John Tisdell

Estimating an optimal distribution of water entitlements

This paper is concerned with the distributive consequences of alternative methods of allocating transferable water licenses in Queensland, Australia. The equilibrium of a number of different cooperative games will be used to judge which method of initial allocation of water entitlements potentially produces the most equitable distribution of the income derived from regulated water.

Equity and Social Justice in Water Doctrines

The role of institutions in the management of natural resources, such as surface water, have long been seen as promoting an efficient and socially just distribution of the available resource. Perceptions of basic liberties and procedural and distributive justice are often at the core of many water disputes throughout the world. During the past 15 years there has been a number of extensive studies exploring community perceptions of fairness and justice in water management and the development of fairness principles (see e.g., Nancarrow, B. E., and Syme, G. J. (2001). Soc. Justice Res. 14(4): 441–452; Syme, G. J., and Nancarrow, B. E. (1992). Perceptions of Fairness and Social Justice in the Allocation of Water Resources in Australia. CSIRO, Division of Water Resources, Perth, Australia (Consultancy Report No. 92/38); Syme, G. J., and Nancarrow, B. E. (1997). Water Resour. Res. 32: 1843–1850; Syme, G. J., Nancarrow, B. E., and McCreddin, J. A. (1999). J. Environ. Manage. 57: 51–70; Syme, G. J., Nancarrow, B. E., and McCreddin, J. A. (2000). Risk Anal. 20(6): 905–916). This paper contributes to that body of knowledge by evaluating three water doctrines underpinning water management using a variety of social justice criteria, drawing examples from the United States and Australia as appropriate. The notion is that if the water doctrine of a state or country conforms to a set of social justice principles then the water policies derived from it should produce just outcomes.

Economic Behavior in the Face of Resource Variability and Uncertainty

Policy design is largely informed by the traditional economic viewpoint that humans behave rationally in the pursuit of their own economic welfare, with little consideration of other regarding behavior or reciprocal altruism. New paradigms of economic behavior theory are emerging that build an empirical basis for understanding how humans respond to specific contexts. Our interest is in the role of human relationships in managing natural resources (forage and livestock) in semiarid systems, where spatial and temporal variability and uncertainty in resource availability are fundamental system drivers. In this paper we present the results of an economic experiment designed to explore how reciprocity interacts with variability and uncertainty. This behavior underpins the Australian tradable grazing rights, or agistment, market, which facilitates livestock mobility as a human response to a situation where rainfall is so variable in time and space that it is difficult to maintain an economically viable livestock herd on a single management unit. Contrary to expectations, we found that variability and uncertainty significantly increased transfers and gains from trade within our experiment. When participants faced variability and uncertainty, trust and reciprocity took time to build. When variability and uncertainty were part of the experiment trust was evident from the onset. Given resource variability and uncertainty are key drivers in semiarid systems, new paradigms for understanding how variability shapes behavior have special importance.

Water Markets in Australia: An Experimental Analysis of Alternative Market Mechanisms

Formal water markets in Australia began as uniform price open call markets. As water markets in Australia continue to expand and mature, water managers are introducing double auction water markets, believing that such markets will produce more efficient outcomes. It is therefore timely and policy relevant to explore the relative merits of the two auction mechanisms in context. To date, experimental comparisons of these auction mechanisms have been based on balanced, single unit designs with defined buyers and sellers. However, many resource markets involve trade in multiple unit, often thin, double auction markets. This paper questions whether a multiple unit double auction performs as well as the more traditional open multiple unit call auction in a series of thin water market experiments.

The Price of Irrigation Water

User-pays as a principle for charging for the supply of regulated irrigation water is gaining acceptability by water authorities. This paper is concerned with the level of water charges, in particular, the capacity of farmers to pay increased prices for irrigation water. The main objective is to provide empirical estimates of water demand and supply, and to note the differences between statutory charges and market price, under different weather conditions in the Border Rivers Region of Queensland. The paper demonstrates, using a linear programming approach, that the equilibrium price for water typically is greater than the price charged by the supplying authority. The equilibrium price is also shown to sometimes be less than the price at which water is supplied.

