Transcript Australian Water Law Adapting to Climatic Variability

Australian Water Law
Planning for Climatic Variability?
Anita Foerster and Lee Godden
Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne
Imperatives for Adaptation
 High natural variability
 Climate change: locked in
>>> lower rainfall, higher evaporation, more frequent and more
severe drought, bushfire, flood…in South Eastern Australia
 Death of stationarity > complex, dynamic, highly variable
nature of climate change impacts (Milly et al 2008)
Adaptive water law and governance?
 Role of law in climate change adaptation?
 Type 1 / 2 >>> understanding vulnerability and building adaptive capacity
 Spectrum of adaptation: anticipatory…reactionary / public…private
 Facilitate strategic resource planning,
 Protect public environmental and social values,
 Support individuals to adapt and manage risk in a timely, appropriate manner.
 Models of environmental and natural resource management law
 Shift from preservation/restoration > resilience, adaptive capacity, transitionalism
 principled flexibility (Robin Kundis Craig 2010)
 Increased reliance on multi-scalar governance networks (JB Ruhl 2010)
Adapting to water scarcity
 Central reform: long term water management planning
to establish sustainable diversion limit
 State > central planning Water Act 2007 (Cth)
 Planning processes and parameters
 Legal standard for sustainable diversion limit
 Adaptation considerations:
 principled flexibility, scope for active adaptive management,
reliance on multi-scalar governance
Water Act 2007 (Cth)
 Legal standard for sustainable diversion limit:
environmentally sustainable level of take
= key environmental assets/ ecosystem functions/ productive
base/ environmental outcomes
– is it tied to stationarity or does it support resilience / adaptive
capacity?
 Scope for active adaptive management ?
 opportunities to review and amend SDL
 Importance of multi-scalar adaptive governance
 translating standard to operational level: equity, enviro
priorities
 day to day responsive management within the limit.
 Will we implement successfully?
Adapting to increased flood risk
 State water and landuse planning legislation
 parameters for large scale planning controls, applied in
development consent process.
 Widespread reliance on 1:100 year flood event datum as
standard of acceptable risk > review!
 Complement with more strategic vulnerability
assessment and planning and mix of reg. responses
 community scale planning, incentives for water sensitive urban
design, absorb rather than avoid flood…
Water law and governance for climate
change adaptation
 Gradually breaking free of paradigm of stationarity towards
principled flexibility?
 Managing for scarcity – implement existing blueprint and
develop supportive multi-scalar adaptive governance regime
 Managing for increased flood risk – considerable reform
required