IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/cafric/46363.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Recent and Emerging Water Policy Reforms in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Bjornlund, Henning

Abstract

In the past, the water industry met new demand by increasing supply. In many instances governments provided excessive and free supply in pursuit of political objectives such as settlement of remote land. These policies generated inefficient and low-value use and in many instances created environmental problems. Sometime during the 1970s, community concern over the environmental impact and rising marginal costs of increasing supply caused the emergence of a shift in policy paradigms towards demand management, under which increased demand can only be satisfied through a reallocation of existing scarce resources between competing users. Australia is one of the countries in the world that has most comprehensively pursued this new policy paradigm, and provides an excellent case study of the policy change process within the context of a developed country. This article analyzes the Australian policy process from a broad policy-making perspective, as well as from a community-based perspective, with emphasis on the period since 1990.

Suggested Citation

  • Bjornlund, Henning, 2006. "Recent and Emerging Water Policy Reforms in Australia," CAFRI: Current Agriculture, Food and Resource Issues, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, issue 7, pages 1-12, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:cafric:46363
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.46363
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/46363/files/bjornlund7-1_1_.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.46363?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mike Young & Jim McColl, 2002. "Robust Separation:A search for a generic framework to simplify registration and trading of interests in natural resources," Natural Resource Management Economics 02_004, Policy and Economic Research Unit, CSIRO Land and Water, Adelaide, Australia.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leah M Gibbs, 2013. "Bottles, Bores, and Boats: Agency of Water Assemblages in Post/Colonial Inland Australia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(2), pages 467-484, February.
    2. M. D. Young & J. C. McColl, 2003. "Robust Reform: The Case for a New Water Entitlement System for Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 36(2), pages 225-234, June.
    3. Krishna C. Prasad & Barbara Van Koppen & Kenneth Strzepek, 2006. "Equity and productivity assessments in the Olifants River basin, South Africa," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(1), pages 63-75, February.
    4. Evans, Lewis & Counsell, Kevin, 2005. "Essays in Water Allocation: The Way Forward," Working Paper Series 3848, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    5. Productivity Commission, 2004. "Water Rights Arrangements in Australia and Overseas," Others 0402002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Hawke, Richard, 2006. "Improving the Water Allocation Framework in New Zealand," Occasional Papers 06/9, Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand.
    7. Unknown, 2003. "Water Rights Arrangements in Australia and Overseas," Commission Research Papers 31899, Productivity Commission.
    8. Henning Bjornlund, 2010. "The Competition for Water: Striking a Balance among Social, Environmental, and Economic Needs," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 302, April.
    9. Freebairn, John W. & Quiggin, John C., 2006. "Water rights for variable supplies," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 50(3), pages 1-18.
    10. Shi, Tian, 2006. "Simplifying complexity: Rationalising water entitlements in the Southern Connected River Murray System, Australia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 229-239, December.
    11. Mallawaarachchi, Thilak & Auricht, Christopher & Loch, Adam & Adamson, David & Quiggin, John, 2020. "Water allocation in Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin: Managing change under heightened uncertainty," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 345-369.
    12. Leah M Gibbs, 2009. "Just Add Water: Colonisation, Water Governance, and the Australian Inland," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(12), pages 2964-2983, December.
    13. Young, Michael D. & McColl, James C., 2008. "Double trouble: The importance of accounting for and defining water entitlements consistent with hydrological realities (Conference title: Water Trading in the MDBC: How well is the market functioning," 2008 Conference (52nd), February 5-8, 2008, Canberra, Australia 6037, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    14. John Freebairn, 2003. "Principles for the Allocation of Scarce Water," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 36(2), pages 203-212, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:cafric:46363. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/caefmea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.