The Evolution of Water Legislation in Australia

As water at its core still remains fleeting and its supply independent, water rights and the associated trade in such rights depend on a set of institutional and legislative frameworks. In this light, it is important to appreciate the history of water legislation. This chapter, in complementing Chap. 10, gives a short history of water legislation in Australia – from its place in the colonization of the country to modern multiagency management of the Murray Darling Basin. As the demand for water moves from an immature phase of abundance to a mature phase of scarcity and degradation, water law must also evolve. There has been a raft of progressive legislation in the development of water management in Australia. This chapter will touch on those key pieces which molded the formation of water law in the eastern states of Australia.

Predicting the Storability of Suruga Persimmons

Abstract Most research on the storability and shelf life of persimmons has focused on minimising losses by identifying optimum storage conditions. Another approach is to investigate whether storability can be predicted from non-destructive measurements made before fruit is held. If so, storage losses may be reduced by rapidly marketing those fruit with low keeping quality. Fruit of a late maturing cultivar, Suruga, were stored at 0, 5, 10 and 20 °C for periods from 21 to 56 days, followed by a shelf life treatment of seven days at 20 °C. Initial characteristics of mass and colour predicted storability at temperatures of 0, 10 and 20 °C with an error rate between 9 and 20%. Storability at 5 °C could not be predicted because of the severe incidence of chilling injury at this temperature. Results indicate that storage losses may be reduced by not attempting to store certain fruit, based on initial measurements of colour and mass.

Influences of precooling and silver thiosulphate on leaf abscission of two forms of rice flower

Abstract Helichrysum diosmifolium , commonly called rice or sago flower, is an Australian wildflower being exported to Japan. Leaf drop occurring 10, 12 and 14 days after harvest from flowering stems of both broad and fine-leafed forms was reduced by silver thiosulphate (STS) pulsing. The most severe leaf drop occurred when flowering stems were not precooled and were kept dry until the assessment stage of the experiment. Severe leaf drop occured 10, 12 and 14 days after harvest in flowering stems that were kept in water during precooling. The vase life of the two forms behaved in different ways to the treatments. The fine-leafed form had its longest vase life when it was precooled and the stems kept dry during this treatment. However, for the broad-leafed form the longest vase life was achieved by pulsing stems with STS (4 m M , 15 min), followed by precooling with stems kept in water.

Consumer-Based Carbon Reduction Incentives: A Proposed Mixed Incentive Scheme for Reducing CO2 Emissions from Transport

To be cost effective the abatement greenhouse gases should be spread across the spectrum of emission sources. While energy production generates the largest share of greenhouse gases, emissions produced by vehicular transport in Australia is still a significant contributor and should bear at least some burden of abatement. Approaches to reducing greenhouse gases have tended thus far to focus on industry. In the transport sector, this industry-based approach has focussed on emission standards. But to be truly cost effective, incentives to reduce emissions need to be targeted at the point of use, by both industry and the private individuals. This paper explores the benefits and limitations of adopting a mixed incentive scheme applied to fuel consumers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. The proposed consumer-based carbon reduction incentive scheme (CBCRI) incorporates elements of tradeable permits, carbon taxes and emissions reduction subsidies.

Can partial project selection improve conservation auction performances

ABSTRACT Conservation auctions often follow an ‘all or nothing’ bid selection approach, which restricts the selection of the most suitable parts of a submitted project. The problem with ‘lumpy’ (or all-or-nothing) project selection has been identified in the literature as a major problem in conservation policy; however, the extent of the problem has been rarely quantified. Using an actual conservation tender dataset from Tasmania, the effect of the approach was estimated. This study finds that with a relatively small budget, the cost-effectiveness loss could be as high as one-quarter. To avoid such problem, a partial bid selection could be applied. The basic principle of a partial bid selection is to invite a single project from each landholder with the option for the environmental planning agency to partially select sections of the offer lands that maximise the achievement of the agencys policy objectives. A sensitivity analysis with different bid and ecological value correction factors shows that when the corrections are low, the partial selection approach could be more cost-effective than an ‘all or nothing’ approach. The results indicate that agencies should consider alternative project selection approaches with better targeting capabilities.