integrating socio-economic and biophysical data to underpin collaborative watershed management

ABSTRACT: Watersheds are widely accepted as a useful geographyfor organizing natural resource management in Australia and theUnited States. It is assumed that effective action needs to be under-pinned by an understanding of the interactions between people andthe environment. While there has been some social research as partof watershed planning, there have been few attempts to integratesocio-economic and biophysical data to improve the efficacy ofwatershed management. This paper explores that topic. With limit-ed resources for social research, watershed partners in Australiachose to focus on gathering spatially referenced socio-economic datausing a mail survey to private landholders that would enable themto identify and refine priority issues, develop and improve commu-nication with private landholders, choose policy options to accom-plish watershed targets, and evaluate the achievement ofintermediate watershed plan objectives. Experience with sevenlarge watershed projects provides considerable insight about theneeds of watershed planners, how to effectively engage them, andhow to collect and integrate social data as part of watershed man-agement.(KEY TERMS: watershed management; collaborative planning;interdisciplinary research; incentive programs; public participa-tion.)

Curtis, Allan, Ian Byron, and Jacinta MacKay 2005. Integrating Socio-Economicand Biophysical Data to Underpin Collaborative Watershed Management. Jour-nal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 41(3):549-563.

INTRODUCTION

Collaborative watershed planning is now firmlyentrenched in the United States (Griffin, 1999) andAustralia (Ewing, 2003). These are multiparty pro-cesses where government agencies and local commu-nities negotiate and share decision making for themanagement of natural resources within a watershed

(Duram and Brown, 1999; McGinnis et al., 1999).Recent evaluations have tempered some of the initialenthusiasm for collaborative natural resource man-agement (CNRM) (Kenney, 1999), but CNRM is wide-ly believed to enhance social learning, build socialcapital, reduce stakeholder conflict, increase govern-ment accountability, and ensure that local knowledgeinforms planning (Curtis and Lockwood, 2000; Conleyand Moote, 2003; Schusler et al., 2003).

Beginning with the five-year, 1.25 billion Aus-tralian dollars (AU$) Natural Heritage Trust (NHT)in 1997, successive state and Australian governmentshave invested substantial public funds in efforts toimprove the management of land and water degrada-tion issues, including dryland salinity, water qualityand introduced pest plants and animals (Curtis etal., 2002). Much of this expenditure has been made onthe basis of the priorities established through thewatershed planning processes coordinated by regionalCatchment Management Committees (CMC). Stategovernments appoint most CMC members, but a mixof regional community representatives and agencystaff is purposefully included on these committees(Ewing, 2000). State and Australian governmentagencies have recognized the importance of buildingthe capacity of these groups to undertake and imple-ment their watershed plans (Webb and Curtis, 2002).The Australian experience with watershed groupssuggests that CNRM has facilitated the emergence ofan additional tier of local organization that appears toeffectively bridge the gap between local communitygroups and government agencies. These watershedgroups appear to provide governments with increased

1Paper No. 03186 of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) (Copyright © 2005). Discussions are open untilDecember 1, 2005.

2Respectively, Professor, The Johnstone Centre, Charles Sturt University, P.O. Box 789, Albury, NSW, 2640 Australia; and SocialResearchers, Bureau of Rural Sciences, GPO Box 858, Canberra, ACT, Australia 2601 (E-Mail/Curtis: [email protected]).

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION 549 JAWRA

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATIONJUNE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION 2005

INTEGRATING SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND BIOPHYSICAL DATA TOUNDERPIN COLLABORATIVE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT1

Allan Curtis, Ian Byron, and Jacinta MacKay2

confidence that public resources invested in improvednatural resource management (NRM) will be expend-ed efficiently and will be properly accounted for (Cur-tis and Lockwood, 2000).

