Profitable management of salinity Tensions and changing perceptions

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Profitable management of salinity Tensions and
changing perceptions

• David Pannell

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Taking stock

• NAP starting to hit the ground in WA
• But things keep changing
• Area of saline land
• Farmer priorities
• Political priorities
• Knowledge of salinity
• Moving target

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• What have we learnt since NAP was conceived?

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Stream salinity

• What have we learnt?

• Most SW rivers still getting more saline
• With major land-use change, stream salinity can
  be stabilised
• Denmark
• Collie
• Warren

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Biodiversity threats

• What have we learnt?

• At risk of extinction due to salinity
• 450 flowering plant species
• 400 spider, scorpion and aquatic invertebrate
  species

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Current extent

• What have we learnt?

• 1 million hectares
• previous estimate, using different methods, was 2
• 0.8 m ha of agric land

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Future extent

• What have we learnt?

• 5.4 m ha
• between 2.9 and 4.4 m ha of agricultural land

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Watertable trends

• What have we learnt?

• Flat in some areas
• New equilibrium?
• Climate change?
• Time to develop options

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Its difficult to prevent

• What have we learnt?

Central wheatbelt
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Effects often quite local

• What have we learnt?

• Either because
• water movement is slow (central wheatbelt)
• watersheds are small (nearer coast)
• Thats good
• Can control
• Clear target
• and bad
• Treatment effects limited
• Incentives low

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Economics of perennials

• What have we learnt?

• Limited range of perennial options
• Econs sensitive to local conditions
• soils
• rainfall
• farming system
• other opportunities
• scale (15-20)
• Off-site benefits from perennials often low

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Adaptation a key option in WA

• What have we learnt?

• Sometimes the only practical option
• Evidence of sustainable production, and lower
  groundwater levels

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Drains can work

• What have we learnt?

• Econs sensitive to distance affected
• Highly variable
• Big interest

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Tensions
Desire to establish salinity management tools
over large areas in the short term vs Problems
with the available tools
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Problems

• Perennials for prevention
• scale required
• farm-level economics
• insufficient range of options
• Salt-tolerant plants
• economics not sufficiently compelling
• lack of breeding/selection
• Drains
• Downstream effects
• Expense of fully articulated system
• Politicised

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Tensions
Current understanding of salinity vs Expectation
s behind the NAP
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Expectations behind NAP

• suitable tools already available
• large-scale permanent adoption in response to
  extension or small, temporary incentive payments
• dominant focus on private land
• all actions best handled at regional level

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Expectations behind NAP

• salinity can be managed within a focus on
  multiple outcomes
• good planning is easy enough
• choice of policy tools is clear

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SIF1

• State Salinity Council in 2000
• Targeting should consider
• values of the assets
• degree of threat
• availability of feasible/adoptable management
  actions
• likely reduction in salinity from those actions
• lags before impact or response
• costs
• Poor targeting a big risk
• Crucial role for industry development

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SIF2 results

• Biodiversity assets
• 30 Tier 1 assets
• Cost 850 million
• Towns
• 16 towns
• Repair damage as it occurs vs pumping now
• Only 2 had positive net benefits of pumping now
• For most towns, costs of pumping 2 x benefits

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SIF2 messages

• Cost of successful actions often v. high
• Budget sufficient for only a small proportion of
  tier 1 assets
• Clever targeting essential
• At state scale for some assets

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SIF3

• Streamlines decision process
• Not just what, but also how
• Embeds key research findings

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SIF3

• Appropriate investment approach depends on
• type of asset at risk
• bio-physical conditions
• socio-economic circumstances

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Terrestrial assets
Waterway
Dispersed assets (e.g. agric land)
Saltland
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Recommended responses in all scenarios
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Recommended responses in key scenarios
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SIF3
NAP
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Plans for SIF3

• Working with SCRIPT (WA) and NC-CMA (Victoria) to
  adapt and test SIF3
• Involving governments (state and national),
  starting in Victoria
• Overall aim to bring the policy up to date with
  the science

www.sif3.org
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A vision for NAP2

• Stronger scientific and economic basis for plans
• More selective targeting
• Hard-nosed consideration of adoption
• Appropriate balance between regional-level and
  state-level activities
• Provide farmers with proven, effective,
  economically viable salinity management tools

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www.davidpannell.net