Advancing the Methods for Socio-Economic Assessment for Water Planning

The Water Planning Tools project is piloting practical tools for water planning by working closely with communities and agencies in three trial areas - in South Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory. In these locations, the project team, with agencies and other stakeholders, are identifying critical issues in water planning and together developing tools to address these matters.

In the South Australian and Queensland trial areas, our researchers have completed issues analysis and identified knowledge gaps. Both analyses show that socio-economic assessment of water management options could be a way forward to address critical issues.

Social and Economic Assessment Tools

Under the National Water Initiative, water plans are required to include the application of the best available scientific knowledge and socio-economic analyses in decisions made around water allocation. In Queensland, a socio-economic assessment is a legislative requirement, and is typically conducted as part of the technical assessment phase in water planning. Given concern over sustainable limits of extraction in the Upper Condamine groundwater alluvium in Queensland, it would be appropriate to undertake a thorough but strategic social and economic assessment of the implications of possible reductions in allocation. There are similar concerns over extraction in the regulated River Murray in South Australia where stakeholders and agencies consider that tools regarding trade-offs would be useful in water planning.

Social and Economic Assessment Workshop

In order to progress the planning process in these locations, and to improve the methods and tools used in socio-economic assessment for water planning generally, the Water Planning Tools Project hosted a workshop in Brisbane on 23 and 24 April. The specific objective of the workshop was to identify possible methods for assessments in each of these two trial areas. To promote transparency, credibility, and agency and community acceptance of outcomes of such an assessment, we brought together five independent social and economic assessment experts, four agency water planning and socio-economic staff from each jurisdiction, and five members of the Water Planning Tools project team. Researchers from the Water Planning Tools project canvassed stakeholder views about social and economic issues prior to the workshop and are committed to discuss the workshop outcomes with stakeholders.

Objectives of the Workshop:

1. To identify a suite of social and economic tools/techniques/methods that could be used to assess social and economic implications of water plans.
2. To identify appropriate methods for such assessments at two Water Planning Tools trial locations - Upper Condamine groundwater and SA Murray.

The workshop involved a two-step process: to get agreement on the questions that need to be answered; then what methods could be used to answer the questions in each trial area. The outcomes from the workshop are intended to provide the basis for terms of reference for social and economic studies in each of the two case study areas. The proceedings from the workshop will be available on this website in the coming weeks.