It is now widely accepted that people modified Aus-tralian landscapes over millennia and that land andwater degradation is the result of interactionsbetween people and the natural environment (Van-clay, 1992). As the seminal discussion paper, Manag-ing Natural Resources (Commonwealth of Australia,1999: p. 7), emphasized, efforts to manage degrada-tion must “take account of the links within andbetween natural systems and the interplay of econom-ic, social, and biophysical factors that influence natu-ral resource decision making. An integrated approachis needed.” Even a cursory examination of state andAustralian government guidelines reveals that water-shed plans are to be based on an understanding of thesocial context and must consider the social impacts ofproposed actions. Indeed, there appears to beincreased appreciation of the potential contribution ofthe social sciences to NRM in Australia. For example,most major Australian government NRM researchand development agencies have established socialresearch programs. At the same time, there appearsto be little evidence that watershed plans in Australiaare being underpinned by social research (Barr et al.,2000), or that substantial progress has been made inmethodological approaches to integrating social, eco-nomic, and biophysical data to underpin watershedmanagement (Commonwealth of Australia, 2002).

International literature suggests that issues to dowith the application of social research in watershedmanagement are relevant to a wide audience. AsKuczenski et al. (2000: p. 216) explain, “while numer-ous authors concede that social structure is relevantto watershed management […] very little systematicinformation on the social structure of watersheds hasbeen compiled or is available to scientists or resourcemanagers.” In this and other papers, these authorsreported their work combining land cover data fromthe Landsat satellite with census-derived housingdensity data to identify relationships between peopleand their environment that should assist watershedmanagers (Radeloff et al., 2000).

This paper will explore that topic, suggesting thatsocial researchers in Australia and overseas need tomove beyond readily available census data that havelimited usefulness in watershed management. Experi-ence from working with seven large watershed pro-jects across three states has provided considerableinsight into the data needs of watershed groups, how to effectively engage them, and how to build theircapacity to integrate social data for watershed management. Key findings from the most recently

completed project in the Wimmera region in the stateof Victoria are used to illustrate the usefulness of thisapproach.

SOCIAL RESEARCH TO UNDERPINWATERSHED MANAGEMENT

Watershed Planning in Australia

Watershed groups in Australia are required todevelop regional plans that set out how the land,water, and biodiversity of the region are to be man-aged. Each watershed plan is to be endorsed by stateand Australian government agencies prior to theirimplementation. While there are state and regionaldifferences, these watershed groups are typicallyasked to: (1) articulate their vision and objectives(Where do we want to go?); (2) describe their catch-ment condition and identify the key regional chal-lenges (Where are we now?); (3) explain how they willimplement their strategy (How do we go forward?);and (4) identify targets for the implementation ofmanagement actions and for improvements inresource condition that will enable the assessment ofprogress towards plan objectives (How do we knowwhat we have achieved and learned?).

Potential Contribution of Social Research

Clearly, there are opportunities for social researchto play an important role at each stage of the plan-ning phase identified above. Cavaye (2003) hasrecently prepared a practical guide outlining howwatershed groups in the state of Queensland mightintegrate social and economic issues into their region-al plans. Drawing on the authors’ experience it is sug-gested that social researchers could:

• contribute to processes that capture the range ofstakeholder perspectives about possible futures forwatersheds;

• draw on secondary and primary data sources todescribe the social structure and change over time inthat structure in a watershed;

• employ processes that enable stakeholders toexplore the tradeoffs inherent in many resource allo-cation decisions across different issues and parts of awatershed;

• draw on a range of theoretical and empiricalresearch that would enhance the communicationactivities of watershed groups, the uptake of recom-mended practices for managing land and water

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CURTIS, BYRON, AND MACKAY

degradation, and the efficacy of investment throughcommunity education;

• assist groups to develop measures of socialprogress that can be attributed to investments andactions undertaken through their watershed plans;and

• employ social impact assessment tools to predictand ameliorate the negative social impacts of pro-posed interventions, including changes to land use orresource access.

Interrogating National Data Collections

Social researchers have mostly been involved inwatershed planning as facilitators of community con-sultation/stakeholder engagement processes, andthere has been little social research beyond thatwhich has drawn on secondary sources, principallythe Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Population andHousing and Farm Censuses, to profile the socialstructure of watersheds. Australians profiling water-shed communities have usually included attributesthat measure some aspect of the four capitals: humancapital, produced economic capital, social capital, andnatural capital (Webb and Curtis, 2002; Cavaye,2003).

