Modelling the economic impact of environmental flows for regulated rivers in New South Wales, Australia

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 157-164
Author(s):  
R.T. Jayasuriya

The management of water resources across Australia is undergoing fundamental reform in line with the priorities identified by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 1994. This includes reforms to the specification of property rights, the way the resource is shared between the environment, irrigators and other users, charges for water use and the operational management of the river systems. In New South Wales (NSW), a series of water sharing plans (WSPs) is being developed for each water source in the State including regulated rivers, unregulated rivers and groundwater aquifers. These plans, which are the mechanisms by which COAG reforms are being implemented, are being developed by community-based water management committees (WMCs). The role of the WMCs is to develop a plan that achieves a balance between environmental, economic and social outcomes. NSW Agriculture has assisted a number of WMCs by quantifying the economic impact of proposed WSP options on the irrigation community. This paper outlines the approach taken by NSW Agriculture to quantifying economic impacts on irrigators in regulated catchments and provides results of case studies in the Lachlan River Catchment which is heavily developed for irrigation.

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 610
Author(s):  
Dirk H. R. Spennemann

Given its intensity, rapid spread, geographic reach and multiple waves of infections, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020/21 became a major global disruptor with a truly cross-sectoral impact, surpassing even the 1918/19 influenza epidemic. Public health measures designed to contain the spread of the disease saw the cessation of international travel as well as the establishment of border closures between and within countries. The social and economic impact was considerable. This paper examines the effects of the public health measures of “ring-fencing” and of prolonged closures of the state border between New South Wales and Victoria (Australia), placing the events of 2020/21 into the context of the historic and contemporary trajectories of the border between the two states. It shows that while border closures as public-health measures had occurred in the past, their social and economic impact had been comparatively negligible due to low cross-border community integration. Concerted efforts since the mid-1970s have led to effective and close integration of employment and services, with over a quarter of the resident population of the two border towns commuting daily across the state lines. As a result, border closures and state-based lockdown directives caused significant social disruption and considerable economic cost to families and the community as a whole. One of the lessons of the 2020/21 pandemic will be to either re-evaluate the wisdom of a close social and economic integration of border communities, which would be a backwards step, or to future-proof these communities by developing strategies, effectively public health management plans, to avoid a repeat when the next pandemic strikes.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Adam ◽  
Tony Auld ◽  
Doug Benson ◽  
Peter Catling ◽  
Chris Dickman ◽  
...  

Lim (1997) has recently presented a critique of aspects of the New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act (TSCA), and in particular of the role of the Scientific Committee established by the Act.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maura Capps

AbstractThis article challenges the dominant historical paradigms used to analyze imperial plant and animal transfers by examining the role of fodder crops in early colonial development in New South Wales and the Cape of Good Hope. In Alfred Crosby's enduring formulation of ecological imperialism—that is, the ecological transformation of temperate colonies of settlement by European plants, animals, and pathogens—was a largely independent process. To Crosby's critics, his grand narrative fails to acknowledge the technocratic management of plant and animal transfers on the part of increasingly long-armed colonial states from the mid-nineteenth century. Yet neither approach can adequately explain the period between the decline of Britain's Atlantic empire in the 1780s and the rise of its global empire in the 1830s, a period dominated by an aggressive ethos of agrarian improvement but lacking the institutional teeth of a more evolved imperial state. Traveling fodder crops link these embryonic antipodean colonies to the luminaries of the Agricultural Revolution in Britain. The attempt to transfer fodder-centric mixed husbandry to these colonies points to an emerging coalition of imperial ambition and scientific expertise in the late eighteenth-century British Empire.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Dale Greentree

This article argues that the prerogative of mercy should be retained in New South Wales as a necessary and appropriate power of the Executive. Historically, pardons have provided opportunities for redemption. Currently, the statutory appeals process is limited to cases involving a miscarriage of justice where there is considerable doubt as to a person’s guilt. In cases where a person is guilty but is nevertheless deserving of mercy, the prerogative of mercy is the only avenue available. As a purely executive power, the prerogative of mercy can achieve the aims of the criminal justice system by tempering justice with mercy. The role of the sovereign involves maintaining order, but also enacting some conception of the good, driven by compassion, love, and mercy. Finally, this article argues that grants of mercy should be a matter of public record, for transparency and as a means of demonstrating this compassion to the public.


1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
T.R. Grant ◽  
P.C. Gehrke ◽  
J.H. Harris ◽  
S. Hartley

Data from the New South Wales Rivers Survey on the occurrence of platypuses have provided the most recent and comprehensive record of platypus distribution in the State. The species was most commonly reported from the montane and coastal regions, being less common on the western slopes and uncommon in the rivers of the western lowlands. The observations confirmed those from earlier community-based surveys. In contrast to the distribution of native fish species, there appears to have been little change in the overall state-wide distribution of the platypus in response to degrading processes in the rivers of New South Wales, although nothing is known of the stability of their population numbers.


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