Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemNot Just Another Assessment Method: Reimagining Environmental Flows Assessments in the Face of Uncertainty(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-05-10)The numerous environmental flows assessment methods that exist typically assume a stationary climate. Adaptive management is commonly put forward as the preferred approach for managing uncertainty and change in environmental flows. However, we contend that a simple adaptive management loop falls short of meeting the challenges posed by climate change. Rather, a fundamental rethink is required to ensure both the structure of environmental flows assessments, along with each individual technical element, actively acknowledges the multiple dimensions of change, variability and complexity in socio-ecological systems. This paper outlines how environmental flow assessments can explicitly address the uncertainty and change inherent in adaptively managing multiple values for management of environmental flows. While non-stationarity and uncertainty are well recognised in the climate literature, these have not been addressed within the structure of environmental flows methodologies. Here, we present an environmental flow assessment that is structured to explicitly consider future change and uncertainty in climate and socio-ecological values, by examining scenarios using ecological models. The environmental flow assessment methodology further supports adaptive management through the intentional integration of participatory approaches and the inclusion of diverse stakeholders. We present a case study to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, highlighting how this methodology facilitates adaptive management. Rethinking our approach to environmental flows assessments is an important step in ensuring that environmental flows continue to work effectively as a management tool under climate change.
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ItemRobust Climate Change Adaptation for Environmental Flows in the Goulburn River, Australia(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2021-12-06)Climate change presents severe risks for the implementation and success of environmental flows worldwide. Current environmental flow assessments tend to assume climate stationarity, so there is an urgent need for robust environmental flow programs that allow adaptation to changing flow regimes due to climate change. Designing and implementing robust environmental flow programs means ensuring environmental objectives are achieved under a range of uncertain, but plausible climate futures. We apply stress testing concepts previously adopted in water supply management to environmental flows at a catchment scale. We do this by exploring vulnerabilities in different river management metrics for current environmental flow arrangements in the Goulburn River, Australia, under non-stationary climatic conditions. Given the limitations of current environmental flows in supporting ecological outcomes under climate change, we tested three different adaptation options individually and in combination. Stress testing adaptation results showed that increasing environmental entitlements yielded the largest benefits in drier climate futures, whereas relaxing river capacity constraints (allowing more targeted delivery of environmental water) offered more benefits for current and wetter climates. Combining both these options led to greater than additive improvements in allocation reliability and reductions in environmental water shortfalls, and these improvements were achieved across a wider range of climatic conditions than possible with either of the individual options. However, adaptation may present additional risks to some ecological outcomes for wetter climates. Ultimately, there was a degree of plausible climate change beyond which none of the adaptation options considered were effective at improving ecological outcomes. This study demonstrates an important step for environmental flow assessments: evaluating the feasibility of environmental outcomes under climate change, and the intervention options that prove most robust under an uncertain future.
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ItemPurposeful Stakeholder Engagement for Improved Environmental Flow Outcomes(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-01-25)Rivers are dynamic social-ecological systems that support societies and ecosystems in a multitude of ways, giving rise to a variety of user groups and competing interests. Environmental flows (e-flows) programs developed to protect riverine environments are often conceived by water managers and researchers. This is despite continued calls for increased public participation to include local communities and Indigenous peoples in the development process. Failure to do so undermines social legitimacy and program effectiveness. In this paper, we describe how adaptive management of e-flows allows an opportunity to incorporate a diversity of stakeholder views through an iterative process. However, to achieve this, stakeholder engagement must be intentionally integrated into the adaptive management cycle. Stakeholder engagement in e-flows allows for the creation of a shared understanding of a river and opens collaborative and innovative management strategies that address multiple axes of uncertainty. Here, we describe a holistic framework that unifies current participatory engagement attempts and existing technical methods into a complete strategy. The framework identifies the primary steps in an e-flows adaptive management cycle, describes potential roles of various stakeholders, and proposes potential engagement tools. Restructuring e-flows methods to adequately include stakeholders requires a shift from being driven by deliverables, such as reports and flow recommendations, to focusing on people-oriented outcomes, such as continuous learning and fostering relationships. While our work has been placed in the context of e-flows, the intentional integration of stakeholder engagement in adaptive management is pertinent to natural resources management generally.
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ItemThe politicisation of science in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia: discussion of 'Scientific integrity, public policy and water governance'(Taylor & Francis, 2021-10-30)Many water scientists aim for their work to inform water policy and management, and in pursuit of this objective, they often work alongside government water agencies to ensure their research is relevant, timely and communicated effectively. A paper in this issue, examining 'Science integrity, public policy and water governance in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’, suggests that a large group of scientists, who work on water management in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) including the Basin Plan, have been subject to possible ‘administrative capture'. Specifically, it is suggested that they have advocated for policies favoured by government agencies with the objective of gaining personal benefit, such as increased research funding. We examine evidence for this claim and conclude that it is not justified. The efforts of scientists working alongside government water agencies appear to have been misinterpreted as possible administrative capture. Although unsubstantiated, this claim does indicate that the science used in basin water planning is increasingly caught up in the politics of water management. We suggest actions to improve science-policy engagement in basin planning, to promote constructive debate over contested views and avoid the over-politicisation of basin science.
