well prepared and well informed. 2. He was patient, and usually the last person to speak. I have been in many meetings where people would be throwing around ideas and, often heated, arguments all day. Usually Peter would listen intently, letting others speak first, waiting for exactly the right moment to say what he needed to say.

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Peter spent much time seeking to understand how decision-makers acquired knowledge, or were influenced by it. In what I think was a landmark report for Australian science, Peter brought together national and international experts to produce a workshop report titled ‘Knowledge seeking strategies of natural resource professionals’ (a CRCFE 2001 publication). He also told me many times that as scientists we should always seek to find positives and solutions, not negatives and problems. He believed that freshwater scientists, especially ecologists, spent too much time talking about what was wrong with our rivers and wetlands and not enough time seeking practical solutions for how to restore or conserve them.

profESSOR gary jones chief executive ewater CRC (ewater ltd)

unDerStanDing the grounDWater reSourCe to avoid making further costly mistakes with groundwater i believe we need to reverse the burden of proof. We should assume aquifers are connected to surface water unless proven otherwise, and we should assume any further extraction of groundwater is not sustainable unless demonstrated otherwise. When it is necessary to mine the groundwater over a short period we need to be clear that this is what we are doing and understand the recovery time and long term impacts of such an approach. it seems to me we need to know: •

Where are our good aquifers?

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at what depth is the water, and what flow rates can be expected?

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What is the quality of the water, and what must be done to protect or restore it?

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What is best practice methodology for assessing the sustainable levels of extraction of an aquifer, and what are acceptable levels of stress for an aquifer in the short term?

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Where are the intake areas for the aquifer?

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are there risks from land uses on the intake areas and could we damage the resource?

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What might be the recharge rates under various climate change scenarios?

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What must we do to restore already overallocated groundwater systems?

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What are the connections with surface features –rivers and wetlands that may be affected by groundwater use?

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What other groundwater dependent ecosystems might be at risk? Which ones should we seek to protect, and what is needed to protect them?

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What entitlements exist for groundwater and when are they exercised? this must include all those accessing groundwater including mining, construction, farmers and domestic users.

in implementing the nWi jurisdictions need to ensure adequate measurement, monitoring and reporting to support public confidence in the amount of water being extracted. as a condition of licensing, extraction data and flow rates should be made publicly available to ensure the best possible knowledge base of groundwater resources. the nWi commits to identifying over-allocated systems and returning them to sustainable levels of extraction. the history of groundwater management in australia has been one of over optimistic assessments of sustainable yields, and the need to subsequently reduce these estimates, at times with calls to compensate those who invested on the basis of earlier optimism. it is difficult to come up with a number for the sustainable yield, but without this there is little chance of effective management or the development of trading in groundwater entitlements.

above: a groundwater monitoring station and pump used for crop irrigation, Darling Downs, Queensland. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa) opposite: Professor gary Jones presents Peter Cullen with an artwork as a farewell present from the CrC for Freshwater ecology, June 2002. (image by staff of the CrC for Freshwater ecology)

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Active Management of the Groundwater Resource Last century Governments encouraged the development of groundwater with little understanding, and took the view that they could redress any problems through a process of ‘adaptive management’. However, landholders and communities developed expectations and, when the groundwater ran out, believed governments should compensate them for encouraging them to invest in a resource which was illusionary. Substantial taxpayer funds are now being invested in northern NSW to redress these mistakes. States have worked with the Australian Government to cap and manage water in the Great Artesian Basin. This work has some way to go, but has been a tremendous success in reversing the loss of pressure arising from profligate use of this artesian water.

“The failure to withdraw sleeper licences when surface water trading commenced saw them activated and traded with serious consequences.” There are still many parts of Australia where groundwater is neither licensed nor metered. As a first step, there should be a moratorium on any new bores taking groundwater unless it can be shown that the groundwater system is not over-allocated. This is a simple application of the precautionary principle–do not spend without understanding your limits. Any new bore should be licensed and metered, and any theft of water should be treated by withdrawing the entitlements. All existing bores should be registered and metered within five years, or should be shut down.

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Many of the ways forward were identified as part of the 1994 CoAG Water Reforms and in 1997 a National Framework for Improved Groundwater Management in Australia was released by a Task Force on CoAG Water Reform. Much of this appears to have been ignored by States. Since then more work has demonstrated the importance of groundwater dependent ecosystems and the need to manage groundwater to protect these values (e.g. Murray et al. 2003, Boulton, 2005). Management agencies need to withdraw groundwater licences that have not been used. The failure to withdraw sleeper licences when surface water trading commenced saw them activated and traded with serious consequences.

Investing to Overcome the Capacity Problem We need to build our national capacity in groundwater hydrology. We have let this capacity run down in State Agencies and the lack of employment opportunities has affected student interest. We should not encourage all thirty six Universities to pretend they have a groundwater program by employing one or two junior lecturers. We should identify the best two to three groundwater groups in the country, and the Research Quality Framework should help identify those who have capacity from those just with aspirations. We could provide these groups with postgraduate awards and funds to assist with field work. We could ensure they have up to date equipment and have ready and easy access to all groundwater records. But all this will be to no avail unless there are jobs at the end of line for graduates. We should invest to build capacity in the states to understand and manage groundwater, and these investments could provide jobs and demonstrate that a career exists for those with these skills. This is not a quick fix, but requires patient investment over at least a decade.

ConCluSionS

reFerenCeS & Further reaDingS

the pressures on our water resources are increasing and groundwater is seen by many as the solution to their shortages, especially as surface water is reduced due to climate change. however, groundwater resources are also replenished by rainfall, and are also under stress.

Boulton, a.J. (2005) ‘Chances and challenges in the

Flying blind and hoping in this area is not a smart strategy and, if communities are to make better decisions, they need to have the knowledge about the groundwater resource that enables good decisions to be made. We must have a no-regrets policy that does not remove future options or create grounds for large compensation payments. Communities must demand that political leaders take control and responsibility for putting in place management regimes that benefit all of the community not just a favoured few.

aCKnoWleDgeMentS the views expressed in this paper are those of the author. My thanks to Colin Chartres, rick evans, tom McMahon, Ken Matthews, russell Mein, Chris Moran, John Scanlon, Barry Steggall and Mike young who all provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

conservation of groundwaters and their dependent ecosystems.’ aquatic Conserv: Mar. Freshw. ecosyst. 15: 319–323 Chartres, C.J. (2006). a Strategic Science Framework

for the national Water Commission. national Water Commission. Commonwealth of australia (1997) a national

Framework for improved groundwater Management in australia. task Force on Coag Water reform. Sustainable land and Water resource Management Committee. green, D. and evans, r. (2006) towards a national

Framework for Managing the impacts of groundwater and Surface Water interaction in australia. Sinclair Knight Merz for natural heritage trust. Murray, B.r., Zeppel, M.J.B, hose, g.C. & eamus, D. (2003) groundwater dependent ecosystems in australia: it’s more than just water for rivers.

ecological Management & restoration, 4, 110-113.

above: Silverbeet crop irrigated with groundwater, near toowoomba, Queensland. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBa)

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“Disconnecting the fuel gauge might be one way to stop worrying about how much fuel might be left, but it is a pretty stupid strategy.” Peter Cullen

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Running on empty: the Risk of Continuing to Dither while the empty Light is flashing Peter Cullen sA Centre for economic studies Adelaide, south Australia Lunchtime Address, thursday 23 november 2006

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ustralia seems to have been drying over the last decade. Rainfall in much of south-eastern Australia is very low, and large areas are now at the lowest on record. Adelaide and its hills catchments are also very much below average rainfall. the River Murray is at unprecedented low flows. the average long term inflow has been about 11,000gL, but this was last seen in 2000-01 and now we have had six years well below this. the Wimmera River in Victoria has over the last ten years been running at 18% of its fifty year average flow, and many other Victorian rivers are at 40% of their long term flow. in parts of Victoria this is now a one in four hundred year event.

is this climate change or just another drought? •

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Perth has experienced a series of drops in rainfall and hence runoff since the 1970s. not a smooth drop but a series of steps down. Period 1900-1950 was much drier in se Australia than perhaps the unusually wet period of 1960-1990s when so many of our expectations on water have developed.

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this dry spell is now outside anything we have known in our period of settlement, although there is evidence from pollen records that over the last 1000 years, southern Australia has experienced at least three such dry periods of at least fifty years duration.

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there is now no doubt that human activity has led to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and this is leading to expected warming global.

it does look as if our climate is drying •

We may have an el niño and other cyclic change on top of climate trend

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Climate shift may not be a smooth curve but a series of sharp drops (as experienced in Perth)

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Denying the likelihood of climate change seems to me a high risk strategy

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it may be prudent for us to assume less rainfall is something we must learn to live with

opposite: Dying trees and low water levels indicate the severity of the drought on Billa Downs station, new south Wales, 2007. (image by irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Adjusting to Less Rainfall It does seem we are now running on empty and we need to take urgent action. Fortunately we have a national blueprint; the NWI was agreed by the Premiers and Prime Minister, John Howard, in 2004 to address these challenges. The NWI has some simple and obvious things that seem hard for Governments to do, since the timelines have already slipped. •

Understand the resource–What are the sustainable levels of extraction of the surface water and groundwater resource upon which we depend? How might they change with climate change? What is the consumptive pool available for us to extract?

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Return over-allocated systems to sustainable levels–Our communities depend on healthy rivers. They are not an optional extra but the foundations upon which our communities depend

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Give farmers secure entitlement that can be traded–Thus allow a market to develop that will let water move to its most valuable use– irrigation, urban or the environment

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Insist that we all use water as efficiently as we can - Proper pricing is part of this, but so are urban design and public education

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Planning that identifies future demands and the full range of options for meeting the needs of our communities–Nothing should be excluded on doctrinaire grounds, but all must be subject to serious and open analysis–will they work, what is the cost, what is the environmental cost, what is the greenhouse gas contribution and what are the social impacts?

We are a community living in the driest inhabited continent, with the greatest variability of rainfall–a land of droughts and flooding rains–and yet we don’t seem to have the capacity or the will to get serious and implement this simple strategy.

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Agriculture is going to have to adjust to changing realities, and this will be painful and difficult. Our current agriculture has developed over an unusually wet period in the last forty years, and stocking rates have been increased to what may be beyond sustainable levels in the environment we are now in. Current drought strategies seem designed to slow the necessary readjustment, not facilitate it and they prop up land prices, prolong human misery and maximise land degradation. Farmers need help to envision alternative futures, and may need help to get there. We should look for ways to support communities in transition, not encourage them to deny it. Communities need to get much more serious about water planning, and accept that water may be a limiting resource on development. Careful estimates of future populations and estimates of per capita use in households, industry and for open space purposes need to be made. All alternative ways of meeting these needs must be explored in a serious way to assure security of supplies to our cities and rural towns as well as to agriculture. Within hydraulic and environmental constraints, we should allow the market determine how water moves between uses–urban, irrigation and the environment. We must demand efficient use of water. In over-allocated systems the government should stand in the market and purchase back the entitlements it issued without understanding that the water did not exist.

so HoW WiLL We sABotAge ouRseLVes? Having a sound blueprint, and actually getting it in place and working are two different things. it is worth considering the ways our community might sabotage itself in this search for water security

Blame others as an excuse for inaction Blame is such a simple approach when we do not have not a clue what to do. We have come through the denial stage, and most Australians are concerned about water. Ask a taxi driver about the dam levels in any city. But we seem to be locked in the blame stage. Blaming other levels of government, blaming rice growers, blaming Cubbie station. Blaming anyone other than ourselves. We need to accept the reality of water scarcity and get on with the task.

Lack of Capacity to Address Difficult technical issues Agencies have cut back on technical expertise and there is a real shortage of skilled professionals to do the detailed analysis we need in this situation. Commonly our professionals are trained and operate in narrow silos. We have examples of water-sharing plans being developed which have not understood the need for floods to recharge groundwater. We have examples of permits for bores being given right next to rivers as though they were different buckets of water. governments have now outsourced so much expertise they seem to have outsourced critical thinking. While there is technical expertise available in consulting companies, water agencies now seem to lack strategic thinkers who can identify possible future threats and opportunities and take action before a crisis is upon us. the recent surprise about the Murray Darling Basin running out of water is an obvious example.

“We are a community living in the driest inhabited continent, with the greatest variability of rainfall – a land of droughts and flooding rains - and yet we don’t seem to have the capacity or the will to get serious and implement this simple strategy.”

Above: Aerial view of rice crops, new south Wales. (image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA) opposite: Low water levels in the Lower Lakes, Milang, south Australia, january 2010. (Carolyn Clarke)

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Waste Money and Time on Ill-considered Infrastructure Projects Politicians like to respond to community concerns, and each recent election has seen proposals for significant water infrastructure projects that have not been seriously designed, planned or assessed. Political focus groups are not a substitute for detailed technical assessment. Had the channel from the Kimberley got up at the last Western Australian election, it would have doubled the water bill for each Perth household and provided water at about six times the cost of desalination. Each election now sees a new dam, new desalination plant or an expensive channel being proposed with no analysis or understanding. Yet these are hundred year infrastructure investments decided by a few political focus groups. We have entered a dangerous phase with serious water planning now commonly being overtaken by iconic water projects dreamt up by journalists or focus groups at election times.

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Flying Blind Disconnecting the fuel gauge might be one way to stop worrying about how much fuel might be left, but it is a pretty stupid strategy. Yet over the last twenty years we have wound back our streamflow gauging network and not developed an appropriate groundwater assessment program. Where we do collect data, we often keep it inaccessible from those who could benefit from it. At least this stops the punters realising that governments have been dishing out water entitlements for water that does not exist – devaluing every licence they print. The National Water Commission (NWC) has been calling for free and open access to all of this water data. This would allow individuals to make better investment decisions, it would stimulate innovation by allowing people to model and interpret the data in different ways and it would allow governments to prepare water accounts so they know just where they are. The Water Ministers have agreed at their November meeting in Christchurch to advance

this, but progress has been pitifully slow, Perhaps governments realise how embarrassing it will be if the world can see the results of flying blind and that some may have been trading while insolvent.

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farm dams which capture water that would have gone into streams where it has already been allocated. Hobby farms around our cities seem to be capturing 50-60% of the run-off, often just to have aesthetic ponds where the water just evaporates.

•

groundwater use is poorly regulated or measured, and yet excessive extraction is affecting the flow in streams. there is often a time lag, depending on how far the bore is from the river, buts it is all the same water.

•

Water use efficiency is being encouraged in agriculture, often with public funding support. Yet in some places the water now being captured was a significant contribution to the environmental flows. in this situation, entitlements should be reduced.

•

theft–it is hard to estimate the illegal extraction of water, but some estimates suggest it might be up to 20%. governments need to address government compliance issues.

•

Cancel sleeper licences (surface water and groundwater)–these are licences not yet used but are activated as soon as the market develops.

ADDRessing tHe CHALLenge of WAteR sCARCitY (1.) Buy Water for the environment governments have committed to return overallocated rivers and groundwater systems to sustainable levels of extraction, but they are very tardy about getting on and doing it. We must secure the health of these aquatic systems. We should buy water from anyone willing to sell. irrigators will get used to having less water. Buying water now at the top of the market is a readjustment mechanism that lets people get out of unviable farms with cash and dignity. those with excess water to needs can capitalise their asset. Most farmers seem to want to be allowed to reap these profits. the nWi encourages it. Yet the federal Minister for Agriculture steadfastly objects to using market mechanisms to drive this readjustment and recover water for the environment or urban communities. the new south Wales Riverbank scheme, where the government provided $100 million to buy water in over-allocated systems, has been a roaring success. Plenty of water has been made available and it has not driven the price up.

(2.) Regulate extraction of Water issuing farmers with legal entitlements to water, and allowing them to trade is fundamental to the nWi. But if governments do not control other activities which are taking water, then the entitlements are worthless. •

timber plantations–which have rapidly dried up the groundwater in the south-east of sA, leading to the drying of wetlands like Bool Lagoon.

(3.) Measuring our Water Resources Australia has the opportunity to lay out a real time water measurement system using twenty-first century technology that will give us all real time access to data and the interpretive models needed to make sense of it. CsiRo has been developing a Water Resources observation network and a $200 million investment would give us a core national set of gauging stations that could provide real time data to all interested.

opposite: A dry Rocky swamp in the Parakie wetland complex, south-east south Australia, 2007. (Daniel Partington)

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(4.) Pricing everyone using water should pay the real costs of that water. urban communities should pay landholders for the catchments services they want, for the collection, treatment and delivery of water, and the full costs of cleaning up their waste, so it can be recycled or returned to the environment without harm.

“getting the price right is important for encouraging private sector investment in water infrastructure. there are, however, difficult equity issues and it is inappropriate to see water pricing as a defacto social welfare policy. We do not do that for electricity, telephones or petrol.” governments should commit to free and open access to all of the water data to allow better decisions and to drive innovation in the water sector. flying blind hasn’t worked and we must know how much water we have, where it is and how it is being used. We need to know the health of our waterways. As surface waters decrease, there is increasing pressure on groundwater. our knowledge of the groundwater resource and our capacity to understand it, are seriously limited. investment is needed to drill bores and obtain information on the groundwater resource, and to model and interpret the findings. Access to such funding should be contingent on meeting all nWi commitments with regard to licensing and metering and charging for groundwater.

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Rural users should provide a return on the infrastructure that taxpayers provide, and should pay the measurement and management costs of their activities. they should also pay an environmental levy to repair the damage they cause to waterways. getting the price right is important for encouraging private sector investment in water infrastructure. there are, however, difficult equity issues and it is inappropriate to see water pricing as a defacto social welfare policy. We do not do that for electricity, telephones or petrol.

(5.) Comprehensive Regional Water Planning Regions need to develop comprehensive plans that identify water needs over the coming 50 years and identify where the water will come from. nothing should be excluded from consideration on doctrinaire grounds. new dams, pipelines from elsewhere, recycling, stormwater, groundwater, desalination, urban – rural trade and pricing should all be in the mix. in considering the array of supply options, the analysis should consider the technical merits of the option – will it work and what will it cost? it should consider the reliability, the environmental impacts, the greenhouse gas emissions, the health risks and the social acceptability. We must try and build the externalities into the costing so we make better choices. in assessing various augmentation options, let us consider three or four alternatives and compare them across the range of criteria. Community pressure groups can mount

noisy campaigns against any option they feel disadvantages them. toowoomba is an example where a community rejected recycling without understanding their alternatives. Water planning is the cornerstone of the nWi, but as yet i doubt we have any plan that is nWi compliant.

(6.) Best Practice Demand Management Approaches this is the most immediate short term response to scarcity. some communities have put in more effort and got better results than others. We need to agree on a set of best practice demand management approaches, and not give communities access to additional government funding until they have met this standard. Water restrictions are an important part of this. our urban systems are designed to have restrictions during infrequent dry periods, and designing systems that did not require such restrictions would be much more expensive. Berating governments for introducing restrictions shows an ignorance of the design features of urban water systems. Berating governments for not foreseeing the consequences of climate change is about as helpful as berating governments for not having done anything to slow climate change. those options are now behind us and we must learn to live with the consequences.

suMMARY AnD ConCLusions Australia seems to be entering a drier period, and we may well not have access to the water we have become accustomed to over the last fifty years. We have an agreed blueprint to address these challenges and ensure reasonable security of water for all. governments are finding it hard to implement because various interest groups are resisting the necessary changes. if groups are seriously disadvantaged, then adjustment programs are warranted, but it is just not fair to stall these reforms so a small group can continue to use water in the wasteful ways of the last century.

RefeRenCes & fuRtHeR ReADings intergovernmental Agreement on a national Water initiative. http://www.nwc.gov.au/nWi/agreement.cfm Wentworth group of Concerned scientists (2006) Australia’s Climate is Changing Australia. the state of Australia’s Water. http://www.wentworthgroup.org.au

Above: Local agronomist David sutton with farmer Chris stillard on his farm near Cobram in Victoria. Chris has installed trickle tape 20 centimetres under ground to save water and minimise evaporation while irrigating his lucerne crop. (image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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the Big story on Water: acting for the Future Paper 10

Facing up to the Water Crisis in the Murray darling Basin

Paper 11

Confronting Water scarcity: Water Futures for south australia

Paper 12

the national Water agenda in 2007

Paper 13

Water reform: are We there Yet?

Paper 14

adapting to Water scarcity: a global Challenge for the 21st Century

Paper 15

sharing the Waters: ten Key things – Water Lake Bonney, Barmera, south australia. (Carolyn Clarke)

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“Committed and knowledgeable scientists can make a contribution to public policy if they are prepared to speak out.” Peter Cullen

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Facing up to the Water Crisis in the Murray darling Basin Peter Cullen the Brisbane institute, Queensland tuesday 13 March 2007

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uch of australia seems to be drying and we are now facing real water scarcity for many of our cities and for rural areas. the Murray darling Basin (MdB) extends across one-seventh of the continent and contains twenty major rivers. it is the economic powerhouse of rural australia, producing about 40% of the agricultural income and contains about three-quarters of the irrigated land in the country. it is home to around two million people and directly supports another million including those in adelaide and much of south australia. the long term inflow to the river Murray is around 10,500gL, but the average over the last six years has been around 40% of this, at 4300gL. We appear to have returned to a drier period following an unusually wet period between 1950 and 1990. Many other rivers in south-eastern australia have shown a similar drop over the last ten to fifteen years. the major storages of the Basin are now almost empty, irrigation allocations have been slashed and emergency planning is underway to ensure water supplies for the city of adelaide. Urban and rural australians dependent on the waters of the Murray now face an unwelcome adjustment. this crisis has been brought on by the climate shift and the serious drought we are now seeing, but the fact that we allowed the system to run to empty is another symptom of our failure to manage

the waters of the Basin in a sustainable way. now many communities and the environment are suffering what may be permanent damage. the history of water development in the Murray darling Basin is a history of articulate interest groups seeking to have the waters used for their particular advantage. there has always been a tension between the upstream and downstream states which have had differing views. this has not changed over the century since the Corowa Conference of 1902, where the challenge was to develop a workable mechanism to manage the shared resources of the Basin. the partnership of six governments attempting to manage the Basin, developed over a century of conflict about water, worked adequately in a time of expansion and growth, but over the last decade has shown itself unable to come to terms with over-allocation and cope with a drying Basin.

opposite: Construction works on the hume dam in 1926, river Murray, new south Wales. (Bill strong Collection)

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and we seek to share the available water in a fair way between the cities and rural communities dependent on the river. Let us not lose sight of this shared outcome, although there will be much to argue over in terms of the necessary actions to bring this about.

What Actions Have Been Agreed The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia have agreed to refer powers over the MDB to the Commonwealth, presumably through a process of mirror legislation due to be introduced during 2007. The Commonwealth has agreed to establish an expert Body, the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to advise the Federal Minister for Environment and Water.

“We seek a healthy river and we seek to share the available water in a fair way between the cities and rural communities dependent on the river.” The Prime Minister, John Howard, has recognized this failure of governance of the MDB and has addressed it with his proposal that powers be transferred to the Commonwealth to manage the MDB as a single system and providing $10 billion to address water security issues in Australia. Most commentators have welcomed the Prime Minister’s plan, and there is widespread agreement that something had to be done. Even Victoria, so far refusing to sign the agreement, acknowledges that action is needed; they just differ on the means. While welcoming the initiative, many are concerned about the detail as to what has to happen and are concerned they will suffer.

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Under the referral of powers, the Commonwealth will take responsibility for key water management functions in the MDB, including: •

Preparing a Basin-wide strategic plan setting a sustainable cap on surface and groundwater use at the Basin and individual catchment level

•

Establishing Basin-wide water quality objectives

•

Setting standards for catchment level plans, including for the management of interception and floodplain activities

•

Seasonal allocation of water resources

•

Directing the operation of rural bulk water supply systems

•

Environmental water management

•

Setting rules for water trading and charging regimes

Agreeing on the Goal

What Needs to be Done Now

As we confront the challenges of the MDB, let us agree on the overall objective, for which I believe there is wide consensus. We seek a healthy river

The principles for going forward are clear, and have already been agreed by the Prime Minister

T h i s L a n d, o u r Wat e r

and the Premiers in the national Water initiative (nWi). in going forward the Prime Minister and the signatory Premiers have accepted that we need to manage the MdB as a single system, not as a series of vaguely connected pieces. i intend to address seven key actions that i believe to be important in delivering a sustainable MdB. 1.

stop further extractions.

2.

establish preliminary estimates of the sustainable levels of extraction of each river, based on best available scientific advice.

3.

Build a single register of all water entitlements.

4.

ensure seasonal allocations made to each entitlement holder are within these sustainable levels of extraction, and allow some water to refill empty storages.

5.

establish an independent and professional environment water manager for the MdB to use all environmental water.

6.

do not just throw money out the door to meet some treasury target but insist on serious cost benefit assessment of all infrastructure projects and invest to create wealth and develop an irrigation industry that can pay its own way.

7.

integrate the management of land and water. strengthen regional catchment bodies to help deliver on river health, interception and water theft issues.

an effort to slow degradation with a cap to prevent further extraction had only limited success. Queensland and the aCt never bothered to establish a cap, and nsW regularly flouted their cap. there were no sanctions other than naming and shaming. establishing a cap and a water market meant that extractions from the river increased as sleeper licences were activated and used or sold. Capping surface water without capping groundwater led to people just switching to groundwater, and since it is all the same water this just took more water from the streams. stock and domestic water was left outside the controls, and huge amounts of water were just taken. the Living Murray, with its first step of returning 500gL to the Murray, became a stumbling block as rural interests blocked using the market to recover water, but could not find worthwhile infrastructure investments to recover the water.

stoP FUrther extraCtions Proposition the waters of the MdB were over-allocated by the nineteen eighties when the degradation of the river became obvious.

above: open borewater channels are being replaced by these bore stock water points, near Boomi, new south Wales, 2009. opposite: Windmills with water tank. (images by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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Actions Required A moratorium is required on any further extractions of water from the Basin, until sustainable levels of extraction have been established and demonstrated. This includes extractions of surface water or groundwater, on stock and domestic extractions and on interception activities like farm dams and plantations. All extractions must be licensed and measured. A compliance regime must be established to address the widespread theft of water in irrigation and dryland areas that is stealing water from downstream entitlement holders and the environment.

