A Water Accounting System for Strategic Water Management

Graham Turner (), Timothy Baynes and Bertram C McInnis ()
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Bertram C McInnis: CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia

No 2008-14, Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series from CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

Abstract: This paper describes a water accounting system (WAS) that has been developed as an innovative new tool for strategic long-term water management. The WAS incorporates both disaggregated water use and availability, provides a comprehensive and consistent historical database, and can integrate climate and hydrological model outputs for the exploration of scenarios. It has been established and tested for the state of Victoria in Australia, and can be extended to cover other or all regions of Australia. The WAS is implemented using stock-and-flow dynamics, currently employing major river basins as the spatial units and a yearly time step. While this system shares features with system dynamics, learning is enhanced and strategic management of water resources is improved by application of a Design Approach and the structure of the WAS. We compare the WAS with other relevant accounting systems and outline its benefits, particularly the potential for resolving tensions between water supply and demand. Integrated management is facilitated by combination with other stocks and flows frameworks that provide data on key drivers such as demography, land-use and electricity production.

Keywords: water accounts; stocks and flows; water budgets; decision support systems; strategic management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cse and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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