The Barmah-Millewa Forest is the largest red gum forest in the world and lies adjacent to the middle reaches of Australia's River Murray. Regulation of the River Murray, to supply water for irrigation, has changed the watering regime of the forest and thus is degrading its environmental values. The watering regime has been changed in two ways: (1) there are now fewer large winter/spring events that inundate extensive areas because these floods are mitigated by irrigation storages; and (2) there are more small summer/autumn events that flood low-lying areas and are caused by the way the river is operated to supply irrigation demand. The increased frequency of these small unseasonal floods is the subject of this paper.During the irrigation season, water to meet irrigation requirements must be released four days in advance to allow for travel time from storages to irrigation areas upstream of the Barmah-Millewa Forest. If there is heavy summer rainfall, irrigators cancel their orders so the flow that would have been diverted, remains in the river and causes a small 'rain rejection' flood. At the same time, river freshets from unregulated tributaries can also increase river flows. The River Murray channel in this area has low capacity and these high flows result in water spilling into the forest. Based on analysis of pre-regulation conditions and current conditions , forest flooding has increased from 15.5% of days to 36.5% of days between December and April. In particular, small, localized floods, which cover less than 10% of the forest, occur at least eight times more frequently now, than before regulation. Work by others has related these hydrologic changes to tree death and changes in floristic structure in wetland systems. There are also economic costs because much of the water that spills into the forest is not available for irrigation.Two solutions to unseasonal flooding are described in this paper. One is to limit the maximum flow in the river during the irrigation season so there is capacity to convey at least some of the rain rejection flows without spilling water into the forest. The other is to maintain airspace in a diversion weir (Lake Mulwala) upstream of the forest to store the surplus water when orders are cancelled. Preliminary economic analysis shows the preferred option is to increase airspace in Lake Mulwala which provides net benefits of at least Aus$1.4 million per year along with unquantified environmental benefits from decreased unseasonal forest flooding.
In this paper we outline different theoretical approaches, namely outcome vulnerability, contextual vulnerability, and resilience, for addressing climate change effects in the context of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. We analysed how these three approaches were employed in the WASH-climate change nexus literature, and discuss the implications for WASH research, policy, and development work. Our analysis of 33 scholarly WASH-climate change nexus papers found that they implicitly drew most frequently on an outcome vulnerability approach that tended to focus on the impact of projected climate change hazards on physical aspects of WASH service delivery. Each individual approach has limitations due to their disciplinary and epistemological foundations and the WASH sector in particular must be mindful of who stands to benefit most and what values will be upheld when these approaches are used. We argue that in most cases it will be beneficial to draw on all approaches and describe challenges and opportunities for integrating different perspectives on preparing for climate change within the WASH sector.
This paper examines whether key legislative and regulatory frameworks for the provision of water services in Sydney, Australia, successfully support the complex task of planning and managing urban water systems to balance water security, cost and sustainability considerations. The challenges of managing urban water systems under a changing and uncertain climate became starkly apparent during Australia's 'Millennium Drought', a decade-long period of extremely dry conditions throughout the 2000s. As the drought progressed, several state and territory governments assumed control of planning and approvals processes in order to implement large water-supply infrastructure projects with great urgency. However, at the end of the decade La Niña rains saturated catchments, spilled over dam walls and devastated several communities with flooding. Analysis of the frameworks for third-party access, private-sector participation, planning, and water-conservation initiatives reveals that the rules, roles and responsibilities of the many actors are interlinked but not always effectively integrated. The introduction and expansion of competition in the urban water industry are an ongoing experiment with great influence on the governance of the sector and the ways in which water services are planned for and provided.
Community‐based climate change adaptation and resilience (CCAR) projects increasingly recognize that climate change impacts are localized, requiring context‐specific interventions. Conventional approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are, however, ill‐suited to understanding the impact of such CCAR interventions. To address this gap, research based on a child‐centered community‐based adaptation project in the Philippines has developed a practical and replicable process for developing evidence‐based, local‐level indicators of effective adaptation. The process assesses how the project influenced children's knowledge, advocacy efforts, and impact on policy and practice. Evidence was generated from qualitative inquiry, primarily through focus group discussions with children. The analysis included scalar ratings to help to meet quantitative reporting requirements. A detailed guide was developed for implementing agencies to systematically understand, measure, and communicate evidence. The process can also be translated to community development projects seeking to evaluate change under uncertainty.
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