Workshop and Seminar: Systemic and adaptive water governance: Reconfiguring institutions for social learning and more effective water managing?

CREEL invites to a seminar and workshop exploring the role of social learning in water policy and law.

A seminar exploring the role of social learning in water policy and law

Friday 5 December 2008

10 am – 4pm

Room 920 Law School

The way we manage water catchments and allocate water resources in an era of climate change is one of Australia’s predominant public policy challenges, with the Murray Darling Basin a hotspot in the public debate. Historical ‘institutions’ and practices for water management have resulted in unsustainable levels and patterns of water use. As a result, natural systems are highly degraded; and there is intense conflict and competition between water users over scarce water resources, with irrigated agriculture and associated regional centres facing very uncertain futures. This situation will be further accentuated under climate change scenarios of increasing and sustained water scarcity.

We need to rethink our institutions and practices of water managing, particularly given the impetus of new federal water legislation and authority structures, and the need to interface with existing institutions. Social learning offers an innovative perspective, drawing together multidisciplinary perspectives upon this complex problem. The seminar and workshop will explore from several disciplinary dimensions and water management and practice, the potential for social learning to contribute to the further development of systemic and adaptive water governance. Interdisciplinary researchers, from Uniwater (Universities of Melbourne and Monash) are formulating a research strategy which explores the potential for social science researchers (broadly conceived) to develop a project to address these issues.

Speakers and topics are:

§      Chris Biesaga (Murray Darling Basin Commission) - Water markets, no substitute for water governance

§      Daniel Connell (ANU, Crawford School of Economics) – National Water Initiative –a misunderstood revolution in Australian Water Management

§      Anita Foerster (Melbourne Law School) – Institutions for Environmental Water

§      Lee Godden (Melbourne Law School) – Regulatory Approaches: Planning, Impact Assessment and the National Water Act 2007

§      Ray Ison (Monash Sustainability Institute and The Open University) – Systemic and adaptive water governance: complex problems and social learning.

To download a flyer please click here.