Final Report Breaking through the Equity Barrier in Environmental ...

Step 1
The foremost task was to clearly define the principle research questions building on the research
agenda submitted to Land & Water Australia. They are listed here as they inform the entire
research process:
1 What notions of equity are relevant to natural resource management (NRM)
2 How have equity criteria (or allocation principles) been included in NRM policy
3 What equity criteria (or allocation principles) improve or worsen the likelihood of a NRM
policy being accepted by the public
4 Are preferences for various equity criteria stable across different issue frames, allocation
instruments and personal situations
The literature review responded to research questions 1 and 2, drawing on an expansive range
of contributions from different disciplines and various case studies. Preliminary insights on
research question 3 were drawn from the public’s response to policy initiatives as reported in
local and national newspapers. A specific data gathering protocol was designed to investigate
question 4.
Step 2
Case studies were proposed to explore research questions 3 and 4. It was initially envisaged that
the case studies would focus on equity in relation to dryland salinity policy, particularly the use
of market instruments in the Avon Catchment and bore placement in the town site of Katanning.
It was realised that the case studies contained too many variables and were too disparate to
investigate an already complex and not well-understood concept.
Hence, the two case studies chosen for the study were:
1 Scheme water restrictions for households
A in the Perth metropolitan area and
B in a country township in the south-west of the State
2 Bore water restrictions for households in the Perth metropolitan area.
The case studies were selected for the following reasons:
i) Water scarcity is a global problem.
ii) Water reform is on the national political agenda (i.e. the National Water Initiative was agreed
to and signed at the 25 June 2004 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments).
iii) Goals other than economic efficiency influence the choice of water policies and institutions
(FAO 1995).
iv) The public resists economic propositions that ‘water is not free; water is not infinitely
valuable; no particular use of water is intrinsically superior to other uses; pricing water is not
immoral’ (Pannell 2005a, 2005b, 2005c).
v) Household water restrictions are a contentious issue in capital cities across Australia
generating fierce debates on supply and demand management options.
vi) Household water restrictions are not the same across geographical locations (i.e. city versus
country) or water sources (i.e. scheme versus bore water).
Breaking through the Equity Barrier in Environmental Policy 25