“We are not managing these systems for some benign ‘average’ condition, but so they can cope with the extremes that characterise the Australian climate and our agricultural markets. ”

Establish Sustainable Levels of Extraction Proposition Ecological systems have a certain capacity to recover from changes. As wet and dry periods come along, different sets of organisms are favoured and may become dominant, but most still have the capacity to hang on until times favour them again. We call this the resilience of systems. We now appreciate that the resilience of a system is an important element in allowing it to cope with changed circumstances. We also appreciate that we have often reduced the natural resilience of systems, thus making them vulnerable to collapse when conditions change. We are just starting to understand the elements that contribute resilience to a river system, and how we have inadvertently diminished this capacity to recover. Australian rivers commonly dry up and form a chain of ponds where organisms hang on until flow starts again. By allowing land uses that have caused erosion in the catchments, we have commonly filled these pools, which act as refuges, with sand, thus reducing the places where organisms can survive. We have built weirs and dams across rivers to let us control water, but these prevent organisms moving upstream and downstream to places where they can survive hard times. We have captured water in dams, and diverted it from rivers thus reducing aquatic habitats, we have changed the pulses of water that naturally went down a river by capturing them in dams, and releasing them at unseasonal times, commonly causing rivers to be bank full in summer and dry in winter as dams refill. This is a challenging area for science, but current thinking indicates that the goal of ecological management is to restore or maintain resilience so the systems can cope with the shocks of climate or other factors they experience. It takes extreme events like droughts and floods to let us see whether we have kept resilience in our systems. We are not managing these systems for some

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benign ‘average’ condition, but so they can cope with the extremes that characterise the australian climate and our agricultural markets. a drought that at the time of Federation had little long term impact, when it came again at the start of this century, has had a devastating impact. as we lose resilience in a system we approach some threshold where the system flips to some alternative system. We commonly do not know we are on a threshold until we hit it, and commonly they are hard to reverse. the darling flipped to an algal bloom in the early nineties, but fortunately recovered. such algal blooms are however common in the weir pools of the Lower Murray. in this drought we have lost many river red gums on the floodplain of the Murray, a threshold we did not foresee and one that is probably irreversible. there is widespread agreement that the MdB as a whole is over-allocated, but there is no agreement as to what are sustainable levels of extraction. Jurisdictions have all had differing definitions of over-allocation. some use a simple hydraulic approach that, if water is there it can’t be over-allocated, totally ignoring the impacts on downstream river health. Most reaches of the MdB have had some scientific assessment of the flow needs of the river, but these have commonly not been treated as seriously as the social and economic demands on the river. By the time flow management plans have been agreed by the community, only small amounts of water have been returned to the environment and the scientific assessment has not driven allocations.

“there is widespread agreement that the MdB as a whole is over-allocated, but there is no agreement as to what are sustainable levels of extraction.”

actions required a high-level expert scientific group should be established to advise the new MdBa to propose an interim approach to defining sustainable levels of extraction from rivers and groundwater systems for different climate zones within the MdB. their immediate task is to determine how to implement the Living Murray target of returning 1500gL of

above: this dead tree, on the banks of a dry lake on Billa downs station near euston in new south Wales, illustrates the impact of prolonged drought, 2007. (image by irene dowdy used with the permission of the MdBa) opposite: Main Creek, near euston in new south Wales, is dry due to the 2007 drought. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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water to the main stem of the Murray, and provide an appropriate target for the Darling. This group should be charged with identifying the maximum possible consumptive pool of water that can be taken from the system to support agriculture and communities, while maintaining acceptable river health. This expert group should review the assembled scientific basis for flow guidelines for each tributary and reach of the river to ensure they are based on the best available scientific advice and that the agreed methods are used. This scientific assessment must be public and will probably be contested by various interest groups. The new MDBA should consider this expert advice and agree on timetables to restore systems to sustainable levels of extraction. They also need to establish ways of reviewing the sustainable levels, as more information is gained about river health and as the climate shift becomes more apparent. The implementation of the Sustainable Rivers Audit across the Basin should be accelerated so we have an ongoing measurement of river health. This will inform the community and decision makers and validate or allow revision of the scientific judgments being made.

Build a Single Register of all Water Entitlements Proposition It is essential we have a single register of all of the water entitlements that have been issued by governments for surface water and groundwater resources across the Basin. States have been developing their own registries of water entitlements, and all are at different stages of development. Like the railways of the 1800s, there are serious concerns that these individual registries will not be compatible across state borders. This would inhibit the development of an effective water market across the Basin. Many registries of groundwater licences are rudimentary or absent.

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Actions Required The registry efforts of each jurisdiction should be reviewed and a single registry, based on the nest elements of each developed. This will produce a single register across the MDB for all surface water and groundwater entitlements.

Seasonal Allocations of Water Proposition Holders of each water entitlement get an annual allocation of water. The entitlement, while specified as a volume of water, is really a share of the available consumptive pool of water and the seasonal allocation is like a dividend payment. It seems that with the climate shift we are now experiencing inflows to the MDB around half of what they were in earlier wetter times and it may be that the annual allocation of water will now only ever be around half of what the entitlement notionally says. This is how the system has always worked, and entitlement holders cannot expect to get access to water that doesn’t exist, nor should they expect to pinch someone else’s water, including that allocated to the environment.

Actions Required Seasonal allocations must be made periodically, giving a share of the defined consumptive pool to entitlement holders. Allocations can be traded on the water market, allowing those with greater need to purchase the water they require. This includes town’s dependent on the River for domestic supplies that should have a basic water per capita entitlement and should purchase additional water. The environmental manager should enter the water market, in particular valleys, to acquire water for the environment as required for nominated ecological assets and transfer this water to an environmental trust, as a water entitlement, with the same characteristics as the entitlements held by irrigators.

the government may also enter the water market to acquire entitlements where reconfiguring of irrigation systems makes ongoing supply to particular regions economically unviable.

estaBLish an indePendent environMentaL Water Manager Proposition it is not appropriate to have the organisation that manages the physical infrastructure or that makes allocations also act as the environmental manager. the environmental manager may be seeking to trade water and there would be conflicts of interest, if they both set the operating rules and acted as trader. Water plans will identify particular environmental assets that need particular watering regimes, and the general health of the river will be assessed by the sustainable rivers audit.

“it seems that with the climate shift we are now experiencing inflows to the MdB are around half of what they were in earlier wetter times and it may be that the annual allocation of water will now only ever be around half of what the entitlement notionally says.”

above: environmental water allocation sent to Chowilla Wetlands. (image by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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The environmental manager needs to determine appropriate watering regimes and be responsible for both rule-based and licence-based water to ensure maintenance of the environmental assets. The manager should have the capacity to buy and sell on the water market.

Smart Infrastructure Investment Proposition The Australian Government has allocated $6 billion dollars to upgrade water infrastructure. It is apparent that the irrigation industry we developed in the twentieth century has been unable to create enough wealth to pay its way. The amount collected from irrigators for water has clearly not been sufficient to maintain infrastructure and now the taxpayers are expected to rebuild a run-down system. Australia does need an efficient irrigation industry that can create enough wealth to pay its way. It is therefore important that we take this opportunity to build a new irrigation system for the twenty-first century, not just rebuild the failed system of the past. The irrigation of the twenty-first century must at least double the wealth, from half of the water. It will do so with smart measurement, good control systems, delivery of water to plant roots, reduction in wastage like evaporation and seepage and, perhaps, new crops and new industries.

Action Required Establish an independent environmental manager to acquire and manage environmental water to protect identified environmental assets and the general health of the river system (river stem, floodplain and wetlands and estuary).

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There will be many proposals brought to government to fund the replacement of infrastructure that people have not bothered to maintain. These should be rejected. All infrastructure investments must be subjected to serious cost-benefit and environmental assessment and we should only invest where the irrigation can create sufficient wealth to pay the full costs of the infrastructure, its operation and the environmental externalities. That is what sustainability is about. Investment should only proceed when all of the principles of the NWI are in place.

actions required irrigation companies will develop investment plans for their systems and for individual farms. these investment proposals need to be assessed by the new MdBa, and these assessments should be public. they should confirm that all elements of the nWi are in place, that pricing is appropriate to pay the costs and that customers can create sufficient wealth to pay for the investments. Better water measurement within the distribution system and on farms is essential to effective management of water. an audit should be undertaken of flow measurement at all major offtakes to ensure irrigators are actually getting their entitlement, and not more. Funds have been allocated to the Bureau of Meteorology to update the river flow measuring systems and develop a real-time web-based reporting system for river flow. in my view we need to commit around $200 million to a MdB groundwater assessment program to identify sustainable yields of groundwater systems. this requires a series of observation bores and pumping tests, again with public reporting of data and interpretations. We need an increased investment in irrigation research to build these new irrigation industries.

integrate the ManageMent oF Land and Water

development of regional catchment management bodies and these could provide an ideal vehicle to deliver various elements of the Plan. individual valleys already have, or need to have, targets for the export of water, nutrients, salt and turbidity from their valleys to the main river stem. the national Water initiative specifies the need to control interception activities of plantation forests and farm dams, and the Catchment Management authority’s (CMa) would be well placed to set local rules and assist with compliance in these areas, as well as with pollutants. the CMas already have a role in riparian management and repair, as well as the identification and measurement of the health of environmental assets.

Proposition We know that what happens on land determines the amount and quality of water in rivers and the specific statements in the Prime Minister’s Plan, which focus on water quality, require a strong linkage to land management to control salinity, turbidity from erosion and nutrients causing algal blooms. the Federal government has been investing through the natural heritage trust and the national action Plan for salinity and Water Quality in the

above: taking the daily eC readings of water bores that supplement the on-site water supply of an orchard, 2008. opposite: drip irrigation, with solar powered soil moisture monitors, used for wine grapevines to preserve water and regulate irrigation levels, 2007. (images by arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBa)

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Peter Cullen: A Leader I have been fortunate in my life to come across three immense leaders, shaping how we view and live within environment in different cultures. Sir David Attenborough opened my eyes to the magnificence of nature and kindly provided support for my Ph.D. studies. Professor Tsuneyuki Morita showed me what was needed to shape research to influence policy and the level of personal commitment that was needed to drive change. Professor Peter Cullen gave me the example of what it means to be trusted for sincere and consistently professional advice, and how to use this trust and the responsibility it conveys for the benefit of all. I saw Peter Cullen’s influence and integrity through his work with the Victorian Water Trust, and through his time as Chair of Land and Water Australia. Natural Resource Management is an area where we look for logic, and where an expertocracy defaults to reducing the world to complex equations, and short soundbites. These approaches create knowledge, but do not always address the great challenge of our time, bring people, communities and organisations together to see each others’ worldview, understand each other’s priorities, and create a common sustainable future. Professor Cullen created a sense of shared purpose, using his personality and skills to shape attitudes and create bodies of understanding that connected diverse interests. Peter Cullen turned scientific expertise into a language and approach that worked with politics to deliver possibilities, outcomes, and hope. As such, he was a leader in the right place at the right time. The challenges of sustainability, climate change, and water reform, do not respect temporal, geophysical or political boundaries. We cannot find one world view that conforms to all predispositions, cultural frameworks

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and value systems. We have to seek common ground, work with what we share, focus on our points of commonality instead of our points of differentiation. Peter made this ethos reality and, as such, was a champion for everything we value in Australia – a sense of fairness and equity, our shared sense of ‘land’, and the belief that every community should have the right to make its own way in life. Through his collaborative work with academics and researchers across Australia, Peter showed us how to meet the challenges set out by the Council of Australian Governments, and the realities we face given the scale of investment available from other countries. Peter helped shaped the culture of Land and Water Australia, creating an organisation defined by collaboration, co-ordination and communication. Peter’s gravitas and credibility is such that I honestly do not believe Land and Water Australia would have been closed had he remained as the Chair – his ability to create shared ground would have precluded the decision. Water is the currency of climate change, but we need honest brokers to give all parties confidence in social transactions. The language of sustainability and climate change has become bleak, disempowering, and shaped by an obsession with inherent risk instead of inherent possibility. Communities need messages of hope to help them meet the challenges of sustainability. Australia has been a land of innovators. We can meet this challenge – Peter showed us the way.

Dr OWEN Cameron

actions required CMas should be involved in developing and implementing the basin wide plan, through the identification of environmental assets, the approval of interception activities, and the management of nutrient and soil pollutants to waterways. the MdBa needs to establish guidelines and have an audit role, but local management of many of these activities is necessary.

ChaLLenges to the CoMMonWeaLth in Moving ForWard the previous governance of the MdB failed because powerful interest groups were able to stall actions they felt might hurt them. these interest groups are still pushing their rights to whatever water remains in the Basin, and the Federal government, presently a coalition of the Liberal and national parties, will not find these issues easy to resolve either. some argue that the failure of the past arrangement was due to the failure of these two coalition parties to agree on the way forward and provide leadership on the Basin. these tensions appear to continue, although with water policy now centralised under a single Minister, it should be easier to develop a coherent position. the national Party Leader Mr vaille was reported this month as saying infrastructure investment was the priority and purchase of water was to be a last resort (sydney Morning herald 6/3/07).

government for the failure to confront these issues. the Commonwealth will no longer have anyone with which to share the blame and will have to make some tough decisions that will be highly contested. they will be responsible for deciding the consumptive pool of water available to be traded, for establishing market rules and access conditions and prices that give us a sustainable system. the Commonwealth has not had experience in operating a water system such as the MdB, and will need quickly to build its technical skill base in hydrology, freshwater ecology, irrigation and water economics. it promises to be an exciting year as the legislation is developed and debated and the details of the new arrangements are worked out. it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to develop a sustainable and healthy Murray darling Basin. there is much to be done.

the nWi envisages that a market will be used to allocate water between competing uses once the consumptive pool of water is identified. this market should include cities and towns dependent on the waters of the Basin, although many will argue they should be excluded from this competitive arena and just given the water they seek. if water is to be recovered for the environment, it can be recovered through purchase on the water market or through improving the efficiency of infrastructure. in the past with multiple governments involved, it has been easy to blame the other levels of

above: a view towards Meningie showing low water levels, south australia, 2008. (Carolyn Clarke)

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“We seek a healthy river and we seek to share the available water in a fair way between the cities and rural communities dependent on the river. Let us not lose sight of this shared outcome, although there will be much to argue over in terms of the necessary actions to bring this about.” Peter Cullen

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Confronting Water Scarcity: Water Futures for South Australia Peter Cullen Flinders Research Centre for Coastal and Catchment Environments Schultz Oration Adelaide Friday 16 november 2007

i

n 2004 i had the pleasure of living in Adelaide as Thinker in Residence, and was able to talk with many people about water, always a matter of great interest to South Australians. in my Thinker’s report to the people of Adelaide i said:

“The stark situation is that Adelaide is facing a squeeze on its available water, and that it would be prudent for the state to be considering how it will meet this demand, especially if additional water is either not available from the River Murray, or more likely is excessively saline for domestic use. Contingency planning should be underway for a situation when the River Murray cannot sustain the city.”

in the Murray unsuitable for drinking early next year, and the rising salinity is likely to lead to fish kills and other water quality problems in the Lower River and Lakes. This is a wicked problem for our society and our politicians. Do we use available water to try to keep permanent plantings in irrigation areas alive and hope we get better rains to get us through next year, or do we hold water back to keep towns and Adelaide going next year?

This situation has now arisen. The Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) Drought Contingency report last month showed salinity levels at Morgan had already almost doubled. While keeping them within drinking water levels is a management priority that guides releases from upstream storages, there is little water available and SA is not getting its normal Murray Darling Basin (MDB) entitlement due to lack of water. Let me commend the MDBC for its drought reports available on its web site. But unless there is significant rain in the upper catchments there is every likelihood that salinity levels will make water

Above: Bright orange patches of colour indicate the presence of sulfidic sediments in this section of dried out wetland in the Coorong, South Australia, 2008. (image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: Torrens Lake in the centre of Adelaide, South Australia. (Kelvin Wong)

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We face a situation with much less water available, and everyone believes they have a priority for its use. Riverland irrigators recently called on the Federal Government to take water from upstream irrigators to keep riverland plantings alive. Melbourne and Canberra are both planning to take MDB water to augment urban supplies. Urban users also expect Snowy Hydro to maintain adequate water to provide peak electricity supply. Annual irrigators like rice and cotton growers have not had any water for some time. Southern Australia is drying out. The demands on our dwindling water resources are escalating. Everyone believes their use of water should be the priority. The environment has been largely sacrificed with the Coorong rapidly becoming like the Dead Sea. We are facing a crisis. There will be a horrible shakeout in rural Australia and our cities are going to have to lift their games in water planning.

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The Climate Challenge I think most Australians know something is changing with our weather. We can measure the increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and we know it is due to human activities. We can observe that since 1950 Australian average temperatures have increased by 0.9oC, and this change is predicted by the greenhouse gas effects. The best estimate of annual warming over Australia by 2030 relative to 1990 is a further increase of about 1oC (CSIRO, 2007). Later in this century, the warming is projected to rise by around 1.8oC for the best-case scenario and around 3.4oC for a high emissions case, with a 20-50% chance of temperature increases exceeding 4oC in inland areas, such as the MDB. Further evidence of warming is provided by the snow record in south-east Australia where the snow depth at the start of October has declined by 40% in the past forty years (Figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1 October Snow Depths, Spencers Creek

This warming will lead to more evaporation from storages, increased transpiration of water by plants and an increased frequency of mega-bushfires. Scientists have no doubt that increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are influencing rainfall patterns. CSiRO scientists have estimated that around half the decline in rainfall in south-west Western Australia is due to greenhouse gas. Predictions are of a 5-15% decrease in rainfall by 2070.

is the Goulburn river, which in 2005-06 was at 58% of the long term flow, following a year when it was 68% of long term flow. Over the last ten years it has averaged 62% of the long term flow. As river levels fall, saline groundwater flows into the Murray. i think we are seeing the double impact of a serious drought and climate change. But there is no guarantee our river flows are stable and they may continue to decline, as has been the case in Perth. Hoping for rain seems to have been the main strategy to date, but as a community we now need to get cracking so as to cope with the water deficit that is emerging in south-eastern Australia. We must move from denial to acceptance, since the time is short and the risks and costs escalate as we dither.

“We must move from denial to acceptance, since the time is short and the risks and costs escalate as we dither.”

it seems we are facing a future with declining and more erratic rainfall. Winter and spring rainfall will drop but there may be increases in summer thunderstorm activity. A small reduction in rainfall is accompanied by a larger reduction in run-off. We can see the reduction experienced in Perth since the 1970s and can now see the same reduction for Sydney’s storages since around 1990. When we come to the MDB, the source of much of Adelaide’s water, the same picture emerges. This year the winter–spring rains have again failed. September inflows were 210GL compared to a long term average of 1610GL. Monthly inflows have now been below average for the last twenty-four months. There is about half the water in the MDB storages (at 23% of capacity) now than at this time in 2006. One of the most important tributaries to the MDB

Above: Results of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, Victoria. (image by irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: Low water levels at Jack’s Point in the Coorong, South Australia, January 2007. (Fiona Paton)

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A Blueprint for Addressing Water Scarcity The good news is we have a blueprint for facing water scarcity in the National Water Initiative (NWI) that has been agreed by the Premiers and Prime Minister. This blueprint is as good as it gets and will let us cope, if we could only get on and implement it. They give us the best possible framework for coping with water scarcity, but we have been slow to implement them and this tardiness is putting communities at risk. •

Understand how much water we have and how we use it

•

Determine how much water we can take and still have healthy rivers and secure groundwater

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Give users clear entitlement to water.

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Allow users to trade their entitlements

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Restore over-allocated systems

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Effective water planning

South Australia has made reasonable progress in implementing a number of its NWI commitments. South Australia has completed water plans for priority systems and has tradeable water access entitlements. The National Water Commission identified a number of areas requiring further attention in its Biennial Assessment of progress: •

Dealing with over-allocation

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Better integrating the management of surface water and groundwater resources and in relation to land use changes that intercept significant amounts of water

•

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Improving water resource accounting and measurement to ensure that water is extracted, diverted, stored, traded and used in accordance with the conditions set out by water plans and defined in water access entitlements

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•

Enhancing the compatibility of individual southern MDB registers to support timely and low cost water trading transactions across irrigation area boundaries and state borders

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Establishing arrangements for recovering costs of water planning and management

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Stronger pricing oversight arrangements that are presently among the weakest in Australia

Who Can We Blame? I know South Australians like to blame upstream irrigators for the problems they face. But the reality is there has been very little water for cotton or rice in the last couple of years. Cubbie Station can hardly be blamed when they have not taken water. Indeed, many irrigators in all states are watching their permanent plantings die because of insufficient water. While politicians like to blame other levels of government, the reality is that our politicians reflect what we as a community are telling them. We are all responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. As a society we have been in denial about climate change for the last decade and we have chosen not to do anything much about it. We now live with the consequences and had better get used to it since we can not turn back the clock. The present squabbles about carbon constraints will influence our climate twenty to thirty years out if we, as the human race, have the capacity to do anything. In the meantime we had better adapt to the world we have created.

Securing Adelaide’s Water Supply The Needs of the City In 2004-05 Adelaide used 164GL of water or about 406 litres/person/day (L/p/d), amongst the highest in the country. Each person used 273 litres of water each day in their homes, and a further 133 litres for commercial and open space uses. With

much tighter water restrictions and now some serious effort by SA Water to encourage water savings, this will have reduced. Again, this was one of my 2004 recommendations. no government yet seems to have been able to see the connection with rampant population growth and increasing water deficits. in 2005 the State’s population was 1.542 million, with 73% living in Adelaide. The South Australian Strategic Plan seeks to increase this to 1.64 million by 2014 and 2 million by 2050. From a water planning perspective it is likely the bulk of these additional people will seek water from the Adelaide system, so we need to consider the likely needs of at least 1.65 million people. if people continue to use water at the rate they did in 2005-06, at 406L/p/d, this will require some 245GL of water per year. in 2005-06, an average rainfall year, about half the water came from the hills catchments and around half from the River Murray. in a wet year, more can be sourced from the hills catchments, but in dry periods some 70% may come from the Murray. Adelaide has the capacity to store around 200GL in its storages, and at present they are around 87% of capacity, around a year’s supply.

The Hills Catchments CSiRO has now released their assessment of water availability in the Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges, which perhaps gives us some idea of what is happening on the western slopes. if the recent climate continues, they predict a reduction in surface water from 120GL to 92GL/ yr and groundwater recharge would drop from 64GL to 50GL/yr. if the increase in farm dams and plantation forestry is considered, a further 3% reduction is expected. Following my report in 2004 the Government did proclaim the Mt Lofty catchments and are presumably now stopping further bores taking groundwater, farm dams evaporating water and

“As a society we have been in denial about climate change for the last decade and we have chosen not to do anything much about it.”

Above: A farm dam in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia (nick Williams)

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“We are all responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. As a society we have been in denial about climate change for the last decade and we have chosen not to do anything much about it.”

The River Murray The Murray will continue to be an important source of water for Adelaide, but there will be periods when it is not usable. Increasing the size of storages will mean water can be pumped when the River is of acceptable quality and this will help tide the city over during dry times. Most cities in Australia store between three to six year’s supply of water to cope with variability. In the past Adelaide has only stored around a year’s supply because the Murray has been a reliable source. Future uncertainty about the reliability of the Murray supports the need to store more water.

Water Planning in Uncertain Times Given the reduction in water availability from both the hills catchments and from the River Murray, what is the best way forward into the future? Coping with uncertainty suggests four things:

forestry plantations taking water. However all of these interests will be lobbying hard to try and be allowed to keep doing what they have traditionally done. While the Enivronment Protection Authority has been doing valiant work trying to control pollution from tourism and hobby farms and vineyards, the actual water planning has been quite leisurely. A series of discussion papers have been issued, but no plan is expected until next year. Adelaide needs to assert its demand that these catchments be managed to provide secure high quality water, and not further sacrifice these catchments to other commercial interests.

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•

Reduce our demands on water to secure supply

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Have a variety of water sources, at least some of which are independent of rainfall

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Identify three or four water augmentations and do preliminary planning to obtain necessary approvals and identify trigger points for when construction must start

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Protect possible future water sources so that they will be available when needed

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has said that long term rationing of water is as unacceptable as rationing electricity. But in our variable climate we have always used water restrictions to reduce demand during drought. The alternative is a greater capacity to supply water at considerably greater cost. If urban communities want a higher level of water security, they will need to become more accepting of recycling water into our drinking supply, and the use of desalination, as well as paying more. We have used all the cheap options for meeting our water needs – the next augmentations will all cost more.

Adelaide has the following options for augmenting its water supply: •

Purchase water from upstream irrigators

•

Desalination

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Recycling

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Groundwater

•

Urban Stormwater

SA Water has already been purchasing water from upstream irrigators in the Lower Murray. This probably remains an important option, but there is increasing competition for River water. Both Melbourne and Canberra are seeking additional supplies from the MDB. The needs of water for generating peak load electricity will remain a priority. The environmental needs of the River itself are obvious at this end of the River and many irrigators will want to assure water supplies to protect their enterprises and their communities. The other aspect of pumping water from the Murray is the greenhouse gas contribution of the pumping. in a dry year such as 2002-03 some 444,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent were produced compared to a more normal year like 2005-06 where 265,000 tonnes were released.

“We have used all the cheap options for meeting our water needs – the next augmentations will all cost more.” A number of cities have turned to the sea to augment their water supply. The Perth desalination plant is operating, the Gold Coast and Sydney plants are under construction and planning is underway for one in Melbourne and a second plant in Perth. The Premier has announced planning for a 50GL/yr desalination plant and needs to identify an appropriate site where good quality water can be obtained and where the saline discharge water can be adequately mixed. Clearly there is an opportunity here for the oceanographic and coastal skills at Flinders to help solve this issue. The other issue is energy use and the greenhouse gas implications, and most plants are committing to use green energy or to be carbon neutral. Above: The Mannum-Adelaide Pipeline transfers water from the River Murray to Adelaide, South Australia. (Carolyn Clarke) Opposite: These dead grapevines were photographed during severe drought, October 2007. (image by irene Dowdy used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Recycling is another possibility. We can treat wastewater to a standard to return to drinking water supplies, and Brisbane is proceeding down this path. This does require holding the water for a considerable time in storages to enable natural purification processes and to allow for dilution. An inquiry in Canberra found this was a feasible option for Canberra, and that microcontaminants were not likely to be a problem. Canberra has however now announced that it is not proceeding directly down this route, but is building a pilot plant. Another recycling option is to deliver recycled water to homes via a ‘third’ pipe such as at Mawson Lakes. This water can be used for outdoor garden use and for toilet flushing, and is a substitute source of water. These uses do not require high quality drinking water. Several Australian cities have boutique developments of this nature to demonstrate the technology, which has been quite successful. It has however, not been widely adopted in all new developments. South Australia has been a leader in using recycled water for irrigation. However, it may be necessary to review this strategy and use reclaimed water to relieve the pressure on the city’s drinking water supply.

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The Adelaide plains have now been proclaimed as a groundwater management area and this stops further extraction of groundwater. However, the groundwater resources have been over-allocated and the present entitlements are seen as beyond the sustainable levels of extraction. This means levels will drop and sea water will be drawn into the aquifers near the coast. The Australian Water Resources 2005 released by the National Water Commission attempted to develop a water balance for the Adelaide area and was unable to find information on the groundwater volumes available, the sustainable yield and even the actual amounts being extracted. It did report a slow decline in groundwater levels over the last 50 years probably as a result of urbanisation of recharge areas and over extraction. At this stage the overuse of the northern Adelaide aquifers appears to be leading to localised cones of depression in groundwater levels. There are over 1000 entitlements to extract water with a total volume of 26,735ML, whereas the sustainable yield is thought to be 18,900ML. The Natural Resource Management Board does believe use itself is within sustainable limits, but the Government has committed under the 1994 CoAG water reforms, and again under the NWI, to

return over-allocated systems to sustainable levels of extraction. Hopefully they will achieve this in the Water Allocation Plan under development, and South Australians should insist that they do, despite the economic interests wanting to mine the resource in a non-sustainable way.

“We can treat wastewater to a standard to return to drinking water supplies, and Brisbane is proceeding down this path.” South Australia would have more credibility with its complaints about upstream States having over-allocated water, if it demonstrated any preparedness to address over-allocation of this important groundwater resource. Urban run-off is commonly seen as an attractive water source. The difficulty is in storing it from wet periods until it is needed in dry times. Adelaide

has led the country with aquifer storage of stormwater and subsequent recovery for various uses. The Premier has announced investigations into both increasing the size of Mt Lofty storages and developing a desalination plant in response to this risk.