Curtis et al. (2003a) used census data at the localgovernment scale to provide a socio-economic profileof the Murrumbidgee watershed in the southeasternportion of the Murray-Darling Basin. This study pro-vided important background information for a largerstudy co-funded by Richard Pratt, a wealthy Aus-tralian industrialist, and the Australian and NewSouth Wales state governments that sought to identi-fy business opportunities that would lead to enhancedwater efficiency and rural development. Among otherthings, Curtis et al. (2003a) identified that most ruralareas in the watershed had stable populations butwere experiencing substantial net losses of theiryouth cohort (15 to 24 year olds), and suggested thatchange in the youth cohort in an area was a usefulproxy indicator of change in socio-economic wellbeing. This study revealed a positive relationshipbetween the presence of irrigated agriculture andhigher socio-economic well being, but also showedthat farmers in the irrigated area were less fluent inEnglish and less likely to be involved in formal educa-tion.

Barr et al. (2000) used census and other nationaldatabases to combine social and economic data toexplore the structure of agriculture over time in thewatersheds of the Murray-Darling Basin. Using localgovernment areas as the unit of analysis, this seminalstudy examined attributes such as farm size, farm

family income, farmer age, entry, and exit from farm-ing, and changes in farming family numbers andclearly demonstrated that these attributes hadchanged over time.

The analysis of data collected through farm andhousehold censuses can provide useful information,but as Schultz et al. (1999) and Curtis et al. (2001)demonstrated, these data are unlikely to satisfywatershed managers who need to understand thebehavior of the private landholders who control mostof the land in their watersheds. In the first instance,these national data collection processes are unlikelyto address most of the topics for which data are need-ed.

Data Needs of Watershed Managers

The authors’ experience working with watershedgroups in Australia (Curtis et al., 2001) suggests that groups need information that will assist them to:(1) identify and refine investment priorities fromamongst a range of issues; (2) develop and improvecommunication with private landholders; (3) choosefrom among the mix of policy options available toaccomplish watershed targets; and (4) evaluate theachievement of intermediate watershed managementobjectives over time.

Private landholders, principally farming families,manage almost all of the modified land in the water-sheds under study. Drawing on the authors’ recentexperience working with watershed groups (Curtis etal., 2001), the extensive literature on adoption studiesin Australia (Vanclay, 1992; Barr and Cary, 1992;Cary et al., 2003), and the authors’ studies of adoptionfor sustainable farming practices (Curtis and De Lacy,1996), native grasses (Millar and Curtis, 1997), farmforestry (Race and Curtis, 1998), and riparian areas(Curtis and Robertson, 2003), it is suggested thatwatershed groups require information from privatelandholders about their:

• level of awareness and concern about the social,economic, and environmental issues affecting theirproperty and watershed;

• values they attach to their property;• knowledge and understanding of processes lead-

ing to land and water degradation and of how toimplement recommended practices;

• level of confidence in recommended practices;• property size;• on and off property income and debt levels;• involvement in short courses;• stage of life and involvement in succession plan-

ning;• long term plans for their property;


INTEGRATING SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND BIOPHYSICAL DATA TO UNDERPIN COLLABORATIVE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

• current and future land use;• adoption of recommended practices; and• response to policy options expected to change

landholder behavior and achieve watershed plan tar-gets.

It is also very difficult for national data collectionprocesses to have the flexibility required to accommo-date differences in the social contexts and the infor-mation needs of regional watershed groups. Not onlywill the issues be different, each watershed group islikely to want information to underpin decision mak-ing for a different set of policy choices. This is a criti-cal issue if social researchers are to play a major rolein capacity building. Experience highlights the impor-tance of engaging project partners in decisions about:

• what information is to be collected and why; • how the information is to be collected and ana-

lyzed;• who will have access to the data and on what

conditions; and• how the data will be used to improve watershed

management outcomes.

Engaging Watershed Managers

Data collected through a national census is usuallyonly available at a local government scale and there-fore has limited application in understanding decisionmaking by individual landholders. If census data can-not be geo-referenced at the property scale or aggre-gated to concord with resource management units(RMU), researchers are limited in their ability to inte-grate social and economic data with biophysical datalayers. Most national censuses occur at 5- or 10-yearlyintervals. With the time lag between data collectionand release, available information can be out-of-date,sometimes before it is even released.

