Electricity Gas and Water

The aim of the research was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between drinking water quality, householders' knowledge and maintenance practices of private water supplies and drinking waterrelated public health risk on farms. Samples of drinking water were taken from 100 farming households. The Colilert-18 method wa ....

Earthworker Cooperative is a social enterprise with a mission to create solutions for transitioning Australia's workforce into a low carbon economy. It aims to create jobs, build social capital and protect the environment in local communities through the manufacture of renewable energy infrastructure. The cooperative factories will ....

Groundwater resources on Bribie Island were mandated for additional development in 2006 as part of the Queensland Government's Regional Drought Management Strategy. Subsequently, a production borefield and water treatment plant were constructed at Banksia Beach during 2007/2008 to supply potable water to Bribie Island, and to augme ....

This report forms part of the research undertaken within the Pratt Water Murrumbidgee Project, which is about private investment options to improve water use and to save otherwise wasted water for productive uses. Part of that project is the examination of specific investment projects that have been considered as having the greates ....

This paper examines the current freshwater resource management regime and allocation of fresh water under the Resource Management Act 1991. It examines the concept of first-in first-served in the allocation of the resource and questions whether this approach achieves the sustainable management principles of the RMA. Balancing compe ....

Governments will need to consider a range of issues when purchasing water for environmental flows. For instance, they need to consider whether it is more cost effective to purchase water directly from irrigators or to subsidise investments in more efficient water use technology, and retain some of the savings for the environment. T ....

The Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the National Water Commission have engaged CSIRO and Geoscience Australia to undertake the Assessment. The Assessment involves a basin-scale investigation of water resources to fill knowledge gaps about the status of water resources in the ....

In this paper we look at the impacts of a new industry, namely unconventional gas, on rural decline. Rural decline is defined as comprising loss of rural youth, reduced human capital and increasing rural poverty. Since the start of the current century, the unconventional gas industry has been expanding around the world, often in close proximity t ....

A study conducted as part of a broader project to assess the regional impacts of water reforms in the Goulburn Broken catchments Vic aimed to estimate the real contribution of the irrigation sector to the Australian economy and the economic impacts of recent and future water reforms at the national level. The study used a modified ....

The recharge under well-managed flood irrigated pastures in the Berriquin and Shepparton irrigation areas in Victoria was estimated through field based experimental programs and lysimeters. Recharge was estimated at less than 0.2 ML/ha/y on most soil types. The results indicated that recharge on lighter soils was influenced by clim ....

There are many changes occurring in rural and regional communities in the Murray-DarlingBasin as a result of climate change, water availability, water trading, global markets, populationmovements and ongoing social changes. Basin communities will respond to and be affected bya range of these drivers in combination with their adaptive capacity, re ....

Australia's inland rivers have characteristics that make them unique and require innovative management approaches. The characteristics of highly variable flows, the landscape scale at which they function and the cyclic biodiversity coinciding with flood and drought are discussed. These are linked to the principles required to manage inland rivers ....

Twelve case studies demonstrate how the irrigation industry is rising to the challenges of sustainable use of water resources. The case studies are of water use planning on a cotton farm in Moree NSW, subsurface irrigation on a tomato farm in Rochester Vic, salt interception to reduce salt flows into the River Murray from a citrus ....

The mandate for making decisions on allocation of freshwater resources in New Zealand has been devolved to regional councils by the Resource Management Act (RMA) enacted in 1991. Growing demand for water resources in many parts of New Zealand during the last two decades has increased competition and conflicts between different stak ....