Bethany Cooper

Does Anybody Like Water Restrictions? Some Observations in Australian Urban Communities

Mandatory water restrictions continue to be the immediate response to urban water shortages in most major cities in southern Australia. Whilst generally rejected by economists on efficiency grounds, restrictions and the enforcement regimes used to invoke them are, nonetheless, viewed by some in the community as a positive way of dealing with water scarcity. Given the likelihood that urban water restrictions will persist for some time, there is value in understanding householders’ attitudes in this context. The impact and acceptability of differing approaches to enforcement is of particular interest, because this has wider ramifications for the administration of policy generally. This paper uses the results from a choice experiment to investigate the interplay between different components of a water restriction regime. In stark contrast to prevailing views that focus on the community benefits from ‘sharing the pain of water shortages’, results point to the significance of being able to inform on ones neighbours as a component of the enforcement regimes.

Urban water restrictions: Attitudes and avoidance

In most urban cities across Australia, water restrictions remain the dominant policy mechanism to restrict urban water consumption. The extensive adoption of water restrictions over several years means that Australian urban water prices have consistently not reflected the opportunity cost of water (Edwards 2008). Given the generally strong political support for water restrictions and the likelihood that they will persist for some time, there is value in understanding householders’ attitudes in this context. More specifically, identifying the welfare gains associated with avoiding urban water restrictions entirely would be a non-trivial contribution to our knowledge. This paper is used to describe the results from a contingent valuation study that investigates consumers’ willingness to pay to avoid urban water restrictions. Importantly, the research also investigates the influence of cognitive and exogenous dimensions on the utility gain associated with avoiding water restrictions. The results provides some salutary insights into the impact of this policy mechanism on economic welfare.

Water Pricing in Australia: Unbundled Politics, Accounting, and Water Pricing

This chapter presents a review of water-pricing arrangements in each of Australia’s state jurisdictions. The pricing approaches for urban, environmental, and rural (i.e., agricultural) water uses are scrutinized and compared against the ambitions established as part of the National Water Initiative (NWI). While the framework for water pricing in the NWI has been generally deployed in most states, local nuances give rise to quite different price outcomes. Moreover, there is still opportunity for political influences to shape water prices, even though the NWI is committed to full-cost recovery with regulatory oversight that seeks to objectively align costs and prices. We conclude that there remains scope for improvement that would remove artificial differences in the way water is priced for different water users and thus support the distribution of water to its highest values.

Waste Water Preferences in Rural Towns across North-east Victoria: A Choice Modelling Approach

Water quality, availability, environmental health and sustainability have now developed into significant national political issues in Australia (Taylor & Dalton 2003). These issues are intensified by the limited research surrounding alternative solutions that meet environmental and health requirements and the extent to which the attitudes to these alternatives differ between consumers. This article empirically verifies the preferences of consumers for improved waste water services in small rural towns in Victoria, Australia. More specifically, this research employs a conjoint technique known as choice modelling (CM) to explore decisions by consumers to upgrade their existing waste water service. The choice data assembled in this analysis has revealed valuable insights into the behaviour of consumers in rural north-east Victoria. More specifically, consumers are willing to pay for a waste water service that improves the current state of the environment, enables the householder to build or subdivide, and reduces the level of on-going responsibility required to maintain the service.

Incorporating amenity and ecological values of urban water into planning frameworks: evidence from Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT Australia is one of the most urbanised nations on Earth with 89 per cent of the population currently classified as living in urban areas (United Nations 2014, World urbanisation prospects, 2014 revision, United Nations, New York). This concentration of human populations in metropolitan centres puts added pressure on natural landscapes that remain within city boundaries, like urban waterways. Successful management of these ‘natural’ assets requires an understanding of their wider contribution to human well-being, including the psychological gains from access to nature. Whilst the benefits of ‘blue space’ in urban environments have recently attracted attention in Europe (e.g. Völker, S & Kistemann, T 2011, ‘The impact of blue space on human health and well-being – Salutogenetic health effects of inland surface waters: a review’, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, vol. 214, no. 6, pp. 449–460), there is relatively little formal literature dealing with the benefits of urban waterways in Australia. In addition, many of the conceptual frameworks for contemplating these benefits do not easily lend themselves to formulating practical advice for waterway managers, with many important values aggregated. This article sets out a systematic way to conceptualise and measure the contribution of urban waterways to human well-being. Whilst simplified in some ways, the proposed method offers managers a practical tool for encapsulating benefits into economic measurement techniques. The framework has the advantage of providing a vehicle for ensuring important values are not overlooked as part of the planning process.

What drives compliance? An application of the theory of planned behaviour to urban water restrictions using structural equation modelling

ABSTRACT This article presents analysis of households’ intentions to comply with government constraints on the use of urban water, or so-called water restrictions. The data are drawn from Australian cities and was collected during a severe drought. Structural equation modelling is employed to operationalize constructs taken from the theory of planned behaviour and to answer important policy questions related to compliance. The modelled data support the view that attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioural control (PBC) have a positive and significant influence on intentions to comply. PBC has the strongest influence on intentions, suggesting policy directed at assisting households to meet regulatory criteria might be at least as effective as advertising expenditures aimed at shaping attitudes and norms. Importantly, intentions to comply are also shown to have a positive and significant influence on reported compliance behaviour.

Pushing the Governance Boundaries: Making Transparent the Role of Water Utilities in Managing Urban Waterways

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) requires simultaneous consideration of the multiple benefits that attend water. IWRM can also be more challenging in regulatory environments where the resource manager must justify choices and elements of each intervention. This is particularly challenging in the context of urban waterways that have many uses including an ecological function and a source of human amenity. To justify expenditure on maintaining and improving urban waterways for ecological and/or amenity changes regulated utilities must be able to articulate and measure these types of values with at least some degree of precision. This paper presents a generic and systematic framework for understanding the ecological and amenity values of urban waterways. We illustrate deployment of the framework in the case of Melbourne, one of Australia’s fastest growing cities and a location ranked as amongst the most liveable since 2011. We also explore how the results could improve the way we measure benefits in dollar terms.

Politics, socio-economics and water allocations: a note on the limits of Integrated Water Resources Management

In this article we explore the usefulness of an Integrated Water Resources Management philosophy in the formulation of the Murray-Darling Basin plan. Trends towards amalgamating a number of policy objectives into a single planning instrument and the role of complexity and the so-called ‘systems thinking’ and ‘integration’ are considered. The article goes beyond the Murray-Darling and compares similar policy trends in urban water planning, particularly in Victoria. We conclude that integrated water resource management, as a broad policy philosophy, is not presently delivering efficacious outcomes in both rural and urban settings.

Cost-reflective pricing: empirical insights into irrigators’ preferences for water tariffs

Using prices to improve the efficiency with which water resources are allocated is now widely accepted in principle if somewhat difficult to achieve in practice. Whilst there are some technical difficulties associated with full†cost recovery in irrigation, the lack of political will to tackle reform remains a significant impediment. This article reports the results of an empirical investigation into farmers’ preferences for changes to water prices and tariff structures. We conclude that some of the preferences of farmers are conducive to price reform. We also find evidence that public subsidy of infrastructure in irrigation is not always aligned with the preferences of farmers.