ACTiOnS TO SECURE ADELAiDE’S WATER i support the Government’s announced plans to increase the size of Mt Lofty storages, allowing more water to be pumped from the Murray when its quality is acceptable, and allowing the city to carry over water for the low flow periods when it is saline. This is a sensible medium term strategy, but will not help in the current extreme circumstances.

Above: Glenelg Golf Club Stormwater Reuse Scheme Wetlands, South Australia. (image by Sam Phillips courtesy of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges natural Resources Management Board)

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Australia needs to take a leadership role to try and make this work. Given your future dependence on the water market, I suggest you join forces with an upstream state and have a common water registry and transfer system with one or preferably both states.

I also support the proposed desalination plant. I am aware of the negative aspects in terms of mixing in the gulf and the greenhouse gas aspects, but it at least provides a source of water that is independent of rainfall. This could be a critical water source for the city if current conditions continue and I would urge that this project be fast tracked. I also believe South Australia needs to put more resources and possibly fast track its water planning in the hills catchments and on the Adelaide Plains. Both have now been proclaimed, so there is a moratorium on further extraction, but more effort is needed to understand the resource and be aware of the sustainable levels of extraction from each. Each source needs to be protected from activities that take water and from contamination. South Australia has long been a supporter of improved management of the MDB. The appointment of an Independent Commissioner to the MDBC was I believe a great step and a help to the Commission. I wish other jurisdictions had followed this leadership, and we may not have had the need for a federal takeover of the Basin. However, there is much to be done under the Prime Minister’s Plan for Water Security, and South

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South Australia is proud of its efforts in recycling, but this needs to change. Supplying recycled water for market gardens is useful, but the critical need now is to take pressure off drinking water supplies. Some of your recycling is taking pressure off groundwater, but should be accompanied by a clawback in entitlements. You may not be ready to recycle directly back into drinking water, but some other communities have already moved in this direction. Using reclaimed water for open space and commercial uses is an important first step, but does involve investment in duplicating pipe systems to deliver the water. Adelaide has already pioneered the use of storing stormwater in aquifers for later use and this program could be expanded. This should be done in conjunction with tight controls and strong management of the entire groundwater resource. Adelaide has been slower than most other cities to embark on demand management and have managed to reduce per capita usage from the incredible 500L/p/d to 410 litres in 2004-05. There has been a good uptake of rebates for installing rainwater tanks and a range of other rebates are now available to householders installing water efficient appliances. While South Australians find themselves in the unusual situation of having water restrictions, Queensland has now moved to level six restrictions, requiring water to be trucked in for refilling pools and there will be drastic cuts in commercial users and other large users. This is needed even though per capita usage has dropped to 129L/p/d down from an average of 296 in May 2005. It is apparent that Waterproofing Adelaide, completed only a couple of years ago, did not achieve its aim, and further augmentations of

supply have been needed following the dramatic change in availability of water from the Murray. i believe water planning in uncertain times needs to be more pro active and sophisticated, that Adelaide should identify its next three or four augmentations and should proceed with planning, design and all necessary approvals and, for each, identify a trigger point when construction must start, given the construction lead times and the forecasts of water availability.

FUTURES FOR THE MURRAy DARLinG BASin not only is Adelaide’s future tied to the future of the MDB, but so are many rural communities dependent on the river for domestic water supply and for water for irrigation. We now face a horrible readjustment in rural Australia, similar to that faced in Goyder’s time where three to four wet years led to unrealistic expectations; now we have had forty years of unusually wet conditions in the MDB from 19501990, and over the last fifteen years the Basin has been drying. Our refusal to recognize this meant we have allowed the major storages to empty and they will not refill again, without a run of wet years.

and productive ecosystems – not the Australian version of the Dead Sea. i believe they want to see an irrigation sector that produces food and fibre to meet our needs and to create wealth for rural communities. i believe they want to see an irrigation sector that can create enough wealth to pay its way without expecting $10 billion handouts every so often, because they will not pay to maintain infrastructure.

The lack of water is already having a devastating impact on irrigators and their communities as we have already had the death of some permanent plantings in the Basin, and more can be expected from both lack of water and from salinisation of water.

With the increasing competition for water and the climate change we are experiencing, i believe irrigators will have to get used to half the water they have been accustomed to last century. Water will in future be less reliable than in the past. We will have a better idea of this once the CSiRO yields study is complete later in the year, but we still have to address the river health problem and the declining security of supply which puts at risk investments in irrigation.

The Federal Government has committed $10 billion to improved management of the MDB. This gives us an incredible opportunity to build a foundation for wealth creation, but it gives special interests the chance to make sure we squander this money without giving us the outcomes taxpayers expect. i believe Australians want to see a healthy MDB that provides good quality water for towns along the River including Adelaide. i believe they expect to see the Coorong and Lower Lakes as healthy

Above: Rainwater tanks in an Adelaide suburban garden, South Australia. (Lydia Paton) Opposite: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Minister for Climate Change & Water Penny Wong visit the construction site of the Adelaide Desalination Plant, South Australia, May 2009. (Photo courtesy of SAWater)

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Peter and the Mount Lofty Ranges Program In this document Professor Cullen made 18 recommendations to the state government for initiatives to manage our water into the future. One of these recommendations was that the government ‘proclaim the Hills catchments under the water resource provisions of the new Natural Resources Management Act to control farm dams and bores from extracting more water from the catchment.’ At the time the catchments of the Adelaide Hills were the last significant unprescribed water resource in South Australia.

Since 2004 I have been working on the Mount Lofty Ranges program, a South Australian state government initiative to manage the water resources of the Adelaide Hills. The water resources of the Adelaide Hills sustain thriving agricultural industries and also provide up to 60% of Adelaide’s domestic water demands. The Mount Lofty Ranges program is in its seventh year, has been funded with both state government funds and by the National Water Initiative and employs a team of officers working from an office located at Stirling, in the heart of the region. It has been the most rewarding and enjoyable project in my twenty-five years working in the field of water resource management. But the whole program may never have been if not for Professor Cullen. In 2004 Professor Cullen was the Adelaide Thinker in Residence and, at the end of his time in South Australia, he produced a document entitled Water Challenges for South Australia in the twenty-first Century.

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It was Professor Cullen’s recommendation that provided the final impetus needed to get this massive initiative off the ground. It is testament to the stature of Professor Cullen and the respect in which he was held that within three months of the publication of his recommendation, the process of prescribing the Adelaide Hills had commenced. I remember on the day the prescription process was launched, 14th October 2004, Professor Cullen returned to South Australia to launch the initiative alongside the State Environment Minister. I remember speaking to the assembled gathering immediately after Professor Cullen and being acutely aware of how quickly they lost interest once he left centre stage. The term ‘a hard act to follow’ immediately comes to mind.

martin stokes manager licensing mount lofty ranges department for water south australian state government

irrigation landscapes will change. i expect a reduction in the area of permanent plantings and perhaps more emphasis on annual crops that can be planted once water availability for the season is known. irrigation properties may become larger, to cope with a mix of perennial and annual plants and more opportunistic irrigation. There will be an overall contraction in the area irrigated, leading to issues of stranded assets and increasing operating costs to those remaining.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to build an irrigation sector that can double the wealth obtained from around half the water.” There will be ongoing downward pressure on prices, especially in export markets and, with the value of water increasing due to scarcity and pressures for cost-reflective pricing, there will be opportunities to leave farming. There will be strong pressures to improve water use efficiency and in some enterprises, such as dairy, there is room for this, whereas many efficiency improvements have already been made in rice and cotton enterprises. We may see dairy farms leave irrigation areas and become purchasers of fodder from irrigators and other sources. new irrigation technologies like subsurface tape may see crops move from heavier to lighter soils. A critical issue for irrigation is whether to spend funds refurbishing old irrigation districts, where properties may be too small and irrigation layouts inappropriate for current irrigation technologies, or to allow water to trade out and develop new irrigation enterprises on greenfield sites. This has been happening over the last decade and will probably continue. This will lead to the closure of some parts of existing irrigation systems.

Above: Farm worker planting cucumbers at Belah Gardens, Trentham Cliffs, new South Wales. Plants are watered with trickle tape which is a drip irrigation system. (image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: A farm dam (Pages Flat Dam) in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. (nick Williams)

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This is an important issue for the Federal Government who have some $3 billion to purchase water entitlements and nearly $6 billion to refurbish irrigation systems. it is important to enter the market and purchase the water before developing infrastructure, or there is every chance expensive pipes and channels will go to areas where irrigation may be contracting. Refurbishing last century’s infrastructure may be silly when whole regions must be reconfigured with bigger farms and different irrigation layouts. What is the relative role for publicly provided infrastructure and that of the landholder? We have a tremendous opportunity to build an irrigation sector that can double the wealth obtained from around half the water.

“Much of south-eastern Australia is drying out and is now in serious water deficit. it is no longer prudent to believe this is a drought that is about to break.”

Do we have the foresight and the political systems that will let us achieve this?

COnCLUDinG COMMEnTS Much of south-eastern Australia is drying out and is now in serious water deficit. it is no longer prudent to believe this is a drought that is about to break. There is every likelihood that we are seeing real climate change and this must be a driver to start managing our water resources as though they were a scarce and valuable resource upon which we all depend. We have the blueprint with the nWi. We have funds and a new bureaucratic structure with the Prime Ministers Plan for Water Security. The challenge now is to make this work in an era of increasing pressures on a diminishing resource, when every interest believes they are special and should have priority use of what water is available, and when our over-extraction has reduced the resilience of our natural ecosystems to sustain our society. South Australians have the opportunity to give a lead in this regard and i believe your economic survival depends upon you doing this. your own water planning needs to be internationally best practice. it is not at this level now.

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REFEREnCES & FURTHER READinGS

Cullen, P. (2004) Water Challenges for South Australia

in the 21st Century. Report to South Australian Anon. (2007) Australian Water Resources 2005.

Government, Adelaide Thinker in Residence Program.

national Water Commission. Canberra. Van Dijk, A.R.E., Hairsine, P., Khan, S., nathan, R., Anon. (2007) Annual Report. national Water

Payder, Z., Viney, n. & Zhang, L. (2006) Risks to the

Commission. Canberra.

Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Anon (2007) national Water initiative. First Biennial

MDBC Publication no. 22/06. CSiRO, Canberra.

Assessment of Progress in implementation. national Water Commission, Canberra. See www.nwc.gov.au Commonwealth of Australia. Water Act 2007. no 137. Parliament of Australia CSiRO (2007) Climate Change in Australia. Regional

impacts and Adaptation. Technical Report. CSiRO.

Above: Mount Bold Reservoir, South Australia. (Aaron King) Opposite: Low water levels in Lake Albert near Meningie, South Australia, January 2008. (Carolyn Clarke)

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“We need to measure and manage the whole water cycle rather than selected bits of it, and we need to engage our communities to take them along on this journey as we confront ongoing water scarcity for rural Australia.” Peter Cullen

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The National Water Agenda in 2007 Peter Cullen Water Services Association of Australia Strategic Planning Workshop Sydney Friday 2 February 2007

U

rban Australians seem to be living beyond their means and face ongoing water scarcity everywhere except Darwin. Rural Australians are more used to water shortages, but many communities are experiencing unprecedented water stress. Bores are failing and some towns are resorting to carting water. Irrigation has been vastly curtailed and there is no water being used on rice or cotton and still we are caught short. For the first time in my professional experience we face a situation where it is quite plausible that any of five of our capital cities could actually run out of water. There are a number of factors that have led us to this situation: •

Water planning has been perfunctory (looking only for the next augmentation) and investment has been inadequate.

•

We have chosen to only manage parts of the water cycle so as surface water has been constrained we have pushed demand to groundwater where planning and management is pathetic.

•

There is no community acceptance that lack of water might limit growth and development, and towns on level five restrictions have still been approving subdivisions. The burgeoning urban populations just expect the water industry to find water, and they expect it to be plentiful and cheap.

•

Climate shift has been more rapid than expected.

Above: Water tank on a unique stand by Duck Pond Creek, North of Euroa, Victoria. (Bill Strong) Opposite: Old cottage by the Sturt Highway, South Hay, New South Wales. (Bill Strong)

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developed. There is now no doubt that human activity has led to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and this is leading to expected global warming. Denying the likelihood of climate change seems to me a high risk strategy and it is prudent for us to assume less rainfall is something we must learn to live with.

COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO A DRYING CLIMATE There is unprecedented community interest in water supply, dam levels and water restrictions. There is a genuine fear of running out of water, and a concern that the growth potential of various areas will be curtailed unless communities can get more water. There is pressure on governments to find this extra water, and little concern as to where governments might take it from.

THE SHIFT IN OUR CLIMATE Australia seems to have been drying over the last decade. Rainfall in much of south-eastern Australia is very low, and large areas are now at the lowest on record. The River Murray is at unprecedented low flows. The average long term inflow has been about 11,000GL, but this was last seen in 200001 and now we have had six years well below this. The Wimmera River in Victoria has over the last ten years been running at 18% of its fifty-year average flow, and many other Victorian rivers are at 40% of their long term flow. In parts of Victoria this streamflow is now a 1 in 400 year event – a response to low rainfall, uncontrolled farm dams and uncontrolled bores. The period 1900-1950 was much drier in southeastern Australia than the unusually wet period we have experienced between the 1960-1990s when so many of our expectations on water have

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Governments have responded by creating new water agencies, and Offices of Water and Water Commissions have sprung up. Funds have been made available for infrastructure investments. Many of the infrastructure projects that are emerging are poorly considered and planned, not costed and are not necessarily good investments. Each recent election has seen proposals for significant water infrastructure projects that have not been seriously designed, planned or assessed. Political focus groups are not a substitute for detailed technical assessment. Had the channel from the Kimberley got up at the last Western Australian (WA) election, it would have doubled the water bill for each Perth household and provided water at about six times the cost of desalination. Each election now sees a new dam, new desalination plant or an expensive channel being proposed with little analysis or understanding. Governments have not invested appropriately in measurement, planning and management, and the capacity and resources for these functions seem inadequate for the task. There is a frenzy of political blaming, as politicians seek to blame other levels of government for the current mess.

GOING FORWARD If Australia is to get out of the present mess of water management it seems to me there are four key elements where governments have to lift their game: •

Water planning to take a whole of water cycle approach and become more integrated.

•

Tackle the over-allocation problem–reduce entitlements, license and measure extraction and stop water theft.

•

Demand high levels of efficiency from all water users.

•

A federal-state collaboration that starts addressing the problems rather than avoiding them.

“Denying the likelihood of climate change seems to me a high risk strategy and it is prudent for us to assume less rainfall is something we must learn to live with.”

WATER PLANNING Water Availability Drives Development not the Other Way Around Urban water planning must be done on a regional basis rather than for individual catchments. When a region is facing water scarcity, as most are, water must be central to the development approval process, not an add-on extra as we expect water utilities to just find more water. Water planners must identify and consider all sources of water – not just catchment water, but purchasing from other entitlement holders, using alternative water from recycling and stormwater, groundwater and sea water. We can no longer afford to exclude options on doctrinaire grounds so new dams, inter-basin transfers, desalination and recycling must be assessed on their merits. If water cannot be found, the proposed development should not proceed.

Engage the Community Communities seek to ensure water is available for the social, environmental and productive uses that they value. They are likely to have strong views

Above: Glenelg Golf Club Stormwater Reuse Scheme Wetlands, South Australia. (Image by Sam Phillips courtesy of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board)

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Peter Cullen as I Knew Him As we journey through life I believe that we do not have many close friends who are really special. Peter was not only a close friend but he was also someone I could confide in and we could discuss many problems that came up in everyday life. He had a quick sense of humour and in many discussions there was a quick-witted comment, which would have you in laughter.

He loved to talk about his beloved daughters and the holidays spent with Vicky. Even when Vicky was busy with ‘church’ he would go and organise to have lunch or dinner with his daughters when he was free. My family loved his sense of humour. He was known to comment that he was looking after the present and Vicky would look after the ‘hereafter’.

We had many discussions about the water problems of the major cities and also the major problem of the Murray Darling Basin. Peter would often ask for my farmer’s opinion for ways to solve these problems. Most times I had some type of solution but whether Peter agreed or not he was always a good listener. One such major problem was the lack of water due to dry seasons and irrigation, which restricted the flow down the Barwon and Darling system. I understand this was largely due to the large dams constructed on Cubbie Station in Queensland, which held a massive amount of water to grow mainly cotton. My answer was to instigate the same method as used on the TV serial ‘McLeod’s Daughters’, which was to blow a hole in the dam wall and let the water flow into the river as it normally would. Peter had a good laugh at this idea but thought the Queensland Government probably would not agree.

We all knew of his love and passion for his work regarding the state of water solutions in Australia. Despite much ill-health he remained positive and worked hard – flying all over Australia to attend forums and meetings. He had a wide circle of friends from all walks of life and he talked about his work always with enthusiasm and passion–it was his life.

Peter’s friendship in the time that he and Vicky lived in Gunning is something that my family and I truly miss. As my younger son Phillip (a 6th generation farmer) commented, Peter was a great conversationalist and would discuss farming issues, water problems, world news and everyday activities. He was known for his welcoming nature –always ready to have a yarn and would always welcome you at the door with the aroma of a good cup of coffee waiting in the kitchen.

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Water is the currency of climate change, but we need honest brokers to give all parties confidence in social transactions. The language of sustainability and climate change has become bleak, disempowering, and shaped by an obsession with inherent risk instead of inherent possibility. Communities need messages of hope to help them meet the challenges of sustainability. Australia has been a land of innovators. We can meet this challenge–Peter showed us the way.

John Granger A fifth generation farmer at ‘Pine Hill’, Gunning

about the priority of planning objectives and about some of the options that might be on the table. Not everyone will get what they initially seek from a water planning process, but it is essential that all have the opportunity to be involved and be heard. They expect procedural justice and some equity in the outcomes. They do not expect ‘outside interests’ to dominate the debate and where there are uncertainties, a process of joint discovery may be appropriate. A serious effort to engage the wider community in water planning is a prerequisite to acceptable outcomes.

the cost of water low. Whether it is due to drought fatigue or higher levels of wealth in the community we now get suggestions that no one should be restricted in the water they want to meet their life style. Indeed the Prime Minister has challenged the notion that urban people cannot just have water on demand, like electricity. Some advocate that those with money should get the water; others believe it should come from the environment or other users. This issue of appropriate standards of service from a public water supply is an unresolved issue.

Choose Appropriate Standards of Service Traditionally we have accepted an approach where water restrictions were imposed in a proportion of the years, and this has been a means of keeping

Above: Understanding future water demands for open spaces, such as the Adelaide Parklands, is important for planning. (Fiona Paton)

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“There are fantasies about abundant water being wasted by letting it run out to sea and suggestions that if we cannot take the water south we could send thirsty irrigators north.”

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Current and Future Per Capita Water Use Within the planning region, what is the current water use per head? Given the increasing emphasis on water sensitive developments, it might be worthwhile understanding per capita water use for established traditional dwellings and for new dwellings. A per capita use for open space and for industry use is also important. The likely future water demand will be affected by climate change if it gets hotter, and also by housing preferences. Presently household size seems to be decreasing, leading to increased per capita usage. The impacts of public education campaigns, incentives for water efficient appliances and water pricing all need to be considered. This is an iterative process and the level of investment will affect the outcome.

Setting target water consumption (for dwellings, open space and industry) may guide the level of investment needed to achieve the outcome desired, and along with the population projection give an estimate of future water needs.

Assessing Augmentation Options Planning and consultation will commonly identify a number of ways to secure water supplies. It is important not to select a preferred option early, but subject a number of promising options to rigorous scrutiny. Evaluate each alternative thoroughly–will it work, what will it cost, what are its environmental impacts and what is its social acceptability? It is now reasonable to assume the option will function in a carbon constrained world, so greenhouse gas emissions must be estimated for each option and built into the costing.

MAKING CHOICES Short-listing of Viable Options In view of the water needs identified, what are the set of most effective and efficient ways of meeting the need with least environmental damage. At this stage, the idea is to screen out from further analysis options that will clearly not meet the objectives of the plan.

Have a Mix of Water Sources

IMPLEMENTATION Accommodating New Uses In fully allocated systems, ensure that any new developments requiring water are required to get a water entitlement from an existing holder rather than expect they can just reduce the security of supply to existing users.

Monitoring and Evaluation A periodic review of how the plan is going is necessary in terms of checking and updating, if necessary, the sustainable yield estimates, the health of waterways and the demand estimates.

WATER FROM THE NORTH NO SOLUTION As cities confront water shortages there are recurring calls to pipe water from northern Australia to supply thirsty southern cities and even irrigation communities. There are fantasies about abundant water being wasted by letting it run out to sea and suggestions that if we cannot take the water south we could send thirsty irrigators north. There is little understanding that northern waters are highly seasonal and there is a long dry period when evaporation would be high and that the waters drive important estuarine and coastal ecosystems that drive valuable fisheries.

In times of climate uncertainty it is desirable to have a variety of water sources so that if one fails, others are likely to provide security. Desalination and recycling are not dependent on rainfall in the way surface water and groundwater systems may be.

Select Appropriate Augmentation Options Identify a mix of preferred options so as to manage risk, understand the lead times to have them supply water, and identify the trigger points where a decision to proceed must be made. Ensure options identified for later development are protected to ensure they will remain available and suitable for use when required.

Opposite: Mangroves–an important habitat as they offer protection and provide a breeding place for fish, Queensland. (Graeme Dandy)

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“Perhaps the biggest risk to water security for urban Australians is the replacement of serious planning with poorly analysed political decisions.” Peter Cullen

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Water reform: Are We there yet? Peter Cullen Australian farm Institute, Agriculture roundtable Conference Aitken hill, victoria 8-9 november 2007

A

ustralia has been on a journey of water reform since 1994 when the Council of Australian governments agreed to a wideranging reform agenda affecting both rural and urban water. this reform agenda was refreshed in 2004 with the national Water Initiative (nWI), and impatience with the speed of implementation led to the Prime Minister’s Plan for Water security in 2007.

CoPIng WIth WAter sCArCIty

•

Understand the water resource through effective measurement and modelling and produce public water accounts so all can see how water is used

these reforms have been driven by the rapid increase in extraction of water for irrigation since the 1970s leading to an erosion of the security of supply to entitlement holders, a concern that water was not being used for the best economic advantage and the degradation of the health of the river Murray system. the national Water Commission (nWC) has now issued its Biennial Assessment of Progress on these reforms.

•

Use the best available science to determine the ecologically sustainable levels of extraction of surface water and groundwater systems and use this to define the consumptive pool of water for human use

•

give farmers a clear entitlement to water and, except in cases of system failure, guarantee that any allocations made can either be used, carried forward or traded

•

Make it possible to trade water entitlements and allocations quickly and at low cost so that water can move to the place where it can make its greatest contribution to the economy

We are also experiencing a rapid shift in climate that has seen inflows to the Murray system drop by around 40% from that experienced during the relatively wet period 1950-1990. recent inflows have been the lowest on record, and there are now significant risks to the security of water supply to the city of Adelaide as well as towns along the Murray. Climate change predictions suggest the situation will get worse rather than better.

the key principles of the Australian water reform agenda are simple:

opposite: Watering system on an irrigation property. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBA)

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•

•

Where the systems have been over entitled and/or over-allocated, use market mechanisms to purchase entitlements and rigorous management of allocations to restore them to sustainable levels of extraction Integrated water planning to allow us to define and protect high value assets and to meet community needs

Understanding the Water Resource Given the importance of water in Australia, it is interesting that we have allowed a run-down in the infrastructure that measures river flows and we have never had a good understanding of our groundwater resource. The NWC has released ‘Australian Water Resources 2005’ as the baseline assessment at the start of the implementation of the NWI (see www.water. gov.au). It was extraordinarily difficult to compile this data due to patchy information, restricted access to the data and disparate state systems for managing the data that made a national compilation in a common form very difficult. The Prime Minister’s National Plan for Water Security recognized this problem and committed substantial funding of $480 million and charged the Bureau of Meteorology with the task of fixing this. This will require a review of the stream gauging network, an upgrade of many of the gauging stations, systematic calibration of streamflow gauging, much improved metering of water extractions and real time reporting and modelling with web-based access. This is a critically important foundation to effective water management and will need cooperation with the states who own and manage the current stream flow-gauging network.

Defining the Consumptive Pool Defining the consumptive pool has been a challenging area and, despite commitments since 1994, has not yet been achieved, and is still highly contested. The 2005 Australian Water Resources showed that states all have differing interpretations as to what is meant by over allocation. Some states assume that sustainable yield is simply the sum of legal entitlements, rather than having an ecological health and security of supply component.

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“the 2005 Australian Water resources showed that states all have differing interpretations as to what is meant by over-allocation.” there are three elements here. firstly, in some systems we have issued too many licences so that licence holders do not get their entitlement as frequently as they wish, to justify their level of investment. the high security water in victoria and south Australia has now been found to be not as secure as envisaged, with disastrous consequences for permanent plantings. secondly, in some situations we have had separate management of connected surface water and groundwater systems leading to double counting. the third problem has been that there has been over-allocation. each irrigation season, authorities make allocations to entitlement holders once they are aware of the water availability. It is clear that allocations have exceeded the sustainable level of extractions, leading to degradation of the lower Murray. the nWI commits states to ensuring that licence holders have a share of the available consumptive pool, not a set volume of water, and this has commonly not been the case in the past. engineering hydrologists developed the concept of yield to refer to the amount of water that could be taken from a system with a certain reliability of supply. this is largely the approach being presently used by CsIro in its assessment of sustainable levels of extraction across the Murray darling Basin (MdB), although this work is now including the interconnection between surface water and groundwater systems and is using predictions of likely futures given the expected shift in climate. the CsIro project is also considering the impact of interception activities, like farm dams and plantation forestry, that have commonly been ignored in water planning.

Above: Windmills, lake Albert, south Australia. (lydia Paton) opposite: A citrus orchard pulled up and abandoned due to a severe lack of water during the 2007 drought, Mildura, victoria. (Image by Irene dowdy used with the permission of the MdBA)

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Australians Live with a Highly Variable Rainfall Australians live within a continent characterised by extremely high rainfall variability. We live with long, severe droughts and massive floods. On the same day Australians can be coping with drought and bushfires in Perth, while mates in Brisbane battle massive floods. In addition to this geographic variability is the rainfall variability strongly expressed over time as we can see in the figure below.

Figure - Annual Rainfall Anomaly for Murray Darling Basin for years 1899-2010 Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi? graph=rranom&area=mdb&season=0112&ave_yr=5 Note: An annual rainfall anomaly shows the wet years in blue and dry years in beige relative to a mean over the years 1961 to 1990 of 465.2mm per year.

