Robinson, G.M.; Song, B. Managing Water for Environmental Provision and Horticultural Production in South Australia’s Riverland. Sustainability2023, 15, 11546.
Robinson, G.M.; Song, B. Managing Water for Environmental Provision and Horticultural Production in South Australia’s Riverland. Sustainability 2023, 15, 11546.
Robinson, G.M.; Song, B. Managing Water for Environmental Provision and Horticultural Production in South Australia’s Riverland. Sustainability2023, 15, 11546.
Robinson, G.M.; Song, B. Managing Water for Environmental Provision and Horticultural Production in South Australia’s Riverland. Sustainability 2023, 15, 11546.
Abstract
Management of Australia’s largest river system, the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) is controversial, addressing conflicting demands from stakeholders, including irrigators, the agriculture industry, indigenous groups, and the environmental lobby. Oversight is concentrated in a single agency, the MDB Authority, but climate change and the water market have contributed to uncertainty over the Basin’s environmental sustainability. This paper reports on preliminary research in South Australia’s Riverland, one of Australia’s most important wine, citrus, nuts, and stone fruit production areas. It focuses on the Renmark Irrigation Trust (RIT), supplying water to irrigators, primarily horticulturalists. It investigates the chief risks perceived and future-plans in face of concerns over variable water flows and economic uncertainty. Using sequential mixed methods, a questionnaire survey supplied information from a sample of irrigators, covering land use, on-farm environmental actions, risks, decision making, recent and proposed changes to farm management, and attitudes to the MDB Plan and the water market. Focus groups and interviews then enabled key topics to be addressed in greater depth. The RIT’s contribution to river restoration is highlighted, with its plans for additional on-farm water stewardship investigated. There are high levels of uncertainty regarding future viability of smallholdings, including unintended consequences from the water market (e.g., increasing areas under water hungry almonds), the role of water brokers, and environmental viability of the river system linked to climate change. More optimistic voices point to increased diversity of production, resilience of the local horticultural industry, and new entrants in the form of hobby and part-time producers.
Keywords
Murray-Darling Basin; Riverland; water market; irrigators; horticulture; environmental watering
Subject
Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
