Perceptions of climate change adaptation barriers in environmental water management

Abstract

Climate change is irreversibly changing the water cycle, yet existing environmental flow assessment methods often fail to recognize the non-stationarity of hydro-climatic systems. Failure to do so will lead to the inability of environmental water management to achieve its ecological targets. Australia has undergone major reform over the past 12 years to recover water from consumptive use for environmental benefit and this paper examines how government agencies responsible for planning and delivery of environmental water establish ecological objectives, and whether there are any barriers to including climate adaptations. We used semi-structured interviews and an online survey of environmental water staff throughout Australia, focusing on southeast Australia, to gather information on methods and perceptions regarding these key issues. The results show water managers perceive current ecological objectives as unachievable and are frustrated by using outdated, government-recommended flow assessment methods. There are many general and industry-specific barriers to climate adaptation that are not insurmountable, yet the current lack of legislative and policy guidance provides little assistance on the best way to respond. We conclude that environmental water planning needs to more formally incorporate climate change considerations along with modelling approaches that can evaluate outcomes under a range of possible future hydro-climatic scenarios to ensure proactive decision making can occur. As the industry currently exists in Australia, it is ill prepared for the challenge of meeting legislated ecological targets under future climates.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps: Navigating uncertainty in environmental flow management

“…In scenario two (Figure 2), participants were given information deemed important for decision making under climate change as identified by Judd et al, 2023. Information provided included species vulnerability assessments, temperature and water availability changes, drought refuge availability, extreme event frequency and habitat connectivity, species life span, social value and ecological function.…”

“…However, the results also show that despite being willing to make adaptation decisions, participants are still challenged with how to go about making these decisions without complete information. Despite being provided the information previously deemed important for decision making (see Judd et al, 2023), a large portion of participants (10 or 40%) thought the information provided in the scenarios was not detailed enough. Another eleven agreed the information was useful with only three participants suggesting there was an overwhelming amount of information.…”

“…Future water use and flow recommendations need to incorporate climate change adaptation (John et al, 2020). Yet, there are many known barriers to climate change adaptation, including insufficient staff and funding, lack of political leadership, backward looking legislative requirements, and uncertainty (Abunnasr et al, 2015;Kiem et al, 2016;Oberlack and Eisenack, 2018;Judd et al, 2023). Uncertainties include future greenhouse gas emissions; the direction, magnitude and intensity of change in response to emissions with large variances in predictions at particular geographic locations (Hallegatte et al, 2012;Shepherd et al, 2018).…”

“…Uncertainties include future greenhouse gas emissions; the direction, magnitude and intensity of change in response to emissions with large variances in predictions at particular geographic locations (Hallegatte et al, 2012;Shepherd et al, 2018). Managers of water for environmental flows (environmental water managers) cite uncertainty of hydrological and ecological systems' response to climate change as a major barrier to adaptation (Judd et al, 2023). Adaptation to climate change also suffers from considerable uncertainties regarding how social, economic and political systems will react (Kundzewicz et al, 2018).…”

“…We know that river system dynamics-particularly under climate change-include significant aleatoric uncertainty, where these traditional approaches of 'reduction' can no longer be applied. Managers of environmental water and other natural resources express reluctance to include climate adaptation due to large knowledge gaps surrounding ecological and hydrological relationships (Stein et al, 2013, Judd et al, 2023. Although knowledge is improving, researchers suggest there is a clear need to increase understanding of flow ecology relationships (Thompson et al, 2019).…”