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A key feature is the inter-decadal shifts in rainfall that can last for forty or fifty years. As is evident in the Figure we have seen a major shift to a wetter period around 1950. Overall in the Murray Darling Basin the first half of the twentieth century was considerably drier with two very severe droughts and fewer large events and than the second half which featured some very large rainfall events and sequences (see 5 year running average). In the twenty-first century the first nine years were some of the driest years ever experienced and reminiscent of periods in the first fifty years of Federation. In 2010 we saw a very wet year similar in magnitude to those in the 1950s and 1970s characterised by large rainfall and huge floods. It is on to these long term highly variable rainfalls that the effects of climate change will impact. In southern Australia we can expect a general drying, but also associated with a declining mean in rainfall we can also expect increases in variability and thus increases in extreme dry periods and extreme wet periods. It is this rainfall probability distribution which will be re-written under climate change and it is the management of the extremes that challenge our water resource and river management most of all. It was against these highly variable rainfall and river flow patterns that Peter Cullen cast his extensive writing. He understood better than most how difficult it would prove for science and social behaviours to construct river management regimes that could deal with the droughts as well as the huge floods. He knew how critical both flood and drought were to the healthy ecological functioning of the rivers and the catchment areas. In the Figure we see the long dry period 2000-2009 followed by the large rainfall events of 2010. Peter knew how critical such floods were to the replenishment of the extensive groundwater aquifers that sit connected to the major rivers through often complex floodplains stratigraphy. Floods recharge not only groundwater but also the floodplain soils that furnish the reservoirs for pasture and crop productivity many years into the future. Peter wrote in Section 4, Paper 10:

“this is a challenging area for science, but current thinking indicates that the goal of ecological management is to restore or maintain resilience so the systems can cope with the shocks of climate or other factors they experience. It takes extreme events like droughts and floods to let us see whether we have kept resilience in our systems. We are not managing these systems for some benign ‘average’ condition, but so they can cope with the extremes that characterise the Australian climate and our agricultural markets.” While much of the work in this book contains papers written against the spectre of extreme drought and over-allocated river systems, Peter operated with a firm appreciation of our highly variable climate driving droughts and also flooding rains. he knew that we must work hard to go forward with management that can yield river systems resilient to the shocks of drought as well as massive floods, which are often amplified by our engineering interventions. he knew that to perform that management with current climate variability would challenge our science and our society. further, he knew that to add to this mix, the impacts of climate change on climate variability and changed probability distributions for our rainfall, would stretch us to our limits. the slow and difficult progress since his death strongly suggests that he was correct.

John WiLLiaMs nsW CoMMissioner For naTuraL resourCes ForMer ChieF oF Csiro Land and WaTer FoundinG MeMBer oF WenTWorTh GrouP oF ConCerned sCienTisTs

this current work is essential and is necessary for defining the consumptive pool, but it is not sufficient. the ecological issue of what is required to maintain existing aquatic ecosystems or to restore damaged ecosystems is not considered, nor is the issue of security of supply for entitlement holders, which is important when considering investment decisions. our thinking about the environmental needs of our river systems has evolved from the time when minimum flows were thought of as all that was needed, through a period where we attempted to mimic the highs and lows of the natural hydrograph. Both of these approaches were wasteful of valuable environmental water and did not achieve the environmental outcomes sought. the current approach to determining ecological needs is based on identifying particular high value ecological assets and attempting to meet their water needs over a sustained period, which needs to be thought of in decadal rather than annual terms for some species. given the climate shift we are experiencing, we need to rethink these strategies. our natural ecosystems have evolved to cope with droughts and floods, and have a number of features to give them this resilience. We have inadvertently removed or blocked off the refuges used by organisms to cope with drought. since our systems will see more drought conditions in coming years, the objective of management must now be to maintain, or to restore, the natural resilience of these systems. this means understanding the various refuges that organisms use during dry times and ensuring appropriate connectivity along the river stem and between the river and its floodplain. the 2007 national Water Act requires an environmental watering plan to be developed for the MdB. In my view this needs to be much more than a simple plan to irrigate the few remnant ‘icon’ sites as though they were museum pieces. It means ensuring that medium-size floods are returned to the system so that the floodplain is wet at appropriate intervals to support the

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tools being used in Victoria and Tasmania, and the Sustainable Rivers Audit within the MDB. The development of this later tool needs to be accelerated. The NWC has developed a tool, based on those in place. This Framework for Assessing River and Wetland Health is now being trialled in different ecosystems in Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. This tool needs to be rolled out and implemented nationally.

Water Entitlements and Trading States have made good progress in establishing water access entitlements for consumptive users (NWC Biennial Assessment) and have made a start in establishing entitlements for the environment.

“We now understand that the river channel, its floodplains and wetlands and its estuary are a single system and need to be managed as such.” floodplain and wetland vegetation that gives it its character and determines its ecological nature. These floods will also trigger the breeding of fish and waterbirds. This approach means that, if a floodplain has not been wet for a certain period, then it needs a priority for the next flush of water rather than using this water to refill storages. This is a departure from the current view that in wet periods it was possible to extract as much water as possible and that water flowing down a river is wasted. We now understand that the river channel, its floodplain and wetlands and its estuary are a single system and needs to be managed as such. Maintaining the various processes that drive the aquatic system is probably more important than trying to maintain some particular favoured species or community. As yet we do not have a nationally consistent approach to assessing river health, despite good

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Establishing effective markets has been progressing and now it is possible to have permanent interstate trade in water, although the administrative arrangements for this are time consuming and clumsy due to different systems and requirements in each state. Water trading has been effective in re-allocating scarce water supplies and has already been an effective rural readjustment tool as water has traded out of unsuitable areas. It has led to development of new high technology irrigation developments in greenfield sites, rather than attempting to reconfigure outdated systems, leaving the problem of stranded assets. There is still however much more to be done. There are still constraints as to the volume of water that can be traded out of particular areas, there are issues to do with whether individual farmers own water entitlements or whether they should continue to be held by regional irrigation companies. Ideally we would have a common electronic registry across the MDB which would facilitate water trade. While states could not agree on this, they agreed to develop compatible systems, but these are still inhibiting trade and adding to costs. This is an opportunity for the new Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and should in my view be a condition for access to infrastructure funding.

A Man of Great Social and Analytical Intelligence Peter Cullen was a rare individual. trained as an engineer, he had the analytical capability and training to understand and contribute to science. he did so to great effect, first in the role of phosphorus in driving water quality, in coastal zone management, and later in a broad systemwide view of water science. But Peter was more than that. he understood people, their diversity of perspectives, their drivers and passions. he was also a man of great social intelligence. Born to it I am sure, but Peter also assiduously studied his trade throughout his life. he read widely not only in his science, but also devoured books on how to work with people – ideas books like edward de Bono’s ‘six thinking hats’. he would bubble about the ideas in the books and the extensions he could make to them in his daily work with all of us. he would share these many stimulating books with those who showed even a skerrick of interest and was prolific in putting these ideas to work in informal documents, workshop presentations, addresses to staff and formal publication. Many of these documents appear in this book. they had a profound effect on my life as an educator and a manager. Peter put this rare brand of intelligence to great good. he would cut to the chase in the most complex of issues and restate them in what, to many, was astonishingly simple form, using analogy and other mental images. If you knew him or saw him in action, you would have seen and appreciated his skill. Peter saw the greatest impediment to effective action by decision-makers in the water industry was not lack of scientific knowledge, but in accessing it in timely fashion and in useful form.

so were born the knowledge brokers, a model of knowledge transfer and adoption that is now widely accepted. Peter understood power and the people who exercised it, knew their needs and provided for them. his influence on policy and decision-making extended right to the top in Australian government. he changed the directions Australia has taken in responding to the environmental challenges before us, and so has changed for the better the world that we will come to live in. not many of us will be able to say that. Before I finish, I would like to touch on Peter’s time with the Canberra College of Advanced education and University of Canberra (UC), where he spent most of his career. We benefited greatly from his leadership and insight, first as head of the department of natural resources, later as dean, and then as Professor and lead proponent and director of the CrC for freshwater ecology. not surprisingly, Peter’s legacy lives on at UC, through his impeccable judge of character in those he appointed and in the direction and example he provided them. Many of the best are still with us. It is not coincidence, nor is it luck that the environmental sciences at UC did so well in the recent excellence in research for Australia assessments. We are fortunate indeed to have had Peter as one of us for so many years. his influence is still with us and will be with us for many years to come.

ProFessor arThur GeorGes dean, FaCuLTY oF aPPLied sCienCe, uniVersiTY oF CanBerra

opposite: Aerial views of Wentworth at the time of the 1979 flood, new south Wales. (Image by frank Zaetta courtesy of the state library of victoria)

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Restoring Over-Allocated Systems A core element of the NWI is that when systems have been over-allocated, then recovery of water to achieve sustainable levels of extraction is required. I am not aware of any Australian water plan that is compliant with this requirement. It is hardly surprising when confronted by having access to a reduced consumptive pool of water that entitlement holders and their communities will contest both the science behind the environmental needs and the means by which water is recovered, and it is reasonable both of these aspects be scrutinised. It is unreasonable for interest groups to gridlock decision making, and governments need to listen to community views and make decisions. This is especially so where upstream communities get economic benefits to the economic and environmental cost of those who live downstream. Governments have committed to returning water to the environment, even if the amount required is not yet finalised. There is a view that the

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government should enter the water market and purchase the water it seeks, taking care not to distort the market. The New South Wales (NSW) Government has been remarkably successful in this with its river bank program, and has found willing sellers. On the other hand some irrigator groups have been insistent that using the market was inappropriate and that governments should find the water they need by reinvesting in poorly-maintained infrastructure to create water savings. The concerns of these groups are about distortion of water prices making water unaffordable, about water and hence economic wealth leaving a district and about the costs of maintaining ‘stranded’ assets. These are legitimate concerns but when some infrastructure proposals are costing more than ten times the cost of water on the open market, one must ask what is a fair thing. Young and McColl (2007) have suggested compulsory acquisition may be required. When water is recovered for the environment it needs to be transferred as an entitlement under the control of the designated environmental water

manager, not just cancelled. All cancellation does is improve the security of supply for existing entitlement holders not restore the environmental condition of the river. It may also be desirable to reduce entitlements to restore security to entitlement holders, but the appropriate level of security for any catchment is a planning decision that determines the sort of agriculture that can be developed.

IntegrAted WAter PlAnnIng this is a central tenet of the nWI and has so far been poorly developed. While most states do have planning processes in place these have serious limitations, the main ones being: •

failure to consider interception activities such as farm dams and plantation forestry as a significant water-using feature

•

Inadequate consideration of the connection between surface water and groundwater systems

•

Inadequate consideration of the effect of improving irrigation water-use efficiency on reliability of downstream water allocations

•

generally poor identification and protection for high value conservation assets

•

failure of managers to understand the sustainable levels of extraction and keep seasonal allocations within these limits

•

failure to identify the environmental outcomes expected from a plan

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Poor integration of the management of environmental water

•

Inadequate consideration of likely impacts of climate change

•

lack of connection between regional natural resource management plans, water plans and infrastructure proposals

regional and basin-wide water plans need to clarify what is known about the available resource and define the consumptive pool using transparent logic. this requires community discussion as to what sort of river they seek, and this needs to include the whole river and estuarine system, not isolated bits of it. the environmental outcomes sought need to be debated and agreed, because these systems are not pristine and cannot now be returned to a pristine state. this planning process is where trade-offs with national and regional economic well-being must be made. Careful analysis is required of what is the optimal level of security for water entitlements. nsW has tended to issue entitlements with fairly low security, meaning they maximise the wealth created in wet periods through annual crops like rice and cotton. victoria and south Australia have had a higher security of water product, thus facilitating the development of permanent plantings of citrus, grapes and various tree crops.

Above: Wine grapes ready for picking at a property near Mildura, victoria. (Images by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBA) opposite: reedy swamp in July 2008 after receiving a water allocation, new south Wales.

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There is no doubt that farm dams, floodplain harvesting and plantation forestry reduce the yield of water, and that none of these activities is adequately understood to be incorporated in water plans, and that ongoing lack of control on these activities is reducing flow and hence downstream water security. The plantation forestry industry is both in denial of their impact and arguing that other interceptions, such as cropping, should also be considered. While it is true there are other interception activities that may be important, the NWI commitment is to the above three, which are probably the most significant. This requirement of the NWI has so far been largely ignored. CSIRO have predicted that expansion of plantation forests in the Murray Darling Basin could lead to a reduction of 550-700GL/yr if the plantation area doubled.

There is a growing understanding that surface water and groundwater systems are connected and that over-allocation of groundwater will lead to a reduction in streamflow after a lag period of ten to forty years. There is evidence of this in some areas, and will become much worse in coming years due to groundwater extraction already underway, regardless of the increasing pressure from rural and urban users on unproven groundwater reserves. CSIRO have estimated that already within the MDB some 327GL a year is being lost from streamflows by groundwater extraction and this might increase to 580GL within five years. This is a significant threat to entitlement holders. In my view most states do not have an adequate understanding of their groundwater resource and are not managing it effectively. The next big round of water reform will start addressing the overallocation problems of groundwater that we are presently creating.

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“There is a growing understanding that surface water and groundwater systems are connected and that over allocation of groundwater will lead to a reduction in streamflow after a lag period of ten to forty years.” Integrated management of environmental water has not yet been achieved. There are in place a number of mechanisms for recovering water for the environment, and these compete with each other. There are multiple environmental managers controlling environmental water in most jurisdictions, and they commonly do not have the authority, financial resources or the knowledge to achieve the environmental outcomes. Without a systematic assessment of river and wetland health, we are not measuring outcomes.

looKIng forWArd

2. lAndsCAPes In trAnsItIon

1. ClIMAte ChAnge

rural landscapes have always been in transition, as world markets and agricultural technologies interact with changing demographics and community attitudes. farmers and science are continually striving to increase production, and unless demand is growing at a similar rate, then prices will drop. this has been the experience over the last fifty years with a long term trend down in food prices. this has led to fewer and bigger farms, especially in productive landscapes where soils and climate are conducive to agriculture.

We can measure the increased Co2 in the atmosphere, and we know it is due to human activities. We can observe that since 1950 Australian average temperatures have increased 0.9oC. the best estimate of annual warming over Australia by 2030 relative to 1990 is a further increase of about 1oC (CsIro, 2007). later in this century, the warming is projected to rise by around 1.8oC for the best-case scenario and around 3.4oC for a high emissions case, with a 20 to 50% chance of temperature increases exceeding 4oC in inland areas, such as the MdB. scientists have no doubt that increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are influencing rainfall patterns. CsIro scientists have estimated that around half the decline in rainfall in south-west Western Australia is due to greenhouse gas. Predictions are of a 5-15% decrease in rainfall by 2070. We face a future with declining and more erratic rainfall. It seems winter and spring rainfall will drop and there may be increases in summer thunderstorm activity. Mean streamflows are more likely to drop further rather than return to those experienced last century. With higher temperatures evaporation will increase and the incidence of mega fires in catchments will increase, also affecting water yield.

Barr (2007) has identified four rural landscapes and described the trajectories they seem to be on in victoria.

Agricultural Production landscapes–the past trend towards fewer and larger farms will continue in response to terms of trade. Already the largest 10% of farms produce 50% of agricultural output. the rate of farm aggregation roughly equals the rate of retirement from farming as children choose alternative careers. these areas will have a declining, ageing population with reduced social connectedness as small towns contract. this is most evident in beef and now in sheep areas, less so in dairy and cropping areas.

opposite: Plantation timber near Cobram, victoria. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBA)

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Rural Amenity Landscapes–there is a growing demand for amenity landscapes, especially adjacent to centres of population and in these areas farms are becoming smaller as land prices escalate. Production on some farms intensifies (horticulture, gourmet foods, farm tourism), or farms are supported by off-farm income sources.

Transitional Landscapes–as the production landscape shrinks and is replaced by amenity landscapes, there is a slowly moving outwards transitional zone. Agricultural production tends to become more diversified away from sheep or dairy landscapes, sometimes causing tension (e.g. blue gum plantations, wind farms). Newcomers migrate into these landscapes and the social sustainability of these landscapes depends on how well-established residents accept newcomers and manage the conflicts that emerge.

Irrigation Landscapes–there is a growing understanding that ongoing economic development is dependent on protection of the foundation environment, and that economic development is also dependent on availability of water.

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We have seen amenity landscapes expanding outwards from centres of population, pushing the transitional landscapes outwards and a contraction of the production landscapes over the last 50 years. These trends are expected to continue. Climate change is bringing further changes, especially to those areas where plants are near the edge of their climate tolerance or where farming is under economic stress.

3. Possible Changes in Irrigation Landscapes I believe we need to develop an irrigation sector that operates with around half of the water it enjoyed last century, and with greater variability. We need an irrigation industry that can create enough wealth to pay its way, and not require periodic injections of public funds to refurbish neglected infrastructure or to expect an unpriced subsidy from the environment. This means we need to move beyond the present grants-based approach to more serious system planning as is being undertaken in the Victorian Food Bowl project. Water is increasingly being seen as the limiting factor to production, and there will be

increasing pressure from the environment and urban users. the ability to sell water provides a mechanism for adjustment that redistributes water to its best economic use in a national sense, but in a regional sense may provide winners and losers and create social tension. shortage of surface water will put increasing pressure on groundwater. groundwater recharge will reduce with the rainfall, and our present inadequate understanding and control of groundwater will mean this resource is also degraded. there will be increasing tension between upstream and downstream landowners over sharing diminishing water supplies.

“the ability to sell water provides a mechanism for adjustment that redistributes water to its best economic use in a national sense, but in a regional sense may provide winners and losers and create social tension.”

Irrigation landscapes will change as the amount of water available for irrigation reduces. this means the existing security of supply will decrease, leading to a reduction in the area of permanent plantings and perhaps more emphasis on annual crops that can be planted once water availability for the season is known. Irrigation properties may become larger to cope with a mix of perennial and annual plants and more opportunistic irrigation. there will be an overall contraction in the area irrigated, leading to issues of stranded assets and increasing operating costs to those remaining. there will be ongoing downward pressure on prices, especially in export markets, and with the value of water increasing due to scarcity and pressures for cost-reflective pricing there will be opportunities to leave farming. there will be strong pressures to improve water use efficiency and in some enterprises, such as dairy, there is room for this, whereas many efficiency improvements have already been made in rice and cotton enterprises. We may see dairy farms leave irrigation areas and become purchasers of fodder from irrigators and other sources. new irrigation technologies like subsurface tape may see crops move from heavier to lighter soils. A critical issue for irrigation is whether to spend funds refurbishing old irrigation districts, where properties may be too small and irrigation layouts

Above: A cotton crop with irrigation channels, near Cecil Plains in the Condamine Catchment, Queensland. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MdBA) opposite: Clements gap wind farm, south of Port Pirie, south Australia. (Bill doyle)

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4. Water Planning We need more discussion about what we are seeking to achieve with our available water, and with the funds governments are now making available. Do we seek to maximize the long term national wealth from irrigation, do we seek to maximise wealth in particular regions or do we seek the social sustainability of regional communities? Is irrigation about drought-proofing our country as originally intended? Are we trying to be self sufficient in food and fibre or can we buy what we want on world markets? Why do we need irrigated farming at all? If we seek to be a global seller and buyer of foodstuffs, what are the risks of a global pandemic of some disease that will cause us to close our borders and prevent trade? Should we seek to be self-sufficient in food? We need to be clear as to what we are seeking to achieve, and then use the available funds to help us focus on the transition we need, rather than use them to slow down the changes at the behest of particular interest groups, who will be noisy in their clamouring for special treatment.

inappropriate for current irrigation technologies, or to allow water to trade out and develop new irrigation enterprises on greenfield sites. This has been happening over the last decade and will probably continue. This will lead to the closure of some parts of existing irrigation systems. This is an important issue for the Federal Government who has some $3 billion to purchase water entitlements and nearly $6 billion to refurbish irrigation systems. It is important to enter the market and purchase the water before developing infrastructure, or there is every chance expensive pipes and channels will go to areas where irrigation may be contracting.

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We can expect increasing competition for a declining amount of water. The tensions between urban, irrigation and the environment will continue to grow. Our planning will need more clarity as to the outcomes we seek in terms of food security, economic wealth creation and regional social sustainability. We will need improved public engagement in the planning process to address these issues. A Plan across the entire MDB must start with an understanding of the capability of the soils to support irrigated agriculture, without adding to the salt and other contaminant load into the river and groundwater systems. Some soils are inappropriate for irrigation and, while water has been trading out of such areas, it is important that public infrastructure investments do not support expansion or refurbishment in unsuitable areas, despite the wishes of local communities, all of whom will be seeking funding. This is the reason

that some people were arguing that the MdBA needed to be independent and at arms length from government. Irrigation will always mobilise salt in the soil profile, and in a flat salty landscape, such as the Murray darling, salt management is always a key issue. Without the occasional floods to move salt back into the oceans, salt will be distributed across fertile irrigated soils with irrigation water. our current strategies of groundwater pumping and evaporation basins are not long term solutions to the challenge of managing a salt balance. secondly we need to make a serious effort to determine the sustainable levels of extraction of water. the CsIro water yield study is a good start, but comparable work on river health is essential. once the consumptive pool is identified, then some consideration to the number of water products available is needed. do we need high and low security waters or can irrigators and suppliers manage this, as is done in the electricity markets? however difficult the current situation with water scarcity is, it does present us with opportunities as well as threats. While we may have only half the water we have been accustomed to, we have large amounts of money available to refurbish our irrigation systems. We have the opportunity to drive a revolution in irrigation, where we can double the wealth we obtain from this water, or we squander this money in trying to slow down the changes that will take place. do we have the imagination and the political system that will let us achieve this vision?

referenCes & fUrther reAdIngs Barr, n. (2005) the Changing social landscape of

rural victoria. dept of Primary Industries. victoria. Commonwealth of Australia. Water Act 2007. no 137. Parliament of Australia CsIro (2007) Climate Change in Australia. regional

Impacts and Adaptation. technical report. CsIro. national Water Initiative (2004). see www.nwc.gov. au van dijk, A.r.e., hairsine, P., Khan, s., nathan, r., Payder, Z., viney, n. & Zhang, l. (2006) risks to the

shared Water resources of the Murray-darling Basin. MdBC Publication no. 22/06. CsIro, Canberra.

ACKnoWledgMents young, M. and McColl, J. (2007) the unmentionable

My thanks to Professor Mike young and to dr John Williams for comments on a draft of this paper.

option: Is there a place for an across-the-board purchase? droplet 8. see www.myoung.net.au

Above: Meningie Jetty, lake Albert, south Australia. (Carolyn Clarke) opposite: the river Murray looking upstream,from the bridge at tintaldra, victoria. (Bill strong)

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“When scientists do enter the political arena, they must understand they are playing to different rules from those used in science and need to learn the rules of politics and the media. Unless they understand the rules and tactics of policy debate it is like them walking on to a tennis court equipped only with golf sticks.” Peter Cullen

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Adapting to Water Scarcity: A Global Challenge for the 21st Century Peter Cullen Australian Society of Limnology 46th national Congress - ‘Water – An Inconvenient Truth’ Queenstown, new Zealand 3-7 December 2007

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ustralians, like many others, have long been in denial about climate change, despite the warnings from scientists. As much of south-eastern Australia enters its 17th year of low flows, our major water storages have emptied and Australians are starting to realise something is wrong. We have moved from denial of this issue to anger that governments have not done more. Hopefully we will now move quickly to acceptance and get on to address this challenge. Today I will outline the climate change and how it is affecting the Australian water situation. I will describe the policy framework that we have agreed is the best way for us to confront water scarcity, and outline how both the urban and rural sectors may have to cope with the situation. I will finish by outlining the challenges I see for freshwater ecologists as we grapple with the issue of protecting aquatic ecosystems from the increasing pressures they are experiencing.

CLIMATe CHAnGe AnD WATeR We can measure the increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and the consequential increase in temperatures. each summer seems to bring new records for hot weather and we know that since 1950 Australian average temperatures have increased 0.9oC. Further evidence of warming is provided by the snow record in south-east

Australia where the snow depth at the start of October has declined 40% in the past forty years. The best estimate of annual warming over Australia by 2030 relative to 1990 is a further increase of about 1oC (CSIRO, 2007). Later in this century, the warming is projected to rise by around 1.8oC for the best-case scenario and around 3.4oC for a high emissions case, with a 20-50% chance of temperature increases exceeding 4oC in inland areas. This warming will lead to more evaporation from storages, increased transpiration of water by plants and an increased frequency of megabushfires. Scientists have no doubt that increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are also influencing rainfall patterns. CSIRO scientists have estimated that around half the decline in rainfall in south-west western Australia is due to greenhouse gas. Predictions are of a 5-15% decrease in rainfall by 2070. It seems Australia is facing a future with declining and more erratic rainfall. Winter and spring rainfall will drop but there may be increases in summer thunderstorm activity.

Opposite: River Red Gums in the Barmah Millewa Forest after a bushfire in January 2008, new South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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A small reduction in rainfall is accompanied by a larger reduction in run-off. We can see the reduction in rainfall experienced in Perth since the 1970s, and how this reduction is magnified when considering inflows to storages. The same reduction can be seen in the records for Sydney since around 1990. The Sydney records show that in the eastern states there was an unusually wet period between 1950-1990, and we now appear to have returned to a drier time such as experienced in the first half of the century. In the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), the food bowl of Australia, the same picture emerges. This year the winter–spring rains have again failed. September inflows were 210GL compared to a

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long term average of 1610GL. Monthly inflows have now been below average for the last twenty-four months. There is about half the water in the MDB storages (at 23% of capacity) now that at this time in 2006. One of the most important tributaries to the MDB is the Goulburn River, which over the last decade has delivered only 62% of the long term flow. As river levels in the Murray fall, saline groundwater flows into the river, potentially making the water unusable. The salinity at Morgan in South Australia has almost doubled in the last 3 months, although it is still within acceptable limits and flow management is being focused at keeping it this way.

We have seen a similar pattern on our west coast. In Perth the rainfall has declined and the run-off into storages declined much more. There are fears that the east coast is now following this pattern, some twenty-five years after it became evident in the west.

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Dealing with over-allocation.

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Better integrating the management of surface water and groundwater resources and in relation to land use changes that intercept significant amounts of water.

AUSTRALIA’S nATIOnAL WATeR InITIATIve

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Improving water resource accounting and measurement to ensure that water is extracted, diverted, stored, traded and used in accordance with the conditions set out by water plans and defined in water access entitlements.

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enhancing the compatibility of individual southern MDB registers to support timely and low cost water trading transactions across irrigation area boundaries and state borders.

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establishing arrangements for recovering costs of water planning and management.

Australia started its long and slow journey of water reform in 1994, and in 2004 the Council of Australian Governments (Premiers and Prime Minister) refreshed this with the national Water Initiative (nWI). The key principles of this reform agenda provide an effective framework for confronting water scarcity and a successful mechanism for adjusting rural communities to their new drier future: •

Understand how much water we have and how we use it.

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Determine how much water we can take and still have healthy rivers and secure groundwater.

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Restore over-allocated systems.

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Give users clear entitlement to water.

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Allow users to trade their entitlements.

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effective water planning to protect key ecological assets.

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Best practice pricing to encourage efficiency in water use.

While governments have agreed to these principles in the nWI it is proving slow to implement, due to gaps in knowledge and capacity as well as political will in a federal system where blaming other levels of government has become the first response to difficult problems. The national Water Commission has now released its first Biennial Assessment of progress and has identified a number of areas requiring further attention:

Impatience with the slow progress led to the Federal Government passing legislation to provide much firmer federal control over levels of extraction from the Murray in a context of water planning, and currently negotiations are underway to get state agreement to the principles of going forward.