The Australian watershed group partners chose tofocus on gathering spatially referenced socio-economicdata using a mail survey to private rural landholdersthat would enable them to address the four topicsidentified above. As part of the discussions of researchmethodology with watershed group partners, otheroptions for data collection were explored and partners’concerns about the following were addressed: theextent they could influence the selection of researchtopics; whether mail surveys can achieve responserates necessary to ensure reliable information is col-lected; that statistically useful information would beavailable at their planning scales; the ability of otherregional stakeholders to access the data; and how the

confidentiality of personal information provided bylandholders would be maintained.

The following sections introduce the watershedswhere studies have been completed or are underway,explain the process of watershed group engagement inmore detail, summarize the approach to data collec-tion and analysis, and use some of the key findingsfrom the most recent watershed study in the Wim-mera region to demonstrate the usefulness of theapproach.

THE WIMMERA WATERSHED STUDY

At the invitation of the Goulburn Broken Catch-ment Management Authority (GBCMA), the authors’first watershed project commenced with this group inthe state of Victoria in 1998 (Curtis et al., 2001) (Fig-ure 1). The authors have also completed projects com-missioned by watershed groups in the Ovens (2001)and Wimmera (2002) regions of Victoria (Figure 1).State and Australian government programs managedby the regional watershed groups funded these pro-jects. In 2003, the authors received funds through thenational component of the NHT program to imple-ment projects in the states of Queensland and NewSouth Wales and to undertake an additional study inVictoria. These projects are underway in the Queens-land Murray-Darling and Burnett Mary watershedsof Queensland, the Lachlan in New South Wales, andthe Glenelg Hopkins in Victoria (Figure 1). With pro-jects completed or underway across seven watershedsin three states, and with a spread of inland andcoastal watersheds, the authors are confident thatthis methodology is reliable.

Given the limitations of space in a paper, the keyfindings from the completed study in the Wimmeraregion are discussed to demonstrate the usefulness ofthe approach. A technical report outlining findingsfrom this research is available (Curtis and Byron,2002).

The Wimmera watershed is located in the westernpart of the state of Victoria (Figure 1) and coversapproximately three million hectares (20 percent ofVictoria). Landform in the Wimmera is typically gen-tle rolling plains interspersed in the south with aseries of isolated volcanic hills and small mountains(maximum elevation of 750 m). The Wimmera Riverruns inland from these isolated mountains in thesouth to a series of large terminal lakes in the north.The climate is typical of southeastern Australia, withhot, dry summers and cool, moist winters, and winterrainfall is higher and summer temperatures lowertowards the coast in the south. Eighty-five percent of



the native eucalypt forests and grasslands have beencleared to make way for European agriculture, mainlydryland crop and livestock farming based on cerealsand sheep for wool and meat. Isolated but importantpockets of native vegetation are protected in the pub-lic lands of the Little Desert and Grampians nationalparks and the Hindmarsh and Albacutya terminallakes. Primary production and associated processingindustries are the main contributors to economicwealth. Tourism focused on the national parks andwineries is also an important industry. The popula-tion of the Wimmera is around 50,000, with almostone-third of these people living on family farms or insmall towns. The major townships include Horsham,with a population of 15,000. The Wimmera watershedgroup, the Wimmera Catchment ManagementAuthority (WCMA), has identified the priorityresource management issues as water erosion, dry-land salinity, soil structure and soil fertility decline,increasing soil acidity, and introduced pest animalsand weeds.

The Wimmera watershed has been divided intonine RMU. Each RMU represents a part of the water-shed that has similar landform, soils and vegetation(Figure 2). The WCMA has used these RMU as theirbasic planning units. At the WCMA’s request, surveydata analysis and presentation has occurred at theRMU scale.

PROCESS OF ENGAGEMENT FORTHE WIMMERA WATERSHED

Experience to date suggests that a 9-month to 10-month research process is needed to effectivelyengage watershed partners and their major stake-holders in a process that draws on local knowledge,builds commitment to the research, and enhancescapacity to interpret and implement key findings. Atthe heart of the research process is the work of a pro-ject steering committee (PSC) and a project referencegroup (PRG).

The PSC is a small executive comprised of repre-sentatives from the contracting parties that is respon-sible for day-to-day project management, includingsupporting the PRG. The PRG is the fora whereresearchers and partners/stakeholders address andsettle the questions identified earlier.

• What information is needed?• How is the information to be collected and ana-

lyzed?• Who has access to the data and on what condi-

tions? • How will the data be used to improve watershed

management outcomes?

