Water

Australia's climate is one of the most uncertain in the world and has been consistently punctuated by severe droughts. The water crises arising from these droughts has promoted successive periods of water reform. As a consequence, Australia is recognised as a world leader in water policy by both rich and poor arid countries.

Without the droughts and crises, water reform in Australia would not have achieved what it has. But reform has not finished. The stress test of the recent drought has highlighted numerous failures in water policy. Without examining the results of this drought, Australia will be doomed to repeat costly mistakes in water policy.

In 2010, the formation of the Australian Water Resources Project was announced. A joint project by CEDA, Harvard University and UniWater (a venture between the University Melbourne and Monash University). The project will conduct independent analyses into Australia's water shortages and policy solutions.

The initial volume entitled Crisis and Opportunity: Lessons in Australian water management contains the views of a range of water experts reviewing the historical context of Australia's water reforms and examining their consequences. Released on 22 November 2011, it provides a critical independent review of the performance of the Australian reforms under the stress test of the recent drought.

Volume 1 is now a draft for discussion. A series of trustee only events will be held in March in Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne to engage water policy experts, including the authors, CEDA's Water Panel and CEDA Trustees. Volume 2 will be released in June 2012.

		Australian Water Project, volume 1 'Crisis and Opportunity: Lessons of Australian Water Reform'. This discussion paper, provides an overview of water reform in Australia to inform an international audience and future Australian reform. Members: Log in here for a copy. Non-Members: Purchase the report here.

About the paper:
This discussion paper, as part of the Australian Water Project, aims to drive debate around water reform to ensure we learn from the mistakes of the devastating drought from 1996 to 2009.

Volume I draws together 14 contributions from experts to look at different aspects of Australian water reform including environmental, economic, agricultural and technological water management issues.

The release of the publication will be followed by a series of public workshops across Australia early next year. These workshops will help identify and inform a series of priorities and recommendations for future reform to be included in volume II, to be released mid next year.

The paper reviews key points including:

What has been successful in water reform, such as creating markets for water entitlements where water and land property rights were separated;
Where reforms did not go far enough or were not fully implemented, such as cost-reflective pricing for water and resolving over-allocation to irrigators. These issues worsened the severity of the recent drought and must be resolved to build robustness in Australia's water management:and
Which responses to the drought deviated from the successes of past processes, such as the Water Act 2007, which failed to consult regional communities and scientists to achieve a balance in water allocations, and how our urban planning mechanisms lacked resilience, with no water supplies that were uncorrelated with rainfall.

A CEDA-Harvard-Uniwater Initiative