URBAn WATeR SeCURITY Much of the water reform agenda has been focussed on addressing problems of rural water, and there was a view that urban water had largely responded to the 1994 reforms. However, we have been facing a situation in the last three years where we seem to have been having a race to see which major city could run out of water first. Governments are investing in new infrastructure at a frantic rate to try and secure water supplies.

Opposite: A thunderstorm over narran Lakes, new South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Clearly Australia is facing an uncertain water future, and urban water planning is now embracing four elements: •

Reduce our demands on water to secure supply.

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Have a variety of water sources, at least some of which are independent of rainfall.

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Identify the next three or four water augmentations and do preliminary planning, obtain necessary approvals and identify trigger points when construction must start.

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Build new storages. Brisbane has embarked upon building new dams and Adelaide is proposing to increase the size of its storages. The challenge here is to find appropriate sites that have a reasonable probability of filling under the new climate.

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Desalination. The Perth desalination plant is operating, the Gold Coast and Sydney plants are under construction, and planning is underway for plants in Melbourne, Adelaide and a second in Perth.

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Recycling. Brisbane is moving to recycle water back into potable supply; other cities are seeking to use it to replace drinking water for appropriate domestic, commercial and open space uses. Some are still using recycled water for agriculture.

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Groundwater. Several cities have turned to groundwater, but our basic knowledge and management regimes for groundwater are primitive.

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Urban stormwater. Adelaide is capturing stormwater and storing it in aquifers for later recovery, but in existing cities storage of stormwater is the problem. Most jurisdictions are encouraging use of domestic tanks to trap roof water.

Protect possible future water sources so that they will be available when needed.

Australian cities are confronting water scarcity in a variety of ways, depending upon their specific contexts: •

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Demand management programs are active, but per capita usage ranges from around 400litres/ person/day (L/p/d) to 140L/p/d in Brisbane that has severe restrictions. Purchase water from upstream irrigators. Adelaide and Perth have been doing this for several years. Melbourne and Canberra are both now planning to source future water from the over-stressed MDB.

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It is important not to exclude any options for securing a city’s water supply from consideration. All need to be considered for their technical merits, economic impacts, greenhouse gas implications, other environmental considerations and the social acceptability of the option. A much more sophisticated approach to engaging the community in these considerations is needed if communities are not to end in gridlock.

ReCOnFIGURInG AUSTRALIAn IRRIGATIOn We have experienced some 40 years of unusually wet conditions in the MDB from 1950-1990, but in the last fifteen years the Basin has been drying. Our refusal to recognize this meant we have allowed the major storages to empty, and they will not refill again without a run of wet years. The lack of water is already having a devastating impact on irrigators and their communities as we have already had the death of some permanent plantings in the Basin; more can be expected from both lack of water and from salinisation of water. The Federal Government has committed $10 billion to improved management of the MDB. This gives us an incredible opportunity to build a foundation for an irrigation sector that can create wealth for rural communities and start to pay its own way without expecting taxpayer handouts every so often because they fail to maintain infrastructure. Much of the delivery infrastructure is old and has been poorly maintained, and there is considerable leakage. It also gives us the opportunity to address the over-allocation problem which, in recent years, has seen marked degradation of the lower reaches of the river and estuarine system. I believe irrigators will have to get used to around half the water they have been accustomed to last century. Water may in future be less reliable than in the past. We will have a better idea of this once the current CSIRO study of water yields under climate change is complete, which is addressing issues of interception and groundwater connection for the first time. Further work is required to estimate

sustainable levels of extraction. This work should incorporate river health aspects and the issue of what is an economically reasonable security of supply to justify farmer investments in modern irrigation. I expect Australian irrigation landscapes will change. I expect a reduction in the area of permanent plantings and perhaps more emphasis on annual crops that can be planted once water availability for the season is known. Irrigation properties may become larger to cope with a mix of perennial and annual plants and more opportunistic irrigation. There may be an overall contraction in the area irrigated, leading to issues of stranded assets and increasing operating costs to those remaining. The value of water will continue to increase, providing a useful pressure to drive improvements in water use efficiency. We may see dairy farms leave irrigation areas and become purchasers of fodder from irrigators and other sources. new irrigation technologies like subsurface tape may see crops move from heavier to lighter soils. Above: Cattle graze among abandoned grapevines during the drought of 2007. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA) Opposite: Royal Adelaide Golf Club Stormwater Reuse Scheme Wetlands, South Australia. (Image by Sam Phillips courtesy of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges natural Resources Management Board)

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A critical issue for irrigation is whether to spend funds refurbishing old irrigation districts, where properties may be too small, and irrigation layouts inappropriate for current irrigation technologies, or to allow water to trade out and develop new irrigation enterprises on greenfield sites. This has been happening over the last decade, and will probably continue. This will lead to the closure of some parts of existing irrigation systems. This is an important issue for the Federal Government who have allocated some $3 billion to purchase water entitlements and nearly $6 billion to refurbish irrigation systems. It is important to enter the market and purchase the water before developing infrastructure, or there is every chance expensive pipes and channels will go to areas where irrigation may be contracting. Refurbishing last century’s infrastructure may be silly when whole regions must be reconfigured with bigger farms and different irrigation layouts. What is the relative role for publicly provided infrastructure and that of the landholder?

“Australia has a tremendous opportunity to build a twenty-first century irrigation sector that can double the wealth obtained from around half the water.” Australia has a tremendous opportunity to build a twenty-first century irrigation sector that can double the wealth obtained from around half the water. It will be interesting to see if our political system has the capacity to deliver this outcome.

The Challenge of Environmental Water The challenge for aquatic scientists and river managers is to determine what are the environmentally sustainable levels of extraction. This will be contested by interest groups fearful of losing access to water and will probably be

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tested in the courts. And this has to be done in a period when it appears rainfall is decreasing, and competition for available water is becoming intense. Australia has been at the forefront of developing environmental flow rules, and in various ways these are reflected, if only partially, in many of the existing water plans. We have gone through four stages in the development of our thinking about river flow and river health: •

Firstly, we decided that each managed river should have at least some minimum flow all the time to maintain its ecology. Some dams had minimum release rules for most of the twentieth century.

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Secondly, we moved to trying to mimic natural flow patterns by releasing a certain proportion of the inflow water to a dam. This led to a ‘hard wiring’ approach that required releases that may have been insufficient to achieve required outcomes.

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Thirdly, we developed an understanding of the various ecological processes driven by different parts of the hydrograph, and we tried to build on natural flow events to ensure that these processes were enabled.

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The final approach is based on identifying the important ecological assets that must be maintained, and then deciding what are the appropriate flow regimes needed to protect them.

In some ways this latter approach is a form of prioritising, in other ways a simplification of a complex decision process. It has probably led to a wider understanding, but also a view amongst some that environmental assets are little more than an irrigation field that must be watered efficiently. This view has strengthened as water has become more scarce and we are in danger of having a few ‘icon sites’ that are intermittently watered and managed as museum-piece landscapes.

Australian ecosystems have a variety of mechanisms by which they cope with the droughts and floods that characterise our country. Our climate is changing and we can expect to see more prolonged drought conditions. It is important for science to understand how our systems cope with drought and ensure we do not inadvertently damage these coping mechanisms. For example as rivers cease to flow many organisms survive in the deeper pools that remain as refuges. These pools are therefore important ecological assets that act as refuges to provide resilience to allow the system to recover.

and being hard to switch back. This idea that there are thresholds of potential concern, which has been developed by Rogers and his colleagues in Kruger national Park, gives us a useful framework for assessing the risk of undesirable changes.

Rivers, and their associated wetlands and floodplains, are dynamic elements in the landscape, often with connections to the groundwater system. The challenge is to identify the relationship between the damaging function (flow alteration, riparian damage, pollution and so on), and the health of the river. These are not simple linear relationships, but are often stepped functions where little change is observed initially, but once some threshold is reached change can be sudden and may be hard to reverse. We have many examples of water bodies being able to tolerate nutrient pollution for some time, but then suddenly switching from being systems dominated by aquatic plants to being dominated by algal growth,

This resilience framework makes it clear that we must manage for the extreme rather than average conditions. As we approach these thresholds of potential concern, it seems resilience is reduced and we risk flipping to some alternate system. The challenge is then to identify these thresholds and to have management systems in place that can respond before the threshold is crossed.

The idea that our aquatic ecosystems can accommodate various pressures up to some point and can recover once the pressure is removed, is referred to as the ecological resilience of the system (see Brand and Jax, 2007). However once some threshold is crossed, then recovery is unlikely, and we may move to a different system.

Above: These wetland areas known as Black and Green Swamps are near Gunbower in victoria. environmental water flows are diverted into the swampland via a regulator on Gunbower Creek 2. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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In recent years we have lost thousands of River Red Gums on the Lower Murray floodplain because these trees were not able to cope with a harsh drought coming on top of the man-made drought our over-extraction of water has caused. It is unlikely that many of these trees will return. We were unaware we were approaching such a threshold, and now, subsequently having crossed it, may find it to be irreversible. We may have also done this to the estuarine system of the Coorong at the Mouth of the Murray that has now become hypersaline and is fast becoming Australia’s Dead Sea; a situation that may also be irreversible.

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Planning for water-dependent ecosystems is therefore about maintaining or re-establishing the resilience of these systems to cope with a fluctuating climate and other stresses, including water extraction. Water extraction beyond sustainable levels will be most obvious when the river is stressed by a natural drought at the same time. Water planning needs to identify the likely thresholds that will lead to dramatic changes in the aquatic systems once crossed. Environmental water must be managed to avoid crossing these thresholds if possible. This requires a skilled environmental manager with access to sufficient environmental water to sustain these systems.

KnOWLeDGe InveSTMenTS BY THe nATIOnAL WATeR COMMISSIOn The national Water Commission (nWC) is an independent body established to report on how governments meet their commitments under the national Water Initiative (nWI), and to advise the Australian Government on how to spend funds from the Australian Government Water Fund. There is a $200 million ‘Raising national Water Standards’ fund to invest in data and science to support implementation of the nWI and to improve water management. In the area of aquatic ecosystems the Commission has the following investment priorities: •

River and wetland health assessment

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Identification of environmental outcomes

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Determination of sustainable levels of extraction of water

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Managing environmental water

River and Wetland Health Assessment Since the need to improve the health of rivers and wetland systems is one of the key drivers of national water reform it is important to have a nationally-acceptable approach to periodically measuring river health to allow progress to be tracked and adaptive management undertaken as necessary. The nWC undertook a baseline study of Australia’s Water Resources in 2005. This study was based on existing data but only two states, victoria and Tasmania, have ongoing programs to measure river health. The Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) is developing a comprehensive river health assessment, the Sustainable Rivers Audit, which is starting to report, but which needs to be accelerated. The nWC has worked with all the jurisdictions to agree on a framework for measuring river and wetland health. This framework is now being tested in various environments and hopefully will provide for an agreed national approach to measuring river health with ongoing data collection, analysis and reporting.

“In recent years we have lost thousands of River Red Gums on the Lower Murray floodplain because these trees were not able to cope with a harsh drought coming on top of the man-made drought our overextraction of water has caused.” Identification of environmental Outcomes The allocation of any water to sustain environmental processes is contested by those who believe water can be used for better purposes. The nWI requires accountability in the use of environmental water and clear specification of the environmental outcomes that will be achieved. River, floodplain, wetlands and their associated estuaries provide ecosystem services in terms of flood control, water purification, biodiversity, fishing, recreation and aesthetics and water supply. environmental water may be used to wet a floodplain, refresh wetlands, scour sediment or biota from a river channel, provide cues for fish breeding, reoxygenate and flush pools, provide connectivity and maintain habitat through breeding cycles (fish, waterbirds). Identification and quantification of these outcomes is an investment priority.

Opposite: These wetland areas known as Black and Green Swamps are near Gunbower in victoria. environmental water flows are diverted into the swampland via a regulator on Gunbower Creek. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Determination of Sustainable Levels of Extraction of Water Work here is focused on identifying relationships between wetting patterns and ecological responses, with a particular concern to develop understanding of likely thresholds that can guide management actions. Particular projects are underway looking at waterbirds, aquatic plants and fish, as well as wetlands, floodplains and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Existing data sets are being collated to identify thresholds of potential concern and further data is being collected in priority areas.

Identification and Provision for High Conservation Value Systems These high value assets need to be identified in water plans and appropriate watering regimes provided to maintain them. These include wetlands, floodplains, river channels and groundwater dependent systems.

Managing Environmental Water The governance arrangements around

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environmental water are an interest to the NWC and it is planned to facilitate a ‘community of practice’ amongst practising environmental water managers in Australia, regardless of the organisational structures within which they work. The idea is to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experience, and to help identify future knowledge investments to support the management of environmental water.

Groundwater The NWC is aware of the growing dependence on groundwater systems by rural and urban communities and are concerned about the intellectual capacity to understand and manage our groundwater resources. Considerable investments are being made in groundwater, including a new national centre of excellence in this area.

A Challenge for Freshwater Science Much of the water reform I have outlined here is built upon the work of freshwater ecologists, some of whom have worked in government or with government agencies over a long period.

However, the limnological capacity in Australia is spread across a number of universities and research groups, and few of them have sufficient capacity to have the depth and breadth needed to address many of these problems. A number of universities are attempting to develop ‘networked’ centres within and even between universities with centralised strategic brokering capacity. While a number of our freshwater ecologists have been effective at raising the public profile of freshwater ecology, and enjoy good relations with government, more is needed. From a government’s perspective there is always the concern of special pleading of groups seeking to beat up issues to gain funding, and to sell Governments on an idea to fund research that is already largely done. government has limited capacity to understand much of the science agenda, and is confronted by a group of many players all pushing particular agendas, which commonly reek of self-interest. There is an opportunity for ecological scientists to inform these debates if they were able to come together and make a clear and simple statement of priorities to government. Developing such a consensus is challenging, since if it is to be useful it needs to focus attention and investment on particular areas, which inevitably means some areas miss out. There has been a recent opportunity in Australia, with the exploration of funding for a Terrestrial ecosystem Research network within the national Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.

ReFeRenCeS & FURTHeR ReADInGS Anon. (2007) Australian Water Resources 2005. national Water Commission. Canberra. Anon. (2007) Annual Report. national Water Commission. Canberra. Anon (2007) national Water Initiative. First Biennial

Assessment of Progress in Implementation. national Water Commission. Canberra. See www.nwc.gov.au Brand, F.S., and Jax, K. (2007) Focusing the meaning(s) of resilience: resilience as a descriptive concept and a boundary object. ecology and Society, 12(1), 23. Commonwealth of Australia. Water Act 2007. no 137. Parliament of Australia CSIRO (2007) Climate Change in Australia. Regional Impacts and Adaptation. Technical Report. CSIRO. Cullen, Peter (2007) Water in the Landscape: The Coupling of Aquatic ecosystems and their Catchments. In Managing and Designing Landscapes

for Conservation. (eds D. Lindermeyer & R. Hobbs.) Blackwell Publishing. national Water Initiative (2004). See www.nwc.gov. au van Dijk, A.R.e., Hairsine, P., Khan, S., nathan, R., Payder, Z., viney, n. & Zhang, L. (2006) Risks to the

Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. MDBC Publication no. 22/06. CSIRO, Canberra.

I urge freshwater ecologists to work within the Australian Society of Limnology and develop some strategic ways forward to guide science investment in Australia. We also need to ensure that the insights we already have about our freshwater ecology are made accessible to governments and our community as we confront serious water scarcity.

Opposite: Water skiing at Picnic Point Road on the River Murray near Mathoura, new South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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“We have the opportunity to drive a revolution in irrigation, where we can double the wealth we obtain from this water, or we squander this money in trying to slow down the changes that will take place.” Peter Cullen

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Sharing the Waters: Ten Key Things Water Peter Cullen, Mike Young and Jim McColl (2008)

‘Ten Commitments: Reshaping the lucky Country’s Environment’ (Eds D. lindenmeyer, S. Dovers, M. Harriss olson, and S. Morton). pp. 149-153 CSIRo Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria

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haring the water has never been so challenging, as new demands for environmental restoration and power generation join with urban and irrigation users in seeking water from what is often a diminishing resource. The situation is serious, with not all demands able to be met, and yet everyone believes they should have the water they need. Rather than expect governments to ban waterhungry crops, we need a system of water allocation that allows farmers and other users to make their own choices in a water market that allows water to move to its highest value uses. The current drought shows that our water management system is not working, and will not cope with the diminishing resource we are facing with climate change. The incremental approach to fixing the problem of the last decade has failed and many important river and wetland systems have been further degraded. Now the economic system in many irrigation areas is also collapsing, as water entitlements that were once secure can no longer be delivered and many permanent crops are dying. Governments need to fix the mess that they have created by over-allocating water. They need to understand the available water resource, ensure that all entitlements are within the sustainable levels of extraction and give security to those

holding entitlements. They need to ensure that a water market allows water to move between users efficiently and with integrity. Sufficient funds are already promised to fix these problems; the knowledge exists as to how to do so; all that is needed is for governments to work together and not be paralysed by the shrill calls of interest groups for special treatment.

understand the Resource Flying blind and hoping is not a good strategy and we have already shown it does not work. You can’t manage water resources without knowing what they are. While we have a good meteorological network, we have an ageing stream gauging network that has been starved of funds. We have never developed an appropriate groundwater assessment network or a systematic assessment of river health. What is worse, it is hard for the community or even governments to access much of the data that is collected with public funding. The Howard Government committed $480 million to fixing this problem and to give Australia a twenty-first century water information system that can provide the necessary foundation for water management. We as yet have no national opposite: A power boat, with water skier in tow, on the River Murray between Morgan and Blanchetown, South Australia. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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Table 15.1 Ten key actions for sharing the waters. Key Action

Actions Required

1. understand the resource

develop an integrated surface water and groundwater assessment program that provides data on the quantities and quality of water available and the health of river systems, makes this information available in real time, and gives access to appropriate models to help water managers deliver on agreed outcomes and individuals to make informed decisions.

2. set Proportional entitlements to establish an independent skill-based body to determine the proportion Consumers and the environment of water that is available in any basin for consumptive users and for the environmental managers once a proportion has been set aside to cover losses from evaporation and seepage. 3. rebalance entitlements in over in over-allocated systems governments need to reset the water allocated systems. entitlements so they are balanced with available water by immediately reducing all water entitlements by appropriate proportions and compensating entitlement holders with a fair and reasonable price for any losses incurred.

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4. Conservative allocations of Water against each entitlement

The independent body should on an ongoing basis, make periodic allocations of water against those shares as water becomes available.

5. register of entitlement to Give Confidence to Water Trade

The government should establish a single national register of water entitlements that would facilitate low cost water trade and give the security to buyers and sellers that is presently lacking.

6. establish a regulated and secure Market

agree to a national set of market rules that ensures integrity in the water market allowing water to be traded with minimum cost and time delay, and with reasonable expectation that the water exists and can be delivered.

7. empower an independent environmental Water Manager

environmental Water Managers are needed with the capacity to develop regional river health plans and to use available environmental water to achieve priority outcomes of such plans.

8. in Multi state Basins such as the Murray darling Basin...

...develop a national register with bulk entitlements made initially to each state as a share of available water for both consumptive and environmental needs once system losses are accounted for.

9. Performance incentives.

The federal government to stop ad hoc subsidy of water infrastructure projects and to make payments to each state when particular clearlydefined milestones are reached that encourage the states to implement the various policy reforms required here and in the national Water initiative.

10. rigorous regional Water Plans

states should demonstrate a comprehensive and transparent process of regional water planning that identifies outcomes to be achieved by environmental managers and identifies and assesses infrastructure investments.

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systematic approach to measuring river and wetland health and yet need periodic assessments and reports to ensure that environmental water is adequate and used to deliver agreed outcomes. This provides an adaptive management framework to the amount of water entitlements in the consumptive pool and allows for periodic readjustment if necessary. The National Water Commission has developed a National Framework for Assessing River and Wetland Health and this is being trialled in various jurisdictions. What is now needed is a commitment by states to undertake and report on these assessments on a regular basis.

Proportional Entitlements to Consumers and the Environment We realized by the early 1990s that we had overallocated some of our river systems and began to see degradation of river health and erosion of security of supply to entitlement holders. Now it seems that streamflow may have dropped to around half of what we were accustomed to last century and we need a system that adjusts to future changes as they are experienced by ensuring that entitlements specify a share of available water rather than a set volume. We now also understand that many of our surface and groundwater systems are connected and if we overdraw groundwater that rivers will dry up after a lag of twenty to thirty years, so surface water and groundwater entitlements need to be integrated and managed as a single system. The available water resource for each river needs to be distributed as shares between system needs, which cover evaporation, replenishment of groundwater and transmission losses as well as some flushing to the sea, the consumptive pool available to irrigation and urban communities, and an environmental share. Previous attempts at regional water sharing plans have failed and most have now been suspended since they were based on horse-trading between interest groups rather than the reality of what we face. CSIRo is presently completing a study to identify likely water yields in each Murray Darling Basin (MDB) catchment. Estimating the sustainable yield requires an assessment not only

of hydrologic yield but an assessment of river health as well. Best available science must be used to determine necessary flow regimes for each river, and a community discussion as to the sort of environmental outcomes desired. However, an interim default position if that science is not available is that a system is over allocated if more than 40% of mean annual flow is used for consumptive users, leaving 40% for environmental management and 20% for system losses.

Rebalance Entitlements In over-allocated systems it is now necessary to reset the whole system so that entitlements and the seasonal allocations bear some resemblance to the new water reality. Incremental recovery

Above: A windmill draws underground water near lake Albert, South Australia. (lydia Paton)

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of water with massive public subsidy for water infrastructure has been ineffective at recovering water and it is now time for a step change to fix the system. Governments carry the responsibility for having issued excessive water entitlements and so it is reasonable to compensate at an appropriate level those who lose entitlement.

“Each state is developing its own water registry at present, in a move reminiscent to the development of railways over 100 years ago, with the result that interstate trade in water will also be slow, expensive and cumbersome.” Conservative Allocations of Water against each Entitlement An independent skill-based system management body is needed to periodically make water allocations against the shares (the entitlement) as water becomes available and both consumptive users and environmental managers will have to make best use of this available water to achieve outcomes and to manage risk. To allow this they need to be allowed to carry over water in storages and to trade water as required. Allocations need to be conservative in that they should be based on actual water, not hoped for conditions. They should be made uniformly against all entitlements and can be traded by entitlement holders as they see fit. The reason our present water management system has failed is that we have lacked a competent body able to make seasonal allocations of water to entitlement holders within the available resource. Agencies have not understood the sustainable levels of extraction, and even where they have acknowledged overallocation have been unable to reduce allocations due to political pressures from those wanting water. An independent authority needs to make these determinations within guidelines set by government in much the same way as an independent Reserve Bank sets interest rates.

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Register of Entitlements If we are to use the market to re-allocate water between users we need to ensure that both buyers and sellers are confident that the water they are trading actually exists and is owned by the seller. Each state is developing its own water registry at present, in a move reminiscent to the development of railways over a hundred years ago, with the result that interstate trade in water will also be slow, expensive and cumbersome. The Australian Government should establish a single national register of water entitlements that would facilitate low cost water trade and give buyers and sellers the security that is presently lacking.

Establish a Regulated and Secure Market We need a water market that allows water to move between alternative uses cheaply and easily. The market needs to be carefully designed and regulated, much as the stock exchange is. This is not the case with the current water market where governments are virtually allowing self-regulation to occur. Those trading water need to be secure in what they are buying and selling, and there may need to be rules to ensure that no individual gets an excessive amount of water. The trading system needs to have hydrological integrity that considers delivery and other losses, so that a buyer and seller know what they are trading, and that the trading will not result in environmental damage. Market rules must include standardised and well-known policies on allocation announcements to ensure that the water market is kept properly informed.

Independent Environmental Water Manager It is not good enough to treat environmental water as that left over once entitlement holders have taken what they need. The environmental water needs to be just as secure as any other water entitlement, and be in the hands of responsible environmental managers who are accountable for the wise use of that water and can work with other agencies and catchment authorities to manage other pressures on rivers such as land use, riparian

vegetation, infestation of exotics and point source pollution. Environmental water managers need to develop regional river health plans and to utilise available environmental water to achieve the priority outcomes of such plans. Having environmental water under Ministerial control has been shown to be ineffective as those short of water have applied pressure to ensure water not be ‘wasted’ on the environment. This situation caused serious degradation in the Wimmera River in Victoria in 2005-06 when environmental water was held in storage rather than being used when needed to support platypus communities. others had used their entitlements and pressured the Minister to not release environmental water.

Multi-State Basins Where water resources are shared across state borders, different arrangements are needed if we are to avoid endless wrangling. In the first instance this can be done by the Australian Government making bulk entitlements as a share of available water to each jurisdiction for both consumptive and environmental purposes. This could be based on existing sharing arrangements or could be renegotiated in the light of the changed circumstances. Periodically the system manager needs to make actual allocations of water against those shares, as water becomes available. We need to ensure appropriate penalties for those governments and individuals who take more than their share. In the absence of appropriate measurement and penalties, there is little trust in the present system. over time this National Register could be expanded to allow individuals the choice of having entitlements registered on a state register or on the National register, thus facilitating inter-state trade of water.

Performance Incentives We have a long history of agreeing on general principles to manage water, but then find many reasons to avoid taking action. The most effective experience to date has been where states received payments under National Competition Policy once

Science and Politics Peter Cullen was a man who understood both the science and the politics of water. When I reflect back on the way negotiations around the Murray Darling Basin have gone, I really miss him. Peter, better than most, could communicate in ways that caused everyone to think. He could have contributed so much to the resolution of the mess we are in. The most important thing Peter taught me is the importance of thinking through the detail and then finding a way to communicate that idea so that people could work out the detail for themselves. I still find this hard, Peter found it easy and he always did it with lots of laughter. He was fun to work with. When I look back, the other thing I remember about Peter was his willingness to act. Thorough in his analysis, once he had seen a way forward, you could always rely upon Peter to take the message to all those who he thought needed to know it. Nearly everyone in government and almost everyone in opposition knew who Peter Cullen was. When he sent them a letter, as he was want to do, they read it carefully. Few doubted his judgement.

ProFessor MiKe YounG eXeCuTiVe direCTor The enVironMenT insTiTuTe The uniVersiTY oF adeLaide

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Rigorous Regional Water Plans

reforms had been demonstrated. We should revert to this system rather than believe that ad hoc subsidies to particular infrastructure projects are a useful driver of systematic reform. The Australian Government can drive these and the other reforms enshrined in the National Water Initiative by more judicious use of the funds already made available. Firstly, in recognition that the entire community benefits by good water information, the Federal Government needs to continue to work with states to build a national water data infrastructure system, and should provide funding to states to implement collection of streamflow, groundwater and river health data to agreed standards. Secondly the Federal Government should get out of subsidising water infrastructure projects. We do not need duplication of bureaucracies assessing projects and if further controls are needed the Federal Government could require infrastructure to be included in accredited regional water plans. Substantial funds will be needed by the states to put in place the reforms that are needed and the Federal Government should make payments to the states to assist with this, once clearly defined milestones are reached and have been independently assessed and reported on. Some of the milestones will require states to agree with neighbouring States and implement common systems before any payments are made.

