The Australian Government Reef Rescue Package will fund water quality grants to land managers to implement practices for improving the quality of water entering the Reef from adjacent land and rivers.
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems has been working with the Australian Government, the Bureau of Rural Sciences and James Cook University to design and facilitate an investment model for the Government’s recently announced Reef Rescue Package.
The science behind the package
CSIRO has designed a multiple criteria analysis (MCA) decision model to inform expenditure of the Reef Rescue funds.
This economic model for allocating the Package emphasises the need for Reef Rescue expenditure to be carefully targeted to achieve improvements to water quality.
The Reef Rescue Package will fund water quality grants to land managers to implement practices that will improve the quality of water entering the Reef from adjacent land and rivers.
For example: If the package was spread evenly across catchments, spending would equate to approximately 69 cents per hectare per year. It is unlikely this would achieve any improvement in water quality. Modelling by CSIRO shows that 70 per cent of sediments, an important pollutant, entering the Reef are generated from 20 per cent of the total catchment area. Similarly, large nutrient and chemical pollutant loads stem from relatively small areas of intensive agricultural production close to the Reef.
What is a MCA?
The multiple criteria analysis (MCA) model is a decision making support framework widely applied under Australian natural resource management (NRM) programs.
It is used to rank or score decision options against multiple objectives in a transparent and analytically robust manner.
For the Reef Rescue package, the MCA approach allows decision makers to rank policy options in light of multiple objectives, which can be weighted according to their relative importance.
The Great Barrier Reef MCA model takes into account criteria such as:
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asset value: commercial fishing, species richness, ecological significance, recreation, tourism
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threats: sediment, nutrient, herbicide/pesticide pollution
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solvability: the availability and feasibility of farm management practices that will reduce pollution.
CSIRO has worked with stakeholders to weight these values to reflect their relative importance in order to target and allocate the appropriate funds across the six regional NRM bodies covering the Reef catchment.
The model may also be used by NRM bodies to further target funds within their regions.
Stakeholders include:
- Queensland regional NRM bodies (Cape York, Terrain, Burdekin Dry Tropics, Mackay Whitsunday, Fitzroy Basin Assoc, Burnett Mary)
- Canegrowers, Meat & Livestock Aust, Qld Dairy Farmers, WWF, Qld Farmers’ Federation, Growcom.
Partners
CSIRO's partners are:
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Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
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Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
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James Cook University.
Find out more about the Reef Rescue Package at Caring for our Country - Great Barrier Reef [external link].
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