Water management Flashcards
what are some of the contemporary challenges in water resource management?
- Scarcity
- Water rights allocation
- Salinisation
- Groundwater depletion
- Contamination
- Desertfication
- Ecosystem degredation/habitat loss
- Stakeholder conflict
- Water-energy nexus
- Climate change
- Rising costs
- Inequitable access (e.g. globally or gendered)
Agricultural practices that may lead to a decline in water quality?
- Clearing (e.g. for ag use or of riparian specifically)
- Heavy tillage
- Extraction
- Run-off of chemicals and nutrients
Ag practices that benefit water quality?
- Planting cover
- Reducing erosion
- Reducing fertiliser and pesticide use
- Allocating water rights
What are the characteristics of water as a resouce?
- a scarce resource
- a renewable resource
- has high economic value
- is an essential good
- strategic political resource
What is hydrology?
Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water.
What drives the flow of water?
Energy drives the flow of water:
– Water flows from areas of high mechanical energy to areas of low mechanical energy
– Mechanical energy can take three forms:
1. elastic potential energy (gained by compressing water);
2. gravitational potential energy (achieved by lifting water); and
3. kinetic energy (gained from the velocity of water).
What are the principles and approaches of Integrated water resource management?
Three principles:
- social equity
- economic efficiency
- ecological sustainability
Approach:
• Multi-disciplinary
• Consider multiple uses and values of water
• Participatory planning
Ideal IWRM:
• All stakeholders are considered in decision making
• Stakeholders are aware of potential and impacts
• Transparent process
What are the three levels of IWRM?
- Constitutional level
- establish laws and polices (enabling environment)
- first order values and principles (e.g. water as a human right, sufficient quality, surface and
groundwater inseparable) - Organizational level
- allocations, environmental maintenance
- decisions made at this level
- second order values (e.g. equity in distribution, participatory management, subsidiarity) - Administrative or Operational level
- sectoral uses (urban, agriculture, industry, etc.)
- drainage, flood protection
- monitoring
- maintenance of quality
What are some of the facets of the hydrosocial cycle?
• A political economy and political ecology perspective
• Circulation of water as a combined physical and social process
• Socio-physical transformations are rarely socially or ecologically
neutral
• Water-energy-capital nexus
What are some of the challenges of integrated water resource management in Australia?
Ecological sustainability
Social equity
Economic Efficiency
Multiple uses and values of water – Extractive uses/ Non-extractive uses – Economic values – private or public – Essential services – Environmental values, Amenity values, Cultural values
• History of resource development
– Public and private infrastructure
– Policy, legislation
– Participation in decision making
• Scientific challenges
– Non-linear dynamics, irreversibility
– Confounding factors
• Floods and Drought
What are some characteristics of Aboriginal water management?
- In Aboriginal culture, managing the land and water means being at one with culture and country
- Creation and dreaming stories included explanations of land formation, animal behaviour, plant uses and how the land must be managed
- Water is not separate to country; water has spiritual significance
• To deal with variable unreliable supplies, they employed strategies for water
conservation and management:
– Small dams to conserve water
– Installed fish traps in streams
– Used water stored in hollows, tree roots, reeds and grasses
• Helped European settlers to locate water sources
What are the three phases of IWRM in the MDB?
1) Exploratory Phase 1788 -1901
• British common law of riparian rights – annexed water rights to
ownership of land through which a waterway flowed
• Predominant production activity was sheep grazing supported
by demand for wool in Britain
• Gold rush of 1850s -> mining boards to license water storage
and diversions
• Need to employ labour force at end of gold rush led to state
control of water, early experiments with irrigation
• Removal of woody debris from rivers for navigational purposes
2) Expansion Phase 1901 – 1980s
“We are solving the problems of this land of flood and drought by holding the
floods for the drought. The Great Dividing Range will be our perpetual reservoir,
the Great Artesian Basin and all the silent rivers of the Centre our bottomless
wells. There will be no drought.” (Hill, 1937, p. viii)
• End of riparian rights, water rights vested with the Crown
• River Murray Commission formed, Agreement between the states
• State-funded construction of dams, weirs, locks, new irrigation
schemes established
• Extensive land-clearing, wetlands drained for agricultural use
• Thriving agricultural economy
3) Mature Phase 1980s - present Environmental concerns Water reforms • water entitlements separated from land • environmental flows • water trade • security
What is hard about defining sustainable groundwater usage?
Definition of sustainable use and governance are challenging as:
– Very little data is available on groundwater recharge
– The climate is changing
– Shortage of supply usually coincides with high demand
– Environmental needs are hard to quantify, and therefore ignored
• Sustainable use of groundwater is commonly understood as the level of use that does not
exceed long-term recharge and environmental needs.
What is the point of the Namoi case study?
- Water re-allocation is never easy
- Over-allocation is best addressed by preventing.
What is the point of the MDB case study?
- How to balance needs of different stakeholders.
=> How to balance environmental, social, economic needs.