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Regional water plans need to identify the environmental outcomes being sought, and identify the various infrastructure proposals to meet human needs. Where water demands are growing, states should identify a series of augmentation proposals, evaluate them, and rank them in terms of when they may be needed. Setting of trigger points when construction must commence, as has been done in Sydney, is an excellent approach. All realistic options must be on the table for consideration, accepting that any proposal to augment water supplies will attract an articulate and organised group to oppose the proposal. All options must be examined on technical grounds to see if they might work, on economic grounds, on environmental grounds, the greenhouse gas contribution of each must be assessed, as must the social acceptability.

Conclusions The most severe drought since Federation has been a wake up call that our approach to sharing water has failed and we have irreversibly degraded many of our iconic river and wetland systems. These sacrifices have not led to economic wealth for many communities who have been deluded about the amount of water available, and have built unsustainable farming systems that are now collapsing. Our new government needs to confront these new realities and fix the problem rather than just treating the symptoms with handouts. We do not know how our rainfall patterns are changing, but can rebuild our water allocation system giving shares to consumptive users and to the environment, and letting managers get on and use this water to the best effect for its various purposes. A well-designed and regulated market will facilitate movement between users as they judge necessary to achieve their objectives. We have the knowledge and the resources to fix this problem. The $10 billion allocated by governments is sufficient to purchase all water entitlements in the southern Murray Darling Basin at current

market prices and start again with more realistic allocations. It is enough to fix the problem once and for all, but it needs clear thinking and courage to achieve this, rather than just frittering away the funds on bureaucracies and ill-considered infrastructure projects.

FuRTHER READINGS Anon. (2007) Australian Water Resources 2005. National Water Commission. Canberra. Anon. (2007) National Water Initiative. First Biennial

Assessment of Progress in Implementation. National Water Commission. Canberra. See www.nwc.gov.au CSIRo (2007) Climate Change in Australia. Regional Impacts and Adaptation. Technical Report. Van Dijk, A.R.E., Hairsine, P., Khan, S., Nathan, R., Payder, Z., Viney, N. & Zhang, l. (2006) Risks to the

Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. MDBC Publication No. 22/06. CSIRo, Canberra.

Above: loveday lagoons Wetland Complex near Cobdogla, South Australia. (Carolyn Clarke) opposite: Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre staff Prue McGuffie checks water for dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity and temperature at Tala Creek, New South Wales. (Image by Arthur Mostead used with the permission of the MDBA)

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urban Water: agenda and Climate Change Paper 16

The urban Water agenda in 2007

Paper 17

Driving Innovation: urban Design in a Changing Climate

adelaide Desalination Plant construction, march 2010, South australia. (Photo courtesy of Sa Water)

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“It is inappropriate to see water pricing as a de facto social welfare policy. We don’t do that for electricity, telephones or petrol.” Peter Cullen

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The urban Water agenda in 2007 Peter Cullen Strategic Planning Workshop Sydney Friday 2 February 2007

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he national Water Initiative (nWI) signed in 2004 is very light on urban issues, other than some generalities about demand management, including restrictions, pricing, alternative sources and water sensitive urban design. This was because governments believed that the urban sector had responded well to the 1994 Council of australian Governments (CoaG) reforms and urban water was not an issue.

industry without adequate reinvestment. The no new dams rhetoric meant that governments felt virtuous as they focussed on demand management, where it is clear there were many gains to be had.

as it has turned out, the now highly disaggregated urban industry was not in good shape to cope with unexpected water scarcity, and the dreams of whole water cycle management of the 1980’s was by now almost impossible. With policy separate from practice, regulation separate from operation, serious planning seems to have been forgotten in metropolitan areas. This was alright for a while, as all the industry had to do was to connect services to new subdivisions, as our urban sprawl continued unabated. From time to time most jurisdictions had a third-pipe system development as a demonstration project or to meet pollution control requirements, but these were commonly rather expensive and, working out an appropriate price for the recycled water, an ongoing challenge. Governments found the urban industry to be a wonderful cash cow, and took dividends from the

above: ‘national Water Initiative signed by CoaG’, 30 august 2003. (Cartoon by Peter nicholson from The australian www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au) Opposite: These wetlands in Salisbury are used to filter suburban stormwater before it enters Barker Inlet and Gulf St Vincent, South australia. (robyn Brody)

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Figure 16.1 River Murray inflows (excluding Menindee Inflows and Snowy Releases) (Source: Water for Good, Annual Statement 2010, Department for Water)

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The Climate Crunch The urban industry of the nineties did not ever look all that sustainable, with major cities all proudly planning for an extra million people, but with no new water sources envisaged. It is as though they thought the new residents would bring their own water with them. Urban communities would have been more concerned had they realised that the planning model being used meant they would all share existing water with the new arrivals. No-one took the climate change warnings from science seriously. Others should act first, and anyway the problem was a long way off. Even the climate shift obvious in Perth from the eighties was seen as an unfortunate aberration, giving Perth a problem but of no relevance to the rest of us. We can now see that Australia seems to have been drying over the last decade. Rainfall in much of south-eastern Australia is very low, and large areas are now at the lowest on record. The River Murray is at unprecedented low flows. The average long term inflow has been about 11,000GL, but this was last seen in 2000-01 and now we have had six years well below this. The Wimmera River in Victoria has over the last ten years been running at 18% of

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fifty-year average flow, and many other Victorian rivers are at 40% of their long term flow. In parts of Victoria this streamflow is now a 1 in 400 year event – a response to low rainfall, uncontrolled farm dams, uncontrolled bores and over-generous irrigation entitlements. The period 1960-1990s was much wetter in southeastern Australia than the preceding 1900-1950, and we now seem to have returned to a drier regime. Unfortunately our understanding of our water resources has developed in what seems to be an unusually wet period and we now face painful readjustment. Urban Australians seem to be living beyond their means and face ongoing water scarcity. Rural Australians are more used to water shortages, but many communities are experiencing unprecedented water stress. Bores are failing and some towns are resorting to carting water. Irrigation has been vastly curtailed and there is no water being used on rice or cotton and still we are caught short. For the first time in my professional experience, we face a situation where it is quite plausible that any of five of our capital cities could actually run out of water.

ecology shows us that highly specialised organisms can be very effective in a stable environment, but are less successful in times of turbulence. The same observation can be made about organisations. While purists will point to the efficiency of the disaggregated water management model we have with many specialised units doing their bit, whether this system has the resilience to cope with a changing environment is less obvious. and given our global failure to confront carbon pollution, we must expect ongoing change to our climate. The water industry model worked last century, because we took a subsidy from the environment. We damaged rivers by over-extraction, we damaged waterways by discharging inadequatelytreated wastes and we were profligate with our pollution of the atmosphere with carbon. late in the twentieth century our profligacy started to catch up with us and people realised the damage we had caused to waterways, the climate started to shift and we started to run out of water. We hit a threshold that we had not realised was approaching, and now find that some of the changes are probably irreversible.

unDerSTanDInG The aVaIlaBle reSOurCe •

Think whole-water cycle–rainfall, catchment water, urban run-off, wastewater streams, groundwater and the sea. What might be available from other catchments?

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understand the sustainable levels of extraction of each–realising that this does not mean an average or a set percentage but is driven by extreme events

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Operating beyond this sustainable level of extraction is just mining the resource which may collapse without warning once a threshold is reached

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how might these sustainable levels change with predicted climate shifts?

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measure and report so all can make more informed decisions

Figure 16.2 Total water supply available for Greater adelaide (Source: Water for Good, Department of Water, land and Biodiveristy Conservation, June 2009)

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measure and control all of the available resource

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allocate the consumptive pool efficiently to competing uses

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While designed to confront the chronic problems of rural water and over-allocation, the framework of the nWI does provide us with the way forward for urban water, and explicitly makes the links between urban and rural water. The principles are simple:

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a single resource, and both of them impact on estuarine and coastal waters. We must consider the stormwater and wastewater flows as resources to be harnessed, not problems to be disposed of.

Allocating the Consumptive Pool •

Understand current and likely future demands on the consumptive pool

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Consider how to drive efficiency in all the uses of water through planning and regulation, and through markets.

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Ensure water is used for the highest priority purposes when it is scarce.

While these principles are simple, and probably self-evident, they have been beyond the capacity of the urban water industry in the twentieth century, when water was plentiful and unlimited growth seemed to be a magic pudding creating wealth for all.

We must get serious about driving wateruse efficiency in all parts of the urban water cycle and amongst all users. A mix of pricing, markets, regulation and education could change behavior and drive innovation. Let us stop avoiding the issue by allowing vested interests to have voluntary codes to hide their inaction.

Water Availability Controls Growth

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We need to understand that growth needs water and that we must reverse the practice of the last century, when we allowed development and then asked the engineers to provide the water. Now we need to show where the water will come from before development can start.

Water planning must be done on a regional basis rather than just for individual catchments. When a region is facing water scarcity, as most are, water must be central to the development approval process. At the moment this is rarely the case. Either planners do not look at the issue of water availability or, if they do, they refer it to the water utility that never seems to say there is insufficient water. Planners commonly operate at the local government level, whereas effective water planning needs to be done across a larger region.

•

Where we have over-allocated available water, we need to return these surface water and groundwater systems to sustainable levels of extraction and understand that, with climate shift, the sustainable levels may be reducing and this may impact on urban supplies.

In metropolitan and near-metropolitan catchments it is essential that surface water and groundwater are clearly controlled and that interception activities, like farm dams, and groundwater extraction are controlled and measured. This is not commonly the case.

•

We need to build the externalities into our pricing and project costing. A requirement to fully treat waste before allowing discharge to the environment will make recycling more economically attractive. We must ensure the urban water industry is energy-efficient and carbon neutral, by using green energy and providing carbon offsets to repair catchment vegetation.

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We need to manage the whole water cycle rather than just bits of it. Surface water and groundwater must be managed together as

Five Challenges for the Urban Water Industry of the twentyfirst Century

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Developer charges seem to have become a tax on land development, rather than a reflection of the actual costs of infrastructure to supply the new development with water, or the cost of acquiring a water entitlement. Under the NWI in an over-allocated catchment, which must include all of our major cities which already import water from adjacent catchments, new water users must purchase a water licence from an existing entitlement holder or show how they are expanding the consumptive pool to meet the new need.

a requirement like this could drive real innovation in the land development industry, and the water industry. It starts to provide a market pressure for alternative sources of water, and perhaps some market discipline, so that we get more costeffective solutions. It is challenging and perhaps there could be a role for water utilities in acquiring entitlements and then selling them to developers. Water planners must identify and consider all sources of water, which includes purchasing water from other entitlement holders and using alternative water from recycling, stormwater, groundwater and sea water. We can no longer afford to exclude options on doctrinaire grounds, so new dams, inter-basin transfers, desalination and recycling must be assessed on their merits. If water can not be found, the proposed development should not proceed.

The Water Services association of australia (WSaa) has been a strong supporter of the water market where urban users can buy and sell with irrigators, and the government can purchase water licences in over-allocated systems. This is a core element of the nWI, but has so far been sabotaged by rural interests concerned about the possibilities of wealth leaving their area. I have little doubt that we will overcome these barriers to trade. Planning and consultation will commonly identify a number of ways to secure water supplies. It is important not to select a preferred option early, but to subject a number of promising options to rigorous scrutiny. each alternative must be above: Grange Golf Club Stormwater re-use Scheme Wetland, South australia. (Image courtesy of the adelaide and mount lofty ranges natural resources management Board)

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thoroughly examined – will it work, what will it cost, what are its environmental impacts and what is its social acceptability? We need to require water sensitive urban design and drive more innovation in the land development industry. We also need to make land developers acquire the water they need for their development prior to subdivision approval. It could be purchased from a water authority, if they had spare water, or from irrigators. They could explore alternative sources of water, but the cost should be a cost of land development, not spread across all other users. This is already happening where connection of new developments to existing infrastructure is expensive due to distance. New irrigation developments are subjected to this discipline and new urban developments should be too.

Sustainable Levels of Extraction – A Cap for Urban Users The commitment to return over-allocated systems to sustainable levels of extraction is as relevant to urban communities as it is for rural ones. Most of our cities are taking a lot of water from surface water and groundwater systems, and many of these systems are showing signs of degradation in their rivers, estuaries and groundwater systems. Determining the sustainable levels of extraction is a technical and social challenge, but effectively this will provide a cap on extraction that urban communities will have to live within. Like in rural Australia, anyone wanting additional water will have to purchase an entitlement from an existing holder. Given the variability of streamflow in Australia, the NWI say such shares in the consumptive pool, determined each year, should be expressed as a proportion of the available water rather than a set volume. This will be challenging for urban authorities, who will need to respond with a diversity of sources.

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Water planning will identify the environmental flows required for healthy rivers. This will create tensions, because people will not be allowed to water lawns while water is flowing past to maintain the environment. A likely proposal will be to use recycled water for the environment because, if we argue the water is good enough for drinking, it is hard to argue that it is not good enough for the environment. Water quality, issues of timing and public perception will all have to be managed. We must regulate and manage all major sources of water. As we have demonstrated in the Murray Darling Basin, putting a cap on surface water extraction just displaces extraction to groundwater, often only metres from the streambank, with little appreciation by extractors or regulators that it is the same water.

Building in the Externalities into Costing and Pricing This commitment appears in each round of water reform in the 1994 and 2004 statements and, in each case, gets politely ignored because it is either difficult or painful. To me there are three simple elements to start the process. Before discharge waters must be fully treated, to a standard where they cause no damage. This includes wastewater and stormwater and, if such treatment were provided, both would be sought after as alternative water sources. Recycling would have to cover the costs of storage and transport, but not the costs of treatment which presently dogs recycling efforts. We must pay for the catchment services we expect. Our catchments provide valuable ecosystem services, including the provision of water. There are costs of land management in closed catchments, including weed and pest control and fire management and suppression. These should be costs on the water user. In open catchments, where we expect farmers to provide water, we should pay them if they meet a land management standard which provides good quality water.

most of our alternative sources of water for our cities create more carbon, driving the climate change that is pushing us to water scarcity. The carbon emissions of the industry are reported in WSaa facts, which I commend. now we need to make the water industry carbon neutral, by requiring green power or carbon offsets of some sort. This could pay for revegetation in degraded catchments. The water industry does not have to wait for everyone else to move on carbon. a move to carbon neutrality would mean clearer costings for all alternative sources of water and put a spotlight on some of the sillier recycling or water transport proposals.

manaGe The WhOle WaTer CyCle This is a challenge for a highly disaggregated water industry whose main focus is to protect revenue streams rather than provide water security. I will mention just a few topical issues.

rainwater Tanks a number of jurisdictions now require rainwater tanks to be installed in new houses and that they be plumbed into in-house water uses, such as hot water and toilets. economists do not like rainwater tanks and consider them a costly way to augment water, water authorities do not like losing the revenue stream and some are concerned about possible health risks. On the other hand: •

roofs provide run-off from small showers when dry catchments do not

•

Tanks can be installed at short notice compared to other augmentations

•

Tanks build water literacy in householders and empower them to consider water use

•

Slowing the first rush of run-off in a storm helps protect the health of urban rivers

•

any costs should be compared with future augmentations, not the presently under-priced catchment water in most cities

•

If rainwater tanks were a key element of water supply, then mains could be used more as a top-up device which would make water supply and drainage infrastructure cheaper

•

Despite their limitations, a high proportion of the rural community and a proportion of the urban population in some cities, notably adelaide, have depended successfully on rainwater for drinking for many years

above: Planting trees as part of a revegetation effort, Goulburn, new South Wales. (Image by arthur mostead used with the permission of the mDBa)

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The Engineers Australia paper ‘Australian Runoff Quality: A Guide to Water Sensitive Urban Design’ does encourage rainwater tanks as a useful part of water supply, while a subcommittee of the National Public Health Partnership has sponsored the publication ‘Guidance on the Use of Rainwater Tanks, 2nd ed.’ (Australian Government, 2004). This observes that mains water is used for purposes ranging from drinking to toilet flushing and garden watering, but that the use of rainwater tanks, as an alternative source of water for any of these purposes, has the potential to reduce pressure on limited surface and groundwater resources.

It may be desirable to toughen up trade waste rules to assist with recycling, or even consider separate sewer systems for industrial areas with difficult waste streams.

Recycled Water

I expect over the next decade communities will come to accept this mixing of recycled water into supply. I expect some country towns that are out of water, and hence find development constrained, will choose this option, as in Queensland for its south-eastern growth area.

The economics of recycling will never stack up while we do not insist that normal sewage treatment should be to a standard such that the water can be recycled or discharged to the environment without harm. With recycled water commonly costing $3/kL to produce, which includes a component of sewage treatment, it is hard to compete with catchment water at $1.20/kL.

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But a real additional cost of recycling is the requirement for separate pipe systems to distribute water. While there are community concerns requiring it to be kept separate from drinking water, this is not a concern for desalinated water. Third-pipe systems are expensive and may be only a transition solution, while communities get used to the idea of recycled water going back to supply and being mixed with catchment water.

As long as it is done well, and there are no health problems, then other communities will follow suit and I expect the general community to get more

comfortable with the idea of recycled water as they get more familiar with it.

Groundwater as cities confront running out of water, several are turning to groundwater as a solution. While Perth and Darwin have long used groundwater for supplying drinking water, it is a new feature in other areas. There appears to be much misunderstanding about groundwater, and some seem to believe it is a magic pudding of infinite good quality water. relying on totally unproven groundwater systems is now part of the water supply strategy for several cities. States must take full control of groundwater. There should be a moratorium on any further bores until sustainable levels of extraction are known. all bores must be licensed, metered and charged for. Groundwater generally is replenished from rainfall, and may be only a temporary part of supply during a drought. We also need to assume groundwater and rivers are connected and are the same water unless proven otherwise.

aquifer storage and recovery has been well demonstrated in adelaide and is now being pursued in other cities. however, with regulators unfamiliar with the concept, there are many regulatory hurdles that may be unnecessary, and states need to resolve these. Where it is feasible, this approach has the advantage of much reduced evaporative losses compared to the open water in a dam.

“There appears to be much misunderstanding about groundwater, and some seem to believe it is a magic pudding of infinite good quality water.” Stormwater Stormwater, by which I mean urban run-off, has the obvious problem of storage. aquifer storage and recovery, as practised by the Salisbury City Council in adelaide, may provide one storage option. another is the use of urban lakes which need to be designed in at the start of the land development process. although they take up land, it is commonly flood-prone land and does mean much cheaper drainage infrastructure than the concrete channels adorning our older cities.

Opposite: aerial view of Christies Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant, adelaide, South australia. (Image by milton Wordley courtesy of Sa Water)

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New Dams The ill-informed frequently call for new dams to resolve water shortages. They rarely identify sites where a dam could be built or assess the chances of it getting water. The last dam the Federal Government built, Googong outside Canberra, is located in a rain shadow and is unlikely to fill except in the wettest of years. New dams should not be excluded on doctrinaire grounds and should be assessed like other augmentation options – but they require a site with appropriate geology and a catchment with reasonable likelihood of rainfall.

Raising the Efficiency of Water Use in Urban Communities I believe a lot of water is wasted in urban Australia through inefficient appliances and plumbing indoors and lousy irrigation practice outdoors. We can build water sensitive urban developments, and most jurisdictions have a few boutique examples, but this understanding has not flowed through to the general land development industry. Achieving these improvements in water efficiency will require a mix of public education, regulation

and market solutions. Demanding that water availability be considered at the subdivision approval stage is obviously a key first step and New South Wales has developed the BASIX system to encourage water and energy efficiency in housing.

Promote water-efficient Houses, Commercial Buildings and Suburbs We need to design a water efficiency rating system for houses, commercial buildings and for suburbs. This may be reflected in their drainage rates to give a price signal and to give developers a marketing advantage.

Mandating Water-Efficient Appliances and Plumbing While industry bodies love voluntary regulation and codes of practice, these are often not sufficient to get appropriate water efficiency. Mandating the use of water-efficient appliances and plumbing fittings in homes and commercial buildings has the potential to increase the certainty of water-efficiency outcomes and stimulate innovation in the design of water-using appliances. It is unacceptable to have automatically-flushing urinals in buildings in times of water scarcity, and retro fitting of more appropriate fittings should be required. The hotel sector has long argued that voluntary codes of practice are all that is needed, but the reality is that these have had little impact and one commonly finds hotels without even dualflush toilets. The voluntary approach has failed and regulation is needed.

Charging the Real Costs of Water We need to ensure that the price of water does reflect the real costs of supplying it. Building in the costs of externalities discussed earlier will lead to a more realistic pricing, and this may have some impact on efficiency of water use.

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Contributing to the Urban Water Industry as the executive Director of the Water Services association of australia (WSaa) which represents the major urban water utilities, I feel compelled to put on the record that Peter made a significant contribution to the urban water industry. although he was best known for his public comments on river health and irrigation, he was intimately involved in many committees and processes associated with the urban water industry. Indeed, I feel confident in saying that he had input into urban water management in almost all of the australian States and Territories. For instance, Peter addressed a strategy meeting of the WSaa Board at Bondi in February 2007 and his contribution to the meeting laid the foundations for a clear strategy for the future. On a personal note I had significant interactions with Peter over the last fifteen years, particularly when I was a Board member of the CrC for Freshwater ecology and when he was appointed to the advisory committee which oversaw the development of a water resources strategy for melbourne in 2002. I project managed this strategy and had many interactions with Peter. I recall the first time that I met Peter was when I attended a Summer School of Park management at Canberra university back in the mid-1980s. I was a callow and timid youth at the time and I recall Peter’s presentations to the School and was immediately struck by his intellect and his ability to communicate complex subjects in an easily understood and entertaining way.

although there are many of Peter’s qualities to admire, the professional quality I most admired about Peter was his willingness to ‘rattle the cage’. he spoke out on important topics that everyone thought needed discussing but too few people had the courage to stand up and speak out about in fear of vested and sectoral interests.

ross YounG eXeCuTiVe direCTor WaTer serViCes assoCiaTion oF ausTraLia

above: main street of roma, Queensland. (Image by arthur mostead used with permission of the mDBa) Opposite: Plumber installing water-efficient showerhead. (Image used with the permission of the Water Services association of australia)

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Scarcity Pricing of Water Current water restrictions have raised the ire of many. Some well-off consumers argue for a market approach, where those who can afford it can have as much water as they want and, presumably, those who cannot go without. “Malcolm Turnbull thinks we should have as much of the stuff as we want, as long as we pay for it.” Australian Financial Review 25 November 2006. The Business Council of Australia has a similar viewpoint. This raises interesting equity issues as it is partly behind the tiered pricing regimes we now have. These issues become starker when we consider scarcity pricing issues during droughts. When any other commodity is in short supply, the price goes up and consumers decide how much they want. We saw this with bananas after the cyclone destroyed the crops. We see a similar thing with petrol, which everyone now sees as essential and consequently thinks the government should keep at a cheap price.

“The Australian climate has always been amongst the most variable in the world and that is why Australia has always had to store much more water than other countries to give the same security of supply.” Even this step will be met with loud opposition. Those with large gardens and swimming pools will develop a sudden and laudable concern for the well-being of the disadvantaged, who might not be able to afford to bathe their five children if prices reflect the real costs. We need to look after the disadvantaged if we are to be a humane society, but I do not think making this social welfare part of the water industry is appropriate. The social welfare arrangements need to be met by governments, not by expecting selected suppliers of goods to carry the costs by spreading them across other users.

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If water prices rose, this could be expected to reduce useage perhaps during times of water scarcity more effectively than rhetoric and water restrictions. Grafton and Kompas (2006) explored the idea of raising Sydney water prices as the dam levels dropped by say 5% increments, aiming to balance supply and demand such that dam levels did not drop below a critical level. This might require more than a 50% increase in short term water prices and raises some equity issues that need to be addressed. Another market-based approach is to issue water users with an entitlement and allow them to trade, in a similar fashion that is emerging in the rural water industry. This would be simple to trial with the larger industry water users who, if they could make water savings, would be able to sell some of their entitlement. It could provide a stronger economic rationale for water efficiency. How this would help during water shortages is less clear, for as prices escalate, presumably some would choose to stop using water and take the financial windfall, as happens in agriculture. This would have flow-on effects to employment.

Professor mike young, in a recent ‘Droplet’ explores the idea of giving all urban residents an individual entitlement and allowing them to trade. electronic platforms make such trading possible and could provide an economic incentive to improve water-use efficiency and to reduce water use. how new entrants acquire an entitlement in fully-allocated systems needs to be explored, as do the transaction costs of operating such a market when water is relatively underpriced.

Bushfire risk

manaGInG rISKS In urBan WaTer SySTemS

as rural lands transition to urban, they go through a peri-urban phase where there is a marked increase in small dams that reduce river flow. In some catchments around melbourne it is thought that up to 60% of runoff in the catchment is captured in these dams and used for ducks to swim on and to improve the view. It is not used for any productive purpose but has an impact on streamflow. Governments have been reluctant to control this proliferation, although they are required to control interception activities under the nWI.

Climate Shift The australian climate has always been amongst the most variable in the world and that is why australia has always had to store much more water than other countries to give the same security of supply. Climate shift seems to be making it more variable and perhaps more extreme. Our capitals may get increases in the large rainfall events brought on by northern cyclonic activity, or they may not get the big events that in the past have been used to fill storages. This is what seems to have happened in Perth and, if it is now happening in the east, one wonders if Warragamba or Thomson Dam will ever again fill.

The risks of wildfire in our main urban catchments seem to be increasing with climate shift as we get hotter and drier summers. The impacts of extensive wildfire on catchment yield are well known and for, instance for melbourne, could halve the yield over a decade.

Interception activities

above: a defunct watering system near Swan reach, South australia. (Image by Irene Dowdy used with the permission of the mDBa) Opposite: This area at Clayton used to be underwater but is now feeling the effects of the prolonged drought and over-allocation of river murray water, South australia. (richard Woods)

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responding to risks Some of these risks can be managed by resource managers to some extent and others cannot. Clearly one way to reduce risks is to have a portfolio of supply sources, so that if one or more fail, others can meet demand. This is where sources independent of rainfall, like recycling and desalination, become more attractive. Water planners should now be developing suites of alternative supply options and assessing each. For viable options, the time to bring them onstream should be known and the trigger point of water in storage known, so construction can start on time. Preliminary work on planning, design and approvals can be done prior to the decision, as has been done with the Sydney desalination plant. This option approach is common where further information is likely to become available to improve the decision. In the case of rapid technology development, such as desalination, the longer investment can be deferred, the better the chance of a more cost-effective solution. Perhaps the biggest risk to water security for urban australians is the replacement of serious planning with poorly-analysed political decisions. each recent election has seen proposals for significant water infrastructure projects that have not been seriously designed, planned or assessed. Political focus groups are not a substitute for detailed technical assessment. had the channel from the Kimberley got up at the last Western australian election, it would have doubled the water bill for each Perth household and provided water at about six times the cost of desalination. each election now sees a new dam, new desalination plant or an expensive channel being proposed with little analysis or understanding.

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In their review of the urban sector marsden Jacob and associates (2006) refer to poor quality of planning; inadequate consideration of climate shift, planning that only looks at a partial set of solutions and excludes others from assessment on doctrinaire grounds; and poor consultation to carry communities along. They see a potential for greater revenue, but that subsidies will pervert investment decisions and that centralised control of capital has constrained the necessary investment.