The PSC needs to be clear about selection criteriafor the PRG, expectations of the time commitment of



Figure 1. Location of Watershed Projects in Australia.

PRG participants, the process for reaching decisionsand the level of authority that rests with the PRG,and the resources available to support the work of thePRG. Project reference group membership shouldreflect the breadth of watershed stakeholders andcomprise representatives with a responsibility or com-mitment to implementing research findings. The PRGshould be chaired by one of the partner/stakeholderrepresentatives, with appropriate facilitation andadministrative support provided through the PSC.Project reference group decisions should be based onreaching a shared or consensus view and non-agencyparticipants in PRG should be paid sitting fees andhave their travel costs reimbursed.

In the Wimmera project, the nine PRG participantswere selected by the WCMA and included four land-holders who were WCMA Board representatives (oneof these chaired the PRG); three WCMA staff respon-sible for watershed strategy development and pro-gram implementation; and two state agency staff,including a social scientist with responsibilities forproviding support to regional watershed planning pro-cesses. Project reference group participants wereinformed that they would be required to attend at

least four, full day workshops over a 10-month periodwhere they would work with the researchers to deter-mine the content of the survey; provide feedback ondraft research reports; and assist with the communi-cation of research findings, including at stakeholderworkshops. Project reference group participants werealso advised that they would need to be available tocontribute up to five days outside formal meetings toreview draft survey instruments and reports.

From the outset, it was clear to PSC and PRG par-ticipants that the work of these groups involved agenuine partnership between researchers and practi-tioners, that all participants would be learning fromeach other, and that all knowledge and assumptionscould be contested. The challenge was to work withproject partners to facilitate a process that ensuredthis happened. As social researchers the authors hadto demonstrate that they could explain the theoriesand methods, listen to others, respond positively tocriticism, negotiate compromise positions, meetagreed timelines, persevere and overcome obstacles,and deliver credible and useful research findings. Acommitment was made to regularly communicatewith the PSC and key members of the PRG by email



Figure 2. Resource Management Units in the Wimmera Watershed.

and telephone. These communications included: dis-cussions about specific survey questions; how surveypretest participants would be identified; how theWCMA might contact local councils to obtain theirratepayer (property owner) database so that the mailout recipients could be identified; updates on the sur-vey response rate during the mail out process;progress reports during data analysis and reportpreparation; feedback from PRG on draft reports; andideas for communicating research findings to stake-holders and the wider community.

Much of the success with the Wimmera PRGdepended on the outcomes of the first one-day work-shop. At that workshop, PRG members introducedthemselves; WCMA staff on the PSC provided anoverview of the research brief and the work of thePSC; and the social researchers introduced themethodology, key findings, and research outputs fromearlier projects in Victoria. In addition, there was afacilitated discussion of the Wimmera project objec-tives, the research approach and timeline, how theproject would be explained and promoted to stake-holders, and the topics to be included in the mail sur-vey. At the end of the first workshop there wasagreement on the research objective (see below), thetopics (but not specific questions) to be included in themail survey (see above), a timeline for the research,and the role of the PSC (see above). It was agreed thatthe social researchers would develop a preliminarysurvey that would be circulated to PRG membersprior to the second workshop in four weeks time.

The second meeting of the PRG began with a shortpresentation to reiterate the research purpose,approach, and timeline. WCMA members of the PSCprovided an update of work to pull together the sur-vey mail out list using the ratepayer lists from theseven shires in the watershed. The meeting thenfocused on an indepth discussion of survey questions.A review of each topic commenced with an explana-tion of the contribution of that topic to project objec-tives. Participants were then asked for theircomments in terms of whether the topics were com-prehensive, statements were unambiguous, termsused would be understood by recipients, and issuesaddressed were those that affected survey recipients.At the end of the second workshop it was agreed thatthe social researchers would develop a draft surveyfor distribution by email to PRG members, with feed-back to the researchers via the PSC prior to a reviseddraft being pre-tested by focus groups across thewatershed. With advice from PRG members, the PSCidentified participants for two focus groups of five to six participants from across the region, with partic-ipants representing the range of likely survey recipi-ents. Apart from pretesting the survey, the focus

groups were also a way of engaging key WCMA stake-holders and building understanding and support forthe research process.

