Over the past few years I have been fortunate enough to be part of an Expert Panel providing advice to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority on a portfolio of work examining risks to managing water resources in the MDB. The Risk Assessment Section within MDBA’s Natural Resources Management Division has funded a suite of projects to investigate:

  1. risks driven by climate change (eg: drought, bushfire, salinity dynamics);
  2. risks relating to catchment processes (eg: forest hydrology, afforestation, invasive species, floodplain dynamics, land use); and
  3. risks arising from direct water interception and use (eg: current management arrangements).

I have read all the reports from this research invesment and the findings and knowledge gained from these projects are enlightening.  We can now understand the likely impacts of these risks, the likelihood of their occurrence and their consequences.  This should enable us to develop better management strategies for the future.

We have provided a brief summary of each of these reports and a hotlink through to the complete research final report, we hope you get a lot out of reading, distilling and applying this knowledge to your situation.  We are also very happy to put more links into any other resources you think are useful for this topic, which ties in very well with the theme for the Australian Stream Management Conference 2012 of Managing for Extremes.  Click here to go through to our new managing risks resources.

Siwan

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