The Federal Government’s role and the urban Water Industry The Prime minister, John howard, and premiers signed the nWI between 2004 and 2006 and this provides an appropriate framework for confronting water scarcity. unfortunately, nearly all of the timelines have slipped, and governments have found it rather challenging to implement these requirements. The national Water Commission (nWC) was established to advise governments on progress against their commitments, and to advise the Prime minister on investments for the $2 billion australian Government Water Fund (aGWF) established to assist the implementation. While many funding proposals have been made for the aGWF, it has been hard to find worthwhile investments that help deliver the nWI. many seem to reflect a wish to shift the cost of water supply augmentation or waste treatment services from local ratepayers to the taxpayer. many have been poorly planned, designed and costed and represent a subsidy to communities that do not want to implement the pricing commitments of the nWI.

A Leading Voice on Freshwater Ecology in Australia

steamer. The workshop was a great success both professionally and socially in bringing the scientists (and their partners) together for a common cause. The mildura laboratory of the murray-Darling Freshwater research Centre was conceived on the paddle steamer!

my first meeting with Peter Cullen was in 1967 as two fresh-faced students in the first year of our postgraduate studies in the Department of agricultural engineering at the university of melbourne. Peter, a graduate in agricultural Science, was investigating the implications of irrigation practices for the root depth and subsequent productivity of irrigated pasture. I remember Peter fondly as an energetic, quickwitted and passionate young man who was obviously going places.

For twelve years I had the privilege of working with Peter as he developed the CrCFe into the leading voice on freshwater ecology in australia. he had a unique skill in communicating complex scientific issues in simple but effective language for a wide audience. he was also a man of great personal integrity who gained the trust of farmers, environmentalists and politicians on both sides of politics. Peter also had the knack of proposing practical solutions that could be taken up by governments and implemented. The national action Plan on Salinity, the living murray Initiative and creation of the national Water Commission all have Peter’s finger prints on them!

Our careers diverged after our time together at the university of melbourne: he chose a career in academic life and I took up the challenge of a career in the water industry. although we took divergent paths, it was this diversity that brought us back together to create the Cooperative research Centre for Freshwater ecology (CrCFe). Peter had the academic contacts and I the links with the water industry. although our first attempt failed, the second attempt succeeded and the CrCFe came into being in July 1993, with Peter as Chief executive and me as Chairman of the Board of management. my fondest memory of Peter was on a paddle steamer chuffing its way down the murray towards Wentworth. research into the ecological systems of lowland rivers, including the murray and Darling, had been neglected and Peter was determined to correct this imbalance. he organised a workshop to develop a research plan for lowland rivers, and what better place to hold this workshop than on the murray and Darling rivers: hence the paddle

It is fair to say that few others have had such great influence on the water debate in australia. his influence played a key role in changing the water debate from a single focus on irrigated agriculture to a broader perspective respecting the ongoing health of our freshwater systems, on which we all depend. The living murray Initiative and the foundation of the Basin Plan are testaments to his influence. Peter’s voice is sorely missed at this critical juncture in the policy debate over the Basin Plan.

ProFessor John LanGFord aM direCTor, uniWaTer, The uniVersiTY oF MeLBourne and Monash uniVersiTY

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“Urban Australia is facing serious water scarcity and the urban industry does not appear to have foreseen the challenges we now face.” Proposals that have arisen out of good regional water planning and have been properly developed would generally have been built anyhow; poorlydeveloped proposals seem more like chancing the arm in case a windfall arises. With water utilities returning around $1billion a year to state governments, it has not been apparent why particular cities should get a federal subsidy for their water augmentation schemes, their waste treatment facilities or for urban drainage investments. The Prime Minister’s National Plan for Water Security has refocused federal attention on issues that span state boundaries and indicates that urban water supply is a state issue and should be within the financial capacity of the urban sector to be achieved without federal subsidy.

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The NWC has already committed resources to various studies of relevance to urban systems: •

Review and assessment of water restrictions



• Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme (WELS) appliances •

Smart Approved WaterMark (outdoor water saving labelling program)



•

Review of institutional and regulatory guidelines



•

Water recycling criteria for Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR)

• Guidelines for evaluating Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) •

Water resource planning and lessons learned



•

New water entitlements (stormwater and recycled water)

There will be further investments to help deliver these sorts of products to assist the urban industry.

Summary anD COnCluSIOnS urban australia is facing serious water scarcity and the urban industry does not appear to have foreseen the challenges we now face. The climate shift has been more sudden than most predicted, but uncontrolled growth of urban areas was always going to challenge the industry to meet growing demands. a financial model, where the water industry was seen as a revenue provider, prevented many of the necessary infrastructure investments and led to atrophy of planning capacity within the industry. The nWI provides the best framework for going forward and addressing the issue of water security for urban australia. We need to measure and manage the whole water cycle rather than selected bits of it, and we need to engage our communities to take them along on this journey, as we confront ongoing water scarcity for rural australia.

reFerenCeS & FurTher reaDInGS Cullen, P. (2006) running on empty – the risk

of Continuing to Dither while the empty light is Flashing. Occasional Paper South australian Centre for economic Studies, adelaide. Grafton, r. and Kompas, T. (2006) Sydney water:

Pricing for Sustainability. Draft Working Paper, Crawford School of economics and Government, australian national university. marsden, Jacob & associates (2006) Securing

australia’s urban Water Supplies: Opportunities and Impediments. Discussion paper prepared for the Department of the Prime minister and Cabinet. national Public health Partnership (2004) Guidance

on the use of rainwater Tanks, 2nd ed. australian Government.

above: This urban wetland at Pooraka, South australia is used to clean stormwater for reuse. (Shane miles) Opposite: People gathered for Wateruse 2010 Conference. (Image by Grant leslie used with the permission of the Water Services association of australia)

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“The Australian climate is shifting and it seems that urban Australians will need to become more accustomed to increased frequency and severity of both droughts and floods.” Peter Cullen

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Driving Innovation: Urban Design in a Changing Climate Peter Cullen, Commissioner – national Water Commission 13th International rainwater Catchment systems Conference & 5th International Water sensitive Urban Design Conference, sydney Tuesday 21 August 2007

A

ustralia faces unprecedented problems with meeting the water needs of urban communities. There are serious concerns that some major cities could actually run out of water. Quite severe water restrictions are in place in many cities, and there is considerable infrastructure investment underway in an attempt to augment supplies. There are two reasons for this situation. Governments have failed to invest in planning and infrastructure to accommodate urban growth, instead hoping that demand management would allow growth to be accommodated. At the same time they have seen urban water utilities as sources of income to fund other activities, with over $1 billion a year being taken in dividends from the water industry by state treasuries. The second reason is the rapidity of climate shift that has been more rapid than predicted and has caught the water industry by surprise. The last decade has seen inflows to sydney storages drop by 72% from that experienced during the comparatively wet period of 1950-1990. The last decade has been the driest on record for the Melbourne catchments, which only received 40% of the expected rainfall, which has seen storages drop from 1700Gl to 535Gl. The Australian climate is shifting and it seems that urban Australians will need to become more accustomed to increased

frequency and severity of both droughts and floods.

THe nATIonAl WATer InITIATIVe fortunately we have a framework for managing water and the national Water Initiative (nWI), agreed by the Premiers and Prime Minister in 2004, provides a blueprint that positions Australia to cope with water scarcity.

Above: A public sculpture ‘showerheads/flowerheads’ by Cathy Brooks, which was constructed from recycled showerheads collected from the community when they purchased new water efficient showerheads, south Australia. (fiona Paton) opposite: Perth city from Kings Park, Western Australia. (Tracey Henderson)

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The core elements of the nWI include:

THe nWI UrBAn AGenDA

•

Understand the resource. What are the sustainable levels of extraction of the surface and groundwater resources? How might they change with climate change? What is the consumptive pool available for extraction?

•

return over-allocated systems to sustainable levels. our communities depend on healthy rivers. They are not an optional extra but the foundations upon which our communities depend.

The nWI identifies that the outcome of urban water reform is to provide healthy, safe and reliable water supplies, to increase water use efficiency in domestic and commercial settings, to encourage the re-use and recycling of wastewater where cost effective, to facilitate water trading between and within the urban and rural sectors and to encourage innovation in water supply sourcing, treatment, storage and discharge.

•

Give farmers secure entitlement that can be traded and allow a market to develop that will let water move to its most valuable use– irrigation, urban or the environment.

The nWI did commit Governments to some specific actions in the urban area. These covered: •

Water efficiency labeling scheme (Wels) including mandatory labelling and minimum standards for agreed appliances

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Insist that we all use water as efficiently as we can. Proper pricing is part of this, but so are urban design and public education.

•

‘smart WaterMark’ for household gardens, including garden irrigation equipment, garden designs and plants

•

Planning that identifies future demands and the full range of options for meeting the water needs of our communities.

•

review of the effectiveness of water restrictions

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Prioritise leakage reduction programs

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Develop national health and environmental guidelines for recycled water and stormwater

•

evaluate existing iconic water sensitive urban developments

The nWI was largely designed to address over allocation and other problems with rural water. It is relatively limited in its specifics about urban water although the principles it establishes are applicable.

CHAllenGes In MeeTInG UrBAn WATer neeDs In coping with water scarcity, activity is underway to address both the demand and the supply side of the situation.

Demand Management Water utilities have been seeking to defer expensive augmentations by demand management for some time, largely using public education and water efficiency programs. These have been quite successful. These strategies have also been employed during drought periods, when

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restrictions were imposed and led to marked reductions in water useage over the short term. There is a view that long term water restrictions are inappropriate, and that they should only be used for a short period during droughts. on the other hand, the sort of low-level restrictions, like not using water to hose down pathways, is seen by some as reasonable water use that should be promoted as part of ongoing wise water use.

supply Management Given the uncertainty of the extent of climate shift, there is now a push to increase diversity in water sources, especially to develop sources less dependent on immediate rainfall. This has increased the emphasis on groundwater, recycling in its various forms (indirect potable or for industry and open space use) and desalination, as ways of securing water supplies. Pipelines are being built to create water grids to allow movement of water to areas of shortage. The real options strategy, where options are developed and implemented when specific trigger points are reached, has been developed in sydney water planning and is another useful development. The urban industry is investing some $30 billion in new infrastructure projects, which will provide a greater diversity of water sources, but at a higher cost and with greater greenhouse gas emissions than earlier augmentations. There are concerns about the capacity of the industry to deliver these projects in a timely manner (WsAA, 2007).

WATer sensITIVe UrBAn DeVeloPMenT (WsUD) There has been a growing interest in managing stormwater, initially to protect downstream water bodies from the impacts of urbanization, but then for amenity reasons. Canberra led the way with this work (Cullen et al., 1989) but it was quickly adopted in other cities. Urban lakes are now common in new developments as devices to trap and purify stormwater.

“Given the uncertainty of the extent of climate shift, there is now a push to increase diversity in water sources, especially to develop sources less dependent on immediate rainfall.” Above (top): Installation of purple pipes for recycled water. (Image used with permission of the Water services Association of Australia) Above (bottom): ‘Drought Comes to Town’, 7th november 2006. (Cartoon by Peter nicholson from The Australian www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au) opposite: ‘Water saving around the home’ brochure, produced by smart WaterMark. (Image used with permission of smart WaterMark)

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Demonstration developments that utilise these elements in a variety of ways have emerged in most of our major cities, especially in sites that are not easily connected to reticulated wastewater systems. However they remain as boutique demonstration projects rather than becoming mainstream land development strategies.

Impediments to Implementation of WSUD There appear to be a number of impediments to the widespread adoption of WSUD principles that need attention:

In recent years this interest in stormwater management has broadened to a whole watercycle approach to urban water, with the evolution of the idea of water sensitive urban development that incorporates three main elements in an integrated approach to urban water management: •

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Minimising demands on the potable water supply, through demand management and substitution

•

Minimising wastewater flows through waste minimisation and recycling

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Improved stormwater management to protect downstream river health, reduce flooding, enhance urban amenity and provide an alternative water source

T h i s L a n d, o u r Wat e r

•

There is no shared vision as to the scope and language of WSUD. To some it is still little more than stormwater management, to others it is fully integrated water management.

•

There is diffuse responsibility between many agencies, including planning agencies, local government, water utilities, drainage authorities as well as the development industry. There are no standard Manuals of Best Practice to provide guidance to developers, and there are differing requirements in many local government areas. This highly fragmented control arrangement makes it difficult for developers.

•

There is uncertainty as to who carries risk in WSUD, with respect to flooding, maintenance of water features and health risks of rainwater tanks.

•

There is limited reliable information about the costs and benefits of WSUD, and uncertainty as to who should bear costs.

•

There are concerns that widespread implementation of WSUD might affect traditional revenue streams of water utilities.

•

There is a lack of technical capacity in various agencies to assess innovative approaches.

MoVInG forWArD WITH WsUD In accelerating the uptake of WsUD for new developments, it is important to develop some levers that will drive innovation rather than prescribe current ‘best’ practice. This means focussing on the outcomes to be achieved rather than specifying the means that should be used. We need to move beyond local guidelines to making WsUD standard practice. We need to move beyond improved stormwater management to real integrated urban water management at the subregional scale.

“We need to move beyond local guidelines to making WsUD standard practice.”

require Developers to Acquire necessary Water Before Approval to Develop Under the nWI, if a farmer wants to develop a new irrigation area, he is required to purchase a water entitlement from some other water holder. The same principle could be extended to urban land developers. This is a radical reversal of the current approach, where often land development occurs and then utilities are expected to provide the necessary water and sewerage services. If developers had to identify water needs (residential, open space and commercial) for their developments it might drive designs to minimise these demands. If developers were paying the real costs of meeting these demands it would put some market discipline into the area and drive innovative solutions, providing the regulatory environment allowed this. Developers might purchase water from an existing holder, or they might ‘create’ new water through treatment of wastewater, stormwater or sea water. In essence this requires serious subcatchment water plans be developed showing the demandsupply mix, and not assuming water can be taken from other established users or the environment. These plans would require integrated water planning for potable water, stormwater and wastewater and, perhaps, groundwater. They

would require assessments of sustainable levels of extraction from the various sources, and assessment of greenhouse gas and other environmental considerations, as well as technical, economic and social acceptability. This may require amendments to planning laws, and may require better cooperation between planning agencies, local government, drainage authorities, water utilities and catchment management authorities.

Above: A rainwater tank in an urban garden. (Image used with permission of Water services Association of Australia) opposite (above): Mulching potted plants helps to reduce evaporation. (Julian Gray) opposite (below): smart WaterMark pool covers save 80% and over in water evaporation. (neil Duncan) (opposite images used with permission of smart WaterMark)

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The Master Communicator Peter Cullen was one of the best translators of scientific information for the public, including the media, that I ever have had the opportunity to observe. His extraordinary talent of being able to communicate complicated scientific findings in a simple, compelling way was most evident in issues related to water. Even though they might disagree with him, people would listen to him explain why water needed to be used wisely, fairly and with respect to the needs of future generations. I witnessed even the most hardened, self-serving advocates of water use (‘my water’) listen to Peter when he talked–a rare talent, indeed. His moniker as the ‘water man’ in Australia and the ‘Cullenisms’ that survive him, are well-earned tributes. Not only was he a great communicator, but he believed that scientists need to speak out and be heard. To be effective in doing this, they need, in Aldo Leopold’s (1966) prose to hear the ‘song’ of rivers, “This song of the waters is audible to every ear,

but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers.” Obviously, it takes a long time to ‘hear’ the speech of hills and rivers and you need to understand the words of this song, but Peter could. One of my favorite ‘Cullenisms’, is “When scientists do enter the political arena, they must understand they are playing to different rules from those used in science and need to learn the rules of politics and the media. Unless they understand the rules and tactics of policy debate, it is like them walking onto a tennis court equipped only with golf sticks.” Peter was a dear friend, who, although extremely busy and driven to be a constant and effective advocate for water, always seemed to have time for friends, family, some red wine and a good laugh. I talked with him on many occasions about the ethical basis of water use and distribution. Peter’s wife, Vicky, and I once gave a short course on the ethical underpinnings at the interface of religion and science. It was Peter’s idea for us to give this course. A sound ethical base was the foundation for Peter’s wise leadership, thinking and life. I miss his astute counsel and clear voice in explaining to all of us the true value of water and why we need to protect this limited, vital resource.

Gene E. Likens Distinguished Senior Ecologist, Founding Director and President Emeritus of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, New York, USA.

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Clear specification of outcomes Governments need to state clearly the requirements of the land development industry and water industry. These might include: •

Public health and safety requirements for potable water, recycled water and stormwater

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Protection of property from flood damage

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Current and target values of water capita water usage for residences, open space and commercial use

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Planned volumes of wastewater to be treated

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Quantity and quality of stormwater to be exported from the planning area to protect downstream ecosystems and users

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Amenity values of waterways and retention ponds

Governments also need to review their building and plumbing codes to ensure best practice indoor and outdoor water management is required.

Institutional reform There is little doubt that the complexity of institutional arrangements is a significant barrier to the widespread implementation of WsUD (Brown and Clark, 2007). There are a variety of state agencies as well as regional bodies and local Governments, all with differing and often unique requirements. some of these requirements are not necessarily obvious, such as those of fire services and plumbing regulations that may have been established last century. There is a need to simplify, standardise and update this myriad of regulations and requirements to simplify the development process and reduce the costs of housing. one example of this is the development of techniques for aquifer storage and recovery

of stormwater. This practice has been well demonstrated in Adelaide over the last decade, but attempts to introduce it in Melbourne have met a regulatory environment unfamiliar with the approach and it has taken an inordinate time to get agreement to trial and demonstrate this approach.

regulations Australia has a welldeveloped water efficiency labelling system for domestic appliances (Wels), and while similar systems are being developed for garden equipment, these remain voluntary. The Wels scheme does set minimum standards for toilets, but for other appliances the labelling scheme may help purchasers make better decisions. The water inefficient devices continue to be available on the market. Water services Association of Australia (WsAA) has pointed out the benefits of mandatory minimum standards for washing machines and showerheads in reducing residential water use. similarly in commercial buildings voluntary codes have been ineffective. Hotels and office buildings in some cases still do not have dual flush toilets, and some have automatically-flushing urinals. The Working Group of the Prime Minister’s science, engineering and Innovation Council recommended that financial incentives could be given to developers who provide WsUD through a reduction in developer charges.

Above: Wels -Water efficiency labelling and standards scheme. opposite: Peter Cullen. (Vicky Cullen Collection)

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Advisor to the Howard Government Peter Cullen first came to my attention some seven or eight years ago when water policy came under very active attention by the Howard Government. In different ways he became a valued advisor to the government as a whole and also to individual ministers who had responsibilities in the area. His great quality was to bring balance and reasonableness to a debate which, as current events have demonstrated, frequently attracts polarised approaches. He well understood the increasing scarcity of water resources, the over-indulgent licence allocations of earlier years and the inherent difficulty of grappling with a problem national in character through a bureaucratic system seriously fragmented amongst the states.

HON JOHN HOWARD AC PRIME MINISTER of australia1996-2007

Need for Champions Brown and Clark (2007) identify the need for individual and organisational champions to drive and lead change, and they identify some of the necessary characteristics of such champions. These people act as brokers between the emerging knowledge from science–in this case hydrology and river health–and present the knowledge in the context of the problem of urban water management. An organisational champion is an agency prepared to try new approaches and encourage innovation and experimentation to build learning, a characteristic that is often rare in organisations.

Comprehensive Assessments of Elements of WSUD One of the barriers to implementing WSUD is the often–inadequate assessments of particular elements. It is often difficult to get good economic assessments of WSUD, and these rarely consider various externalities that need to be considered. As an example, economists find water from rainwater tanks to be quite expensive in comparison to catchment water. Yet these assessments never value the benefits to river health that tanks deliver in slowing the first flush of water (Taylor et al., 2004) and they never consider the development of water literacy that tanks provide as people become better connected with knowledge of the supply and useage of water

Professional Capacity Building There is a widespread shortage of experienced professional staff in many agencies dealing with water, and considerable staff turnover. This makes the development and promulgation of technical manuals particularly important to harvest and document learnings and make best practice widely available. The Victorians have released Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines for Urban Stormwater which is an important contribution to capacity building.

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“An organisational champion is an agency prepared to try new approaches and encourage innovation and experimentation to build learning...”

Public education Many Australian communities are seeking the use of recycled water and stormwater, but do not translate these aspirations to demanding that new subdivisions apply such approaches. We need to move beyond the labelling schemes for domestic appliances to having a national labelling system to show water efficiency in subdivisions, residences, shopping centres, commercial establishments and urban open space water management. such labelling systems may assist with marketing or could be used to provide other incentives, such as relief from rates or other charges. surveys indicate many Australians are in favour of recycling. However there is much confusion by what is meant by this term. recycling might be of second-class water for industrial and open space uses, it might be third-pipe systems providing water for toilet flushing and outdoor uses or it might mean returning treated water to the drinking supply.

Above (top): Watering the garden with recycled water. Above (bottom):Care must be taken to indicate recycled water in use. (Images used with permission of Water services Association of Australia) opposite: sydney, new south Wales. (richard Taylor)

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The Water Sensitive Suburb of the 21st Century While the patterns of urban development may change and urban densities increase, as people seek to live close to places of work, there will be an ongoing need for urban open space that provides green spaces for people to enjoy. Community concerns about climate change will lead to a carbon tax of some sort, putting downwards pressure on activities that use energy and create greenhouse gases. As water scarcity increases with climate change, there will be ongoing pressures for urban catchments to be more self sufficient with water, and have less reliance on importing water from other catchments.

This will involve: •

Collecting roof water and storing it in either local or regional storage structures as an alternative source of high quality water

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Reducing the first flush of stormwater by encouraging infiltration in urbanised areas (to replenish groundwater and soil moisture and reduce the first flush effects on urban river health)

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Collecting stormwater, allowing contaminants to be removed, storing this in urban ponds or in aquifers and utilising this water for open space watering

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Treating wastewater and recycling it either back into supply or into a reticulated secondclass water system for toilet flushing and open space uses

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We may develop vacuum waste collection systems that use much less water to transport wastes

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There will be more effort to separate wastes at the source rather than expending energy on separation at treatment plants and urine will be kept separate from solid wastes with a dual collection system

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More use of groundwater, especially as a drought reserve

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In areas near the coast desalination of sea water will be available as part of the supply mix, as a source not dependent on rainfall and available to be increased as a drought reserve

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Reducing evaporation from water storages by seeking to increase aquifer storage or by other means of reducing evaporative losses

Individual houses will have smart metering so that residents know how water is used and when it is used. Mains water may be priced differently at different times in an attempt to smooth out peak flows, hence reducing the size and costs of pipes.

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There may be scarcity pricing of water during dry periods, but water is likely to cost two to three times the present costs, as externalities such as greenhouse gases and river health are eventually brought into pricing regimes. In apartment buildings each resident will get an individual water bill.

ConClUsIons our current approaches to managing urban water are not sustainable and, with increasing urban populations and with declining rainfall due to climate change, we need to get on and mainstream the boutique developments we have for water sensitive urban communities. We must move to fully integrated urban water thinking that considers all sources of water. WsUD is much more than good stormwater management. We already have many of the tools and approaches we need to do this, but must address the institutional barriers to adoption. We need to do this in a way that will drive further innovation rather than just entrench today’s ‘best practice’.

referenCes & fUrTHer reADInGs Brown, r. & Clarke, J. (2007) Transition to Water

sensitive Urban Design. The study of Melbourne, Australia. Monash University. facility for Advancing Water Biofiltration, Melbourne. Cullen, P., lambert, D. & sanders, n. (1989) Design

Guidelines for Water Pollution Control Ponds. report to ACT Interim Territory Planning Authority. Canberra. Prime Ministers science, engineering & Innovation Council (2007) Water for our Cities: building

resilience in a climate of uncertainty. report of Working Group, Department for education science and Training. Taylor, s.l., roberts, s.C., Walsh, C.J. and Hatt B.e. (2004) Catchment Urbanisation and Increased Benthic Algal Biomass In streams: linking Mechanisms To Management. freshwater Biology 49, 835–851 Water services Association of Australia (2007) The

WsAA report Card for 2006/07. Performance of the Australian Urban Water Industry and Projections for the future. WsAA, Melbourne. Above: A pipeline for desalinated water under construction between Pakenham and Koo Wee rup, Victoria. (simon Yeo) opposite: Installation of a downpipe diverter for rainwater harvesting. (Image by neil Duncan used with permission of smart WaterMark)

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Water in the landscape Paper 18

Putting the Jigsaw Together

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Water in the landscape: The Coupling of Aquatic ecosystems and their Catchments

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facilitating landscapes and Communities

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yes It’s not sustainable but It’s not my fault! A natural lake near Cradle mountain, Tasmania. (fiona Paton)

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“We need to measure and manage the whole water cycle rather than selected bits of it, and we need to engage our communities to take them along on this journey as we confront ongoing water scarcity for rural Australia .” Peter Cullen

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Putting the Jigsaw Together Peter Cullen, CrC for freshwater ecology, university of Canberra rural Australia: Towards 2000 Conference Charles sturt university, Wagga Wagga, new south Wales Plenary Address, July 2-4 1997

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his conference provides us with an exciting and important opportunity to learn how a variety of professionals and community participants view the problems of rural Australia. It gives us the opportunity to see what acceptable solutions to our problems might look like. In my view it is critical that we achieve economic and ecologic sustainability in rural Australia. We cannot have one without the other. The recent federal state of the environment report showed we are a long way from achieving ecological sustainability. We need to address and understand what I am calling the unholy trinity. This is not a theological statement, as much as a recognition that the environment, people and the institutions we develop are not working as a whole but in isolation and, at times, in competition. In developing these ideas for rural Australia I wish to acknowledge the importance of a recent book by gunderson et al. (1995) entitled Barriers and Bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and Institutions.

rurAl lAnDs humans use natural resources to produce products they value. This is almost the definition of a resource. gold was not seen as any use by aboriginals; our farmers rarely see kangaroos as a

major resource. As we start to manage a natural resource to increase its productivity, we aim to maximise the yield from the resource and we seek to minimise the variability in the yield we obtain. We identify key factors that limit yield or variation and we seek to stop these factors being such a limitation. We supply water and fertilizer, we try and remove competition from weeds, we try and reduce predation from pests and so on. As we become more successful, we tend to develop a more uniform and homogenous ecosystem. These processes reduce diversity. We simplify the ecosystem. As we simplify the ecosystem we reduce its ability to respond to changes in the environment. If things like salt levels or ph change, the system is less able to cope and adapt. It has lost resilience. The consequence is that we are at a greater risk of system collapse. The system will change to respond to the altered conditions, but it might be an ecosystem that is less useful to humans. salt affected land is one example. Another is where, by supplying excess nutrients to a river, we replace the aquatic plants with blue-green algae. such

opposite: Cotton crop on Cecil Plains to Dalby road. (Image by Arthur mostead used with the permission of the mDBA)

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aquatic systems are highly productive and often highly stable, but they are not ecosystems seen as advantageous to humans. Whenever we simplify an ecosystem we reduce its capacity to respond to change. When some external condition does change–through climate, land degradation or rising groundwater, the system is under greater risk. It might no longer have the capacity to respond to the changing environment. It is at risk of flipping into a degraded state.

