National Program for Sustainable Irrigation - Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management

Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management (UMO45)

Demonstrating the role and implementation opportunities of an ecological risk management approach

Principal Investigator	Prof Barry T Hart, Director, Water Studies Centre, Monash University
Host Organisation	Monash University
Issue or Problem to be Addressed	The new Ecological Risk Assessment protocol requires explanation and integration within the irrigation industry.
Objectives	To extend the development and knowledge management of the Irrigation Ecological Risk Assessment project to allow the protocols to be adopted nationally To trial in 4 irrigation regions and provide training courses to foster adoption. To engage with planning authorities and regulators at regional, state and Commonwealth levels as an input into policy development and application.
Comment	The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation established an Ecological Risk Assessment framework for assessing the ecological risks associated with Australian irrigation systems. This new decision support tool should assist the Australian irrigation industry in quantifying and prioritising the ecological risks from their activities, and also to better focus their management actions to minimize these risks.
Research Timeline	June 2006
Research Partners	Monash University
Proposed Funding	Total budget from NPSI $200,000, with in-kind and cash contributions from other partners. Total Project approx $800,000

Research Bulletin October 2005:Using ERA to measure the effects of irrigation on river health in Ord Irrigation Area

Milestone Report - August 2004 (PDF File - 1123Kb)

Newsletter 2, June 2005

Ecological Risk Management Framework for the Irrigation Industry

Chan, T. and Hart, B. (2006). Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management: A Bayesian network model for predicting Grey-crowned Babbler population abundance in the Lower Loddon River catchment.NPSI Final Report UMO45 Report No. 4. 45 pp.

Hart, B., Pollino, C. A., Chan, T., Grace, M., Mautner, N., Cocklin, C., Walshe, T., Burgman, M., Beilin, R., Fox, D., Westbury, A.-M., Tiller, D. and Putt, C. (2006). Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management: Final Summary Report.NPSI Final Report UMO45. 18 pp.

Pollino, C. A., Mautner, N., Cocklin, C. and Hart, B. (2006). Delivering Sustainability through risk management: Ecological risk assessment case study for the Murray Irrigation region.NPSI Final Report UMO45, Report No. 2. 76 pp.

Walshe, T., Beilin, R., Fox, D., Burgman, M., Hart, B., Cocklin, C. and Mautner, N. (2006). Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management: Prospects for adoption of ecological risk assessment by the Australian irrigation industry.NPSI Final Report UMO45, Report No. 1. 84 pp.

Westbury, A.-M., Putt, C., Tiller, D., Chan, T. and Hart, B. (2006). Delivering Sustainability through risk management: A Bayesian network model for predicting macroinvertebratecommunity diversity in the lower Loddon River.NPSI Final Report UMO45, Report No. 3. 80 pp.

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