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ItemInforming Environmental Water Management Decisions: Using Conditional Probability Networks to Address the Information Needs of Planning and Implementation Cycles(SPRINGER, 2018-03)One important aspect of adaptive management is the clear and transparent documentation of hypotheses, together with the use of predictive models (complete with any assumptions) to test those hypotheses. Documentation of such models can improve the ability to learn from management decisions and supports dialog between stakeholders. A key challenge is how best to represent the existing scientific knowledge to support decision-making. Such challenges are currently emerging in the field of environmental water management in Australia, where managers are required to prioritize the delivery of environmental water on an annual basis, using a transparent and evidence-based decision framework. We argue that the development of models of ecological responses to environmental water use needs to support both the planning and implementation cycles of adaptive management. Here we demonstrate an approach based on the use of Conditional Probability Networks to translate existing ecological knowledge into quantitative models that include temporal dynamics to support adaptive environmental flow management. It equally extends to other applications where knowledge is incomplete, but decisions must still be made.
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ItemClimate change and freshwater ecology: Hydrological and ecological methods of comparable complexity are needed to predict risk(WILEY, 2021-03)Abstract Many freshwater ecosystems are in decline because of anthropogenic disturbance including climate change, yet our understanding of ecological vulnerability to future conditions including climatic variation is limited. Understanding climate risks to freshwater ecosystems requires combining hydrological and ecological knowledge. While there have been significant advances in ecohydrological approaches when applied within the large array of methods available for undertaking impact assessments, the ecological and hydrological elements are often not well‐integrated. This results in a mismatch in their ability to accommodate the inherent uncertainty in both impacts and responses. We examine published literature that assesses climate change impacts on freshwater ecosystems using both hydrological and ecological models to better understand method choices. We identify four fundamentally distinct modeling approaches used to assess climate change risk. We discuss which approaches are less useful for predicting ecological impacts under climate change, and highlight approaches of comparable complexity that can maximize the utility of dynamic, process‐based modeling while capturing the effects of climate uncertainty and variability. Using an illustrative case study of riparian vegetation health under climate change, we show how the four alternate modeling approaches feature different degrees of information in their outcomes and inferences about future risk. Most current studies that examine climate change risks to freshwater ecosystems use simplified methods or inadequately combine key elements. However, unless the interactions between changing hydrologic variability and ecological responses are explicitly captured in scale‐sensitive modeling methods, the risks of climate change to freshwater ecosystems will likely be substantially misrepresented, with negative consequences for effective management responses. Capturing these interactions requires combining ecological and hydrological methods of comparable complexity. This article is categorized under: Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Modeling Species and Community Interactions
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ItemHow to incorporate climate change into modelling environmental water outcomes: a review(IWA Publishing, 2020-06-01)Environmental water represents a key resource in managing freshwater ecosystems against pervasive threats. The impacts of climate change add further pressures to environmental water management, yet anticipating these impacts through modelling approaches remains challenging due to the complexities of the climate, hydrological and ecological systems. In this paper, we review the challenges posed by each of these three areas. Large uncertainties in predicting climatic changes and non-stationarities in hydrological and ecological responses make anticipating impacts difficult. In addition, a legacy of relying on modelling approaches informed by historic dependencies in environmental water science may confound the prediction of ecological responses when extrapolating under novel conditions. We also discuss applying ecohydrological methods to support decision-making and review applications of bottom-up climate impact assessments (specifically eco-engineering decision scaling) to freshwater ecosystems. These approaches offer a promising way of incorporating climatic uncertainty and balancing competing environmental objectives, but some practical challenges remain in their adoption for modelling environmental water outcomes under climate change.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS AND ECO-HYDROLOGICAL ASSESSMENTS IN RIVERS(ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2017)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableMOVING FORWARD: THE IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WATER MANAGEMENT(ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2017)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Environmental Water Management Cycle(Elsevier, 2017)Environmental water management is inherently a multidisciplinary endeavor, but until now there has been no single book that engages experts across all relevant areas of practice and scholarship. This book reflects the growing maturity of environmental water management as a cohesive and specialized field, which finally makes it possible to address this gap. This book pulls together the collective knowledge of experts from around the world to provide a holistic view of progress, a set of tools for new and experienced policy makers and practitioners, and a focus on the remaining challenges associated with managing environmental water. In doing so, we hope this book will establish a coherent approach to best practice for environmental water planning and management.