The Evolution of Institutional Arrangements It is interesting to observe similar patterns of evolution in the institutional arrangements that we develop to manage our natural resources. Agencies are established to address community issues such as agriculture, soil conservation, fisheries or water resources. In the early years of these agencies they take a fairly wide view until they believe the critical

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issues are identified. They then tend to focus their resources and energy to address these critical factors, and on doing these things more efficiently. Studies that take a broad view of the system and do not concentrate on what is self-evident to producers, are seen as academic, wasteful and unnecessary. We reduce our energy in trying to understand the whole system and how it might be changing. This is especially invidious when the agency structures tend to have only a narrow range of responsibilities. There are many barriers to any agency doing something seen by competing agencies as ‘their turf’. There are also a number of very human reasons why any study that attempts to evaluate what actually is achieved by some program is blocked. There is agency and political capital invested in the solution by then, and no-one wants to know that the expected outcomes might not be achieved.

This is a dangerous and unstable situation. As the natural environment changes we find agencies are becoming more and more efficient at doing what is becoming the wrong thing. Agencies, like ecosystems, tend to lose resilience and lack the capacity to detect emerging problems or alter their activities to respond to new challenges. Commonly, these major changes can only be achieved by governments through a major reorganisation and a change of senior staff, an increasingly common response over the last ten years.

CommunITy–from DePenDenCe To grIDloCK Communities benefit and grow from the increasing production from the land, and any success that might be achieved in reducing variability of production. This of course provides very positive feedback to the community that they are doing the right thing and creating wealth. If they are successful, there will be further public and private investment, perhaps in the processing of the primary products in some way. As they create wealth and attain political power they are able to protect what they have built. like the natural system itself, and the agencies, the community also may lose resilience and the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. The community becomes strongly committed to protecting the status quo, and they have the support of the myopic agencies that often act as their advocates. As this process continues the community may become part of the crisis. The end result is governments themselves are paralysed and in a decision gridlock. There are many drivers to this unhappy situation. It may be a natural resource element like rising groundwater or increasing soil salinity. It might be a shift in community values, as has been experienced in forestry issues. It might be a shift in markets or a health scare with some particular rural product.

“The end result is governments themselves are paralysed and in a decision gridlock.” eXAmPles from rurAl AusTrAlIA I do not have the time to develop a series of case studies of Australian natural resource management. gunderson et al. (1995) have done this with a series of international case studies that provide a plausible basis for this description of the evolution of resources, institutions and communities. They coin the term ‘success leads to failure’. The very success we have in managing a system reduces the ability to respond to changing circumstances, and leads to failure as the circumstances do change.

Above: Black swan in blue-green algae, Torrens lake, south Australia. (holger maier) opposite: Watering of crops in lachlan valley, approaching Cowra, new south Wales. (Image by Irene Dowdy used with the permission of the mDBA)

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In Australia, and internationally, forestry would be a major example of this problem. Forestry systems based on harvesting old growth forests rather than the more expensive plantations, which are supported by forestry agencies who measure success in terms of hectares felled and communities who see no economic future beyond harvesting old growth forests. Extensive political support is mobilised to maintain the status quo, however unsustainable. Governments, at the end of the day, commonly have to fund expensive compensation packages to bail out communities who have become myopic and failed to see the changing world in which they live. Fisheries are another classic international example where the production ethic has fought to remain dominant, even though society is changing and sees a wider range of benefits that might come from marine and freshwater aquatic resources. Some more far-sighted fisheries agencies are starting to see that aquatic conservation may have benefits beyond protecting seed stocks to maintain commercial fisheries.

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In water management the acceptance of changing and wider community values has been easier, partly because the same communities that seek to extract water for irrigation also drink the water, and often want to use it for various forms of recreation, including fishing. Even so, it is interesting to observe that many fisheries agencies do not see the invasion by carp as a problem, or at least a problem they can do very much about, whereas the community sees it as a major problem. Water management agencies have built structures and implemented water regimes that have led to the marked decline of native fish. But because some other agency is commonly responsible for fish, this does not become a mainstream issue for the water agency who continue to operate large dams without appropriate multi-level off-take structures and smaller weirs without fish passages. Salinity would be another example where our institutional structure appears to be inappropriate for the natural resource. For a long period we had

separate organisations responsible for irrigation and for agriculture, and so salinity was viewed as a problem of excessive irrigation. Dryland salinity was recognised as problem much later, and we still seem unable to develop an integrated salinity strategy, even though both sources contribute salinity to the rivers. salt also seems unable to recognise state or local government boundaries. rising salinity is seen by many as a critical problem for the murray Darling Basin, yet we seem unable to develop an integrated approach to it. This is an example where, when the resource degradation causes such cost and hardship, that governments are likely to develop some new management framework that is better equipped to tackle this sort of problem.

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Pricing and public education will be key ways that change community perceptions of water and the demands on water resources for both the extraction of water and for the disposal of water. The community will be more involved in setting standards, assessing risks and understanding the trade-offs required.

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It is clear that our present strategy of splitting the water cycle into a whole range of different elements, managed by different groups of professionals, has now outlived its usefulness and we need to now put the pieces of the jigsaw back together again.

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The aquatic ecosystem should be what drives the technologies used, and so ecologists need to be involved with planners and engineers, to develop more integrated solutions and set appropriate performance criteria for urban stormwater and waste treatment.

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Agency structures need to reflect this need for bio-physical integration through a variety of mechanisms including integration and coordination.

The emergIng PArADIgm for WATer mAnAgemenT There is a widespread dissatisfaction with our past approach to managing land and water which is seen to have led to the present state of degradation. An emerging paradigm for a better way is gaining acceptance. •

We need to consider all the sources, stores and sinks for water and contaminants as they enter and move through the landscape. This will be done on a catchment basis, and will come to be viewed as rate of movement problems rather than mass stored problems.

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sustainable development means identifying the key ecological processes that determine the condition of waterways, and ensuring that these processes are maintained sufficiently to provide an acceptable environmental outcome.

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Water needs to be of an appropriate quality for the use proposed, rather than demanding high quality drinking water for all uses. This will involve planning processes to allocate water to uses and bargaining to select appropriate water quality guidelines for uses in particular catchments.

Above: fishway at Tauwitchere Barrage, south Australia. fishways are structures on or around artificial barriers (such as dams and locks) to facilitate fishes’ natural migration. (lydia Paton) opposite: softwood plantation near strathalbyn, south Australia. (Image by Arthur mostead used with the permission of the mDBA)

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lot of people to a small extent, whereas the beneficiaries may be a small number who benefit greatly (the tragedy of the commons argument) •

When the organisational structure of discipline-based narrowly-focussed state agencies and a myriad of local governments all carry some responsibility for the problem, but all avoid accountability by blaming the others

Challenges for the Political and Economic System I have an ecologist’s view of sustainability. I see five significant problems outside ecology that must be addressed.

Regional water quality management requires a consideration of point and non-point inputs to waterways, and a consideration of the likely change these inputs will have on the receiving ecosystem. Such planning should be undertaken for high, medium and low flow conditions. The impacts of sewage discharge and the impacts of inadequately treated wastes from intensive animal industries are critical inputs to catchment-based water quality planning. It is becoming obvious that the best way forward is to make our decisions within a whole system context. There is little point capping water extraction from the Murray Darling if many people can just start exploiting groundwater. The total catchment management model is now widely understood in Australia. The difficulties with using it however include:

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When upstream people are a long way from, and have little contact with, downstream people, especially when they are in different industries (e.g. tourism and fisheries compared to conventional agricultural industry)

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Most economic analysis and decision–making is very short term, yet the problems of ecosystem management and land and water degradation may well be in the ten to fifty year time scale. Discounting practices seem to make such degradation almost without cost to the economist.

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Economic thinking appreciates the importance of externalities, but appears not to have appropriate tools to consider them. They are a critical element in land management.

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The ecosystem is unable to differentiate between private and public lands, and yet our organisational frameworks have great trouble getting appropriate cost-sharing principles, where public expenditure on private land may provide significant public benefits. The Community Advisory Committee of the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council (MDBMC) has done important work on costsharing principles, which governments have yet to respond to. I appreciate the problems of public funds again being translated into capital land values for private gain. The idea of capturing these capital benefits on sale of the property is worthy of exploration, based on the delayed payment model used by the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) in education.

Teacher and husband

kind to him. he used to joke at his own expense about the inability of his body to cope with water.

Peter was a born teacher. When I came to gunning at the end of 2000, I didn’t know much about living outside cities and even less about what a bucket of water could do. I thought it was something you used to clean the car. But the first time I really met Peter was when he came with vicky to eat in the small place I had just bought from the Department of housing which was selling off its properties in the town. Peter had a broad vision of the area. he told me that if we drove for a quarter of an hour to the top of the Cullerin range, we would find the headwaters of the lachlan river.

Peter met vicky through teaching when they were both working in a high school in the eastern suburbs of melbourne, Peter teaching science and vicky teaching french and german. In a way, that difference encapsulates something wonderful in their marriage. Peter and vicky gave each other the deepest kind of freedom. They had a kind of invisible antenna which tuned in to each other with pin-point accuracy. They told a story of a time when the girls were young and they were living on a boat. If one of the children made a noise in the night, vicky heard it and Peter slept. If the boat lurched in the night, Peter heard it and vicky slept.

‘If you tip out a bucket of water on one side of the crest,’ he explained, ‘it will find its way into the murray and down to lake Alexandrina. If you walk twenty paces and tip it out, it will find its way into the nepean and finally the Pacific.’ for Peter, a bucket of water was always something on a journey. Peter made many journeys as well and by the end they were far from easy for him. yet he pushed himself because he believed in what he was doing. he struggled with movement a bit like the rivers he cared so much about. That same night, he explained about salt in the soil, about how salinization was caused when deep rooting plants were replaced by shallow rooting ones because shallow roots drew minerals up through the earth. Peter’s explanations were as simple as they were profound. he had a rare gift for making scholarship available to people who needed it. I was always trying to get him to write for the mass market that needed to know more about water. Peter could teach anyone. he used to chortle in his delightful way about an occasion in the office of the Prime minister, John howard, when he was solemnly advised that he had not been retained to re-write the constitution. mind you, Peter knew better than most that water did not appreciate states’ rights. Peter understood about water but I am not sure that water was so

They were enormously proud of each other, trusted each other and enjoyed each other’s achievements, of which neither had any shortage. At the time when vicky was preparing to become one of the first female priests in Australia, Peter was called in by one of the church high-ups for an interview. Peter was not a Christian believer in the way vicky is. I have vivid memories of him sitting in the sun outside the gunning church on a sunday morning while vicky was leading worship inside. he often sat with his hands joined across his stomach, a modest, self-effacing posture, a bit like the Buddha. But he could be forthright when stirred. he was indignant about the interview and told the official concerned about vicky’s ordination that no, he was not a Christian but, yes, if vicky wanted to be a priest he would not only respect her choice but be proud of her and support her to the end. he did too.

MiChaeL MCGirr auThor & TeaCher

opposite: using groundwater to water an Adelaide garden, south Australia. (fiona Paton)

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When the catchment crosses state boundaries, and while commonly the local residents understand and wish to work on a whole system basis, the state and federal agencies are unable to cope effectively with this.

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Institutional arrangements are changing frequently in land and water management, with little comparative analysis or evaluation. The ‘reforms’ often lead to a loss of technical capacity in the organisations, which is being outsourced or even dispensed with. The past institutional arrangements are probably a key cause of much of the present degradation. Our organisational arrangements for managing natural resources in any integrated way have failed. Our professional training, professional organisations and agency structures have all evolved in simpler times. The pressures on resources were less and we had only simplistic understandings of the cause-effect relationships in ecosystems. It is little wonder they are not coping with the challenges of the nineties and beyond. There are tensions between the various agencies and the interests they reflect, and integration has generally been poor. The narrow sectorial interests tend to discount externalities such as downstream degradation and any impacts that will not be apparent for some time.

Some Ways Forward

(1) Integrated System–based Thinking rather than Treating Symptoms It seems self-evident that removing causes is better than treating symptoms. Indeed, treating symptoms without removing the causes of a problem is likely to be a complete waste of time and energy. If however, the causes of a problem are some hundreds of kilometres away, it becomes very difficult to get the upstream communities to own and resolve a problem that they do not see the symptoms of, despite it being their actions that cause the problem. It is far simpler to get action where the symptoms and the causes are physically connected.

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We need to lift our skills in integrating the contributions from different disciplines, in thinking in a whole-system context and including health, economics and environment as parts of a solution, not isolated bits that can be sorted out separately.

(2) Integrating our Sciences We need to think more about the science we undertake to address these problems. Science is also in need of integration, if we are to address large-scale ecological issues. There is little point in agricultural science developing solutions that cause further problems with say nutrient leakage to rivers. Scientists need to argue that the time scales and the spatial scales for their research are appropriate ones for the problem. They need to argue that the mix of disciplines they bring to a problem is the appropriate mix of skills for the problem, rather than an attempt to keep people in their research teams employed. They need to argue that the system boundaries for their work are the appropriate boundaries. Ecology has moved well beyond its early static ideas of communities moving towards some stable climax. We now appreciate that seasonal factors such as rainfall, temperature, light and predation

will advantage some organisms over others. We now see ecosystems as a much more chaotic battle for supremacy by particular organisms are more or less favoured by the conditions. It is important that we look for long term changes within the chaos of this short term variability. We should no longer assume stability in natural or agricultural ecosystems.

(3) ecology sets the Boundaries of What is Possible We are dealing with ecological systems. When systems degrade, it is through ecological processes. rising groundwater changes vegetation and increases saline-resistant species. Increasing nutrients in water bodies favours blue-green algae and these will dominate when the water is still or very slowly moving. If we do not like these outcomes, then we need to understand the ecological processes that lead to them, and make changes. The ecosystem itself provides the design criteria for our interventions, not what is technically or economically easy or feasible.

(4) Power to the People–A learning Community The power of landcare and ‘Total Catchment management’ has been in local people collecting and understanding information relevant to their land and their problems. Agricultural extension services have largely collapsed and been partially replaced by landcare facilitators who bring information to the group and allow the group to decide if the knowledge is useful to them. The knowledge is continually being tested against the reality as understood by landholders and the wider rural community. This produces a learning community that has a healthy scepticism of experts. experts generally know a lot about a small part of the total system and it is the community which must take the lead in integrating the information and understanding how it might lead to better outcomes.

effective interventions in a catchment will be ones that modify ecosystem processes and lead to more acceptable ecological outcomes. Above: Coongie lakes national Park, south Australia. (Bill Doyle)

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may be required. The learning community will develop scepticism of experts and the solutions they propose, and they will learn to identify and challenge the assumptions underlying proposed solutions. We do not know enough to be able to predict how ecosystems or institutional arrangements will respond to changing circumstances. All of our interventions need to be seen as experiments where we do what we think is the most appropriate thing, but then review and analyse the outcomes we produce. We need a continuing learning approach, as we test our ideas against reality. We must build our capacity to be a learning community and welcome challenge and evaluation of what we do. Rural communities are also learning to accept pluralism of values and interests, and are building some tolerance to the viewpoints of others. Some communities are building their capacity to think strategically, developing a community capacity to negotiate appropriate futures.

Summary and Conclusions

“The more we manage ecological variables to maximise production of crops, livestock, timber and water, the more we simplify the ecosystems and make them less able to cope with change. They become less resilient.” A learning community is one that operates in a rich information environment. Information comes from a variety of sources and perspectives, and is evaluated by the community. The learning community will look for evidence to support ideas and, even once it has decided to act, will continue to look for the expected outcomes. If they do not arise, then more thinking and different actions

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The more we manage ecological variables to maximise production of crops, livestock, timber and water, the more we simplify the ecosystems and make them less able to cope with change. They become less resilient. Gunderson et al. (1995) have pointed out how our institutions go down the same path. Organisations are created to handle a particular issue and, as they identify the critical factors with that issue, they move to manipulate those factors with greater and greater efficiency. This commonly leads to more rigid management systems, which are less able to scan the system for longer term changes. A culture develops that does not encourage new ways of looking at the system or the issue. Blinkers develop and the agency is often unable to see that the world in which it operates has changed fundamentally. It matters little whether these changes are biophysical, such as salinity, or social

“We have entered a dangerous phase with serious water planning now commonly being overtaken by iconic water projects dreamt up by journalists or focus groups at election times.” Peter Cullen

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Water in the Landscape: The Coupling of Aquatic ecosystems and their Catchments Peter Cullen Landscape design Principles Workshop Bowral, New south Wales 13 -17 March 2006

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ivers reflect their catchments. They integrate the pulses of water and other materials draining the catchment and hence, management of a river ecosystem starts with catchment management. Rivers comprise both the channel that carries low flow water, and the floodplain that accommodates larger flows. freshwater ecologists have long sought to understand the role of catchments in driving aquatic ecosystems (Hasler, 1975; Likens et al., 1977), but it is only more recently that the discipline of landscape ecology has developed and started to intersect with freshwater ecology (Wiens, 2002; Allan, 2004). The interaction of the climate with the geology, soils and vegetation of a catchment determines the fluxes of water, nutrients, sediment, organic matter and other materials that enter a river. It is these occasional pulses of water and materials, following rainfall, that drive the aquatic ecosystems that develop. There are other important processes that impact on the health of river systems, such as dredging, blocking migration with dams and the introduction of plants and animals, that may have significant effects and these need to be considered. In seeking to elucidate landscape design principles, it is important to understand the various ways that catchments are coupled with their river

systems and the various factors that mediate these connections, since it is often the health of the river that sets the boundaries on what is possible in a catchment.

WATeR PATHWAys When rain falls on land, it either evaporates from leaves, soils and puddles, infiltrates into the soil, or runs off as stormflow into streams. The water that enters the soil column may stay in the plant root zone and be used by plants, or move downslope in the root zone, or it may infiltrate deeper and enter the groundwater. The river will commonly get its water from both the groundwater, called baseflow, and directly from surface run-off. The rate at which surface run-off enters a river is a function of the soil’s infiltration capacity, the slope, surface roughness and the vegetation cover. groundwater and wetlands in the catchment may hold water and release it more slowly to the stream, by either surface or subsurface pathways.

opposite: debris from the floods on Lake Burley griffin, Canberra, January 2011. (Rob Lee)

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Both of the surface and subsurface flow paths will carry materials of various sorts from the catchment to the river. The velocity of water movement will determine what particulate material is mobilised from the soil surface and transported to the river, and it will be deposited when the water velocity drops. It may later be resuspended and redeposited by other run-off events. This simple model of catchment–river coupling needs some further development. Not all of a catchment necessarily contributes run-off to a stream and, in many catchments, it is a much more limited area that contributes surface run-off. The soil and vegetation characteristics of these contributing areas to surface flow are much more important to the export of water and materials than those in the remainder of the catchment. The riparian vegetation also mediates the connection between the catchment and the river system. An intact riparian community can protect stream banks from erosion during higher flows, act as a filter for contaminants washed from the catchment and provide woody debris and leaf litter that are both important to the river ecosystem. As well it provides shade that reduces stream temperatures. The connection of a river to the groundwater system is not always a simple one-directional movement. Lamontagne et al. (2006) report that the River Murray was losing water to the groundwater beneath the floodplain during baseflow conditions, but that the groundwater gradients were temporarily reversed following floods. The Chowilla floodplain of the River Murray discharged saline groundwater from the floodplain to the river for 18 months following a medium flood.

Land Use and Streamflow There is an extensive literature in hydrology, exploring the factors that determine the amount of water that runs off a catchment and, while rainfall and soils are obvious drivers, they are modified

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“From relatively small plot studies we see that, if trees are replaced with grass, then there is an increase in run-off and a reduction in evaporation.” by catchment characteristics and vegetation (Bari et al. 2005). Engineering interests largely drive this science in terms of the likely peak flows for which structures must be designed, or likely longer term flows that determine the overall yield of a water supply catchment. Many native Australian plants are perennial and have deep root systems that extract available water and, prior to European settlement, the groundwater was probably close to being in long term equilibrium. When this deep-rooted native vegetation was cleared for agriculture and replaced with shallow rooted, commonly annual, plants, more water entered the groundwater and groundwater levels rose, leading to waterlogging. The ‘leakage’ of water into groundwaters commonly occurs at rates of 15-150mm/year. If the groundwater is saline, then dryland salinity may develop (Cullen, 2003). From relatively small plot studies we see that, if trees are replaced with grass, then there is an increase in run-off and a reduction in evaporation. There is some evidence that these outcomes continue as we scale up to the Basin size. This effect occurs relatively quickly and is at maximum when the canopy of the plantation or revegetation is closed. The reduction in flow is significant and increasing in high rainfall zones above 700mm/ year, while in low to medium rainfall zones (400-700mm/year) the reduction is often small, ambiguous and difficult to reliably predict (see

CsIRo, 2004; o’Loughlin & Nambiar, 2001). zhang et al. (1999) bring together data sets from around the world, including Australian catchments, and the results are consistent with preliminary studies in the Comet catchment in Queensland, which indicate runoff may have increased by around 35% following clearing of about 50% of large vegetation in the mid-sixties (pers. comm. McMahon). There are many documented examples of decline in water quality, habitat and the biota in the river, as forest is cleared and replaced with pasture (e.g. Townsend et al., 2004). A major current issue is the impact on streamflow of plantation forestry in catchments (vertessy

et al., 2003). Planting of deep-rooted trees is commonly recommended to reduce dryland salinity problems, since they transpire water and cause less water to enter groundwater. Consequently, less groundwater may be available to provide baseflow for streams (scott, 2005). Planning tools to guide these decisions about the likely water interception by plantations, based on overall catchment water balance, are now available.

Above: The beautiful banks of the Cooper Creek at sunset, Coongie Lakes National Park, south Australia. (Bill doyle/ department of environment and Natural Resources sA)

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Key Design Principles–Streamflow When pastures or crops replace forests, there is a rapid increase in run-off and hence streamflow, and, when forests are introduced into a catchment, there is a reduction in streamflow that is marked and rapid in high rainfall zones (above 700mm/ year), and smaller and harder to predict in lower rainfall areas. Clearing of forest commonly leads to more water draining below the root zone, raising the water table and potentially leading to waterlogging and salinisation problems, although often with a lag time of months or years.

Hydrologic Disturbances – Droughts and Flooding Rains Stream ecosystems are rarely in an equilibrium or balanced condition, but are responding to the pulses of water that come from run-off events. Floods and droughts are just more extreme events and may reset the system in various ways. This is most obvious in our arid area’s aquatic ecosystems that experience boom and bust cycles (Roshier et al., 2001).

“Australian aquatic ecosystems depend on wetting and drying cycles to maintain themselves.” Lake (2003) explored the impacts of droughts on stream communities. Droughts disrupt the hydrological connectivity of the aquatic systems, causing pools to be disconnected and maybe reaches to dry up. Droughts have marked effects on the densities and size- or age-structure of populations, on community composition and diversity, and on ecosystem processes. Organisms can resist the effects of drought by the use of refugia, and the availability of such refugia may strongly influence the capacity of the biota to recover from droughts.

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Collier and Quinn (2003) explored the impacts of a one in twenty-eight year flood on invertebrate communities in streams draining pasture and forest catchments. Taxa numbers and total density declined markedly at the forested site after the flood, but there was a delayed response at the pasture site, reflecting greater initial resistance to this pulse disturbance. Community composition was less stable at the pasture site where percent abundance of taxa was highly variable prior to the flood and over the two-year postflood sampling period. Both sites showed some recovery within five to seven months, but community stability at the pasture site had not returned to preflood composition within two years. This study indicates that the magnitude and duration of responses to major pulse disturbances (the flood) can depend on the presence or absence of an underlying disturbance (conversion of forest to pasture).

Key Design Principles–Refugia Australian aquatic ecosystems depend on wetting and drying cycles to maintain themselves. We alter flood intensity when we alter catchment vegetation and this will have impacts on stream ecosystems. Aquatic organisms depend for their survival on refugia where they can survive drought conditions, and the protection of such refugia is a critical element in the design of a landscape.

Hydrologic Disturbances – Horizontal Connectivity with the Floodplain The lateral exchange of water between a river channel and the floodplain during flood events is an important ecological process, both to the terrestrial vegetation and to the productivity of the aquatic system (Ward et al., 2002). River level fluctuations within a year lead to periodic connections of the river with the floodplain ecosystems that drives the exchange of organic matter and inorganic nutrients (Amoros & Bornette, 2002). Fish move out on to the flooded floodplain to forage. Differences in connectivity

provide complementary habitats that are required for parts of life cycles and for the life cycles of some species. Larger less frequent floods increase the biological complexity of floodplains and create connected waterbodies that compensate for succession, that tends towards disconnection during drier periods. River regulation has reduced the frequency and duration of small and medium floods with consequential impacts on the ecological integrity of both the floodplain and aquatic systems (Walker & Thoms, 1993; Roberts & Marston, 2000). In recent years a significant natural drought, on top of a man-made drought due to irrigation, has seen the loss of many River Red gums along the River Murray (Jolly, 1996). Interruption to the exchange of nutrients and carbon is also important to the river system (Boulton et al., 2000), as is the reduction in soil deposition on the floodplains. A common human disturbance of river function is the building of levee banks to try and protect ill-sited developments on floodplains, or river regulation that interferes with the formation of natural levees. Both natural and man-made levees control the frequency of flooding, which may be a critical disturbance required for the survival of particular plants in riparian areas (Wolfert et al., 2002). gergel et al. (2002) showed that, if levees were set well back from the river, they had only a minor impact on flood height and overbank flood velocities, and that floodplain communities within the levee banks were little altered. Levees had a greater impact on stage and overbank flood velocities of larger magnitude events.

Key design Principles–Connectivity High flow events connect the river with its floodplain and this connectivity is important to the health of the aquatic ecosystems and the terrestrial systems. Isolating a river from its floodplain, through river regulation or levee banks, will lead to impacts on river health.

Above (top): The levee bank that holds back the River Murray in flood events, Tocumwal, New south Wales. (Matt Hansen) Above (bottom): Menindee Lakes in flood, october 2010, New south Wales. (Carolyn Clarke)

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“Twenty-five years later the Lake is again in trouble, but without Peter’s management skills a solution doesn’t seem to be in sight.” Hydrologic Disturbance – Irrigation Development In a dry and variable climate it is common for farmers to seek to provide additional water to promote plant production. Some of the additional water applied runs off as ‘return flows’; the plants use some and some percolates below the root zone and enters groundwater. If water for irrigation is being extracted from groundwater, this may lower the groundwater causing consequential reduction in streamflow, although possibly with a lag time of twenty to fifty years (Evans, 2005). This lowering of groundwater may have impacts on riparian or catchment vegetation (Horton et al., 2001). Irrigation may lead to rising groundwater levels, again with impacts on streamflow and waterlogging of adjacent vegetation, and may have further impacts if the groundwater is saline.

Key Design Principles–Water Balance The application of irrigation water may alter the water balance in a catchment, leading to changes in streamflow and vegetation and may mobilise salt in the landscape.

Land Use and Nutrient Exports Many studies have shown a strong relationship between land use and nutrient exports from various–sized catchments (e.g. Carpenter et al., 1998). The run-off characteristics of a catchment, determined by slope, soil type and vegetation,

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cover impact on nutrient exports from catchments (e.g. Wickham et al., 2005). Nutrient export co-efficients in terms of kg/ha/yr are commonly used to provide estimates of nitrogen and phosphorus loadings from catchments to water bodies (Cullen & o’Loughlin, 1982).

Table 19.1 some Typical Planning estimates of Non-point Phosphorus Forests