[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rsm/murray/m09_1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Targeting Environmental Water from Irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Chambers

    (Risk & Sustainable Management Group, School of Economics, University of Queensland)

  • David Adamson

    (Risk and Sustainable Management Group, University of Queensland)

Abstract
The extended dry conditions in the Murray Darling Basin have resulted in unprecedented levels of reduced water availability for both irrigators and the environment. Concerns over environmental degradation and the health of the river Murray have prompted the Federal and State Governments to cooperate in a range of environmental water restoration programs, including environmental water purchases. These programs have been subjected to varying levels of criticism as to the environmental effectiveness and the economic merit in addressing the central problem of over allocation of a spatially distributed multiple use resource. This paper investigates the economic-environmental tradeoffs under the assumption of unrestricted trade in the Basin. Using a bio-economic model of the Murray Darling Basin we will investigate the opportunity costs of not allowing unrestricted trade, and then consider alternative Environmental Water Allocations (EWAs) to environmental Icon Sites. The model suggests that if unrestricted trade was implemented across the Basin, there would be potential for massive water savings compared to the current long term average cap, and benefits to trade in the order of $96 million. The model also suggests that, under unrestricted trade, the provision of large EWA’s will lead to large reductions in water use (40 percent), however the relative reduction in agricultural value will be much less (12 percent). This brings to question the current objective of the government buybacks as a transition to the Water Act 2009 Sustainable Diversions while allowing State enforced barriers to trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Chambers & David Adamson, 2009. "Targeting Environmental Water from Irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin," Murray-Darling Program Working Papers WP1M09, Risk and Sustainable Management Group, University of Queensland, revised Jul 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:rsm:murray:m09_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uq.edu.au/rsmg/WP/WPM09_01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peggy Schrobback & David Adamson & John Quiggin, 2008. "Options for salinity mitigation in the Murray-Darling Basin," Murray-Darling Program Working Papers WP1M08, Risk and Sustainable Management Group, University of Queensland.
    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.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      Murray Darling Basin; water; environmental flows;
      All these keywords.

      JEL classification:

      • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
      • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

      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:rsm:murray:m09_1. 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: David Adamson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rsmuqau.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.