Two months elapsed between the second PRGmeeting and the development of the draft survey, con-ducting the survey pretest focus groups and finalapproval of a revised survey by the PRG. The surveymail out, with two mail outs and four remindernotices (three for the first mail out), occupied anothersix weeks (see below). Data analysis and preliminaryreport preparation occupied a further four weeks.

The third PRG meeting reviewed preliminaryresearch findings. Summaries of survey data werepresented to the PRG and tentative findings used as abasis for exploring different interpretations of thedata and identifying ways findings might informwatershed planning. It was agreed that the socialresearchers would submit a draft report to the PRGfor comment. The final report was to be presented tothe PSC for approval. The PRG also decided to pub-lish the research findings in a technical report and afour-page brochure and to hold a two-day workshopwith WCMA and state agency staff responsible forwatershed management to review research findingsand their management implications.

The two-day workshop was held in October 2002,eight months after the project commenced. Over 60participants from the WCMA Board and staff, stateagencies, local government, the regional developmentboard, agribusiness and other industries, and themedia attended. While the research findings wouldrequire substantial changes in the way stakeholdersapproached their work, there was widespread agree-ment that the research was credible, timely, andimportant for watershed management. The socialresearch team participated in the workshop, but notas the facilitators or leaders of the workshop sessions.Project reference group members chaired the work-shop and worked with Wimmera watershed programmanagers to lead the workshop sessions and docu-ment the discussion and outcomes from those sessionsfor the WCMA. In a very real sense the ownership ofthe research and the responsibility for its uptake hadbeen shifted to the WCMA board, staff, and otherwatershed stakeholders.

APPROACH TO DATA COLLECTIONAND ANALYSIS

The Key Research Questions

Discussions with the PSC and the PRG identifiedthat the following key research questions were to be



addressed using data from the mail survey of land-holders:

1. What are the high priority issues for privatelandholders in the watershed?

2. What are the values that private landholdersattach to their properties?

3. Are private landholders aware of dryland salini-ty and is awareness linked to adoption of practicesrecommended to ameliorate this issue?

4. What are the main factors constraining theadoption of practices recommended to address keyland and water degradation issues?

5. To what extent are landholders taking up new oremerging enterprises and are these enterprises likelyto substantially improve landholder profitability inthe short term?

6. To what extent do landholders’ long term plansfor family succession or the sale of their propertiespresent opportunities for changes in on-property man-agement that will enhance the achievement of water-shed plan objectives?

7. Would stronger incentives encourage privatelandholders to undertake higher rates of revegetationon cleared land or remnant vegetation protection?

8. How can the WCMA demonstrate achievementof watershed management objectives?

The following discussion of research findings willaddress some of these key research questions.

The Mail Survey Process

On the advice of the PRG, all properties smallerthan 10 ha were removed from the lists of approxi-mately 4,000 landholders provided to the WCMA bythe seven local governments in the Wimmera water-shed. To ensure statistically useful numbers ofrespondents across the nine watershed RMU (Figure2), 1,000 landholders were randomly selected from theratepayer lists. Scrutiny of the landholder list provid-ed by the WCMA identified 41 duplicate names thatwere subsequently removed from the list to provide afinal sample of 958 landholders. Tables containing thelandholder list and their rural property informationwere entered into the ArcView (ESRI, 2002) geo-graphic information system (GIS).

The survey design and mail out process followedDillman (1979) Total Design Method. The surveyinstrument was developed in consultation with thePRG and after pretesting with small focus groups (seeabove), was printed as a 12-page B5 sized booklet.The initial survey mail out included a cover letter andwas followed by three reminder/thank you cards insuccessive weeks. A second mail out, with one

reminder/thank you card was undertaken to all non-respondents to the first mail out. All surveys wereaddressed to the property owner/owners identified onthe ratepayer lists. The 112 cases in which the intend-ed survey recipient was too old, ill, or deceased, orthat the property had been sold, were removed fromthe original sample to provide a final sample of 846.With 619 completed surveys returned, the finalresponse rate was 73 percent, with a range from 65percent in RMU 6 to 76 per cent in RMU 9.

Data Analysis

Findings presented in this paper are derived fromanalyses undertaken using a range of descriptivestatistics and binary logistic regression. All analyseswere undertaken using the SPSS statistical package(SPSS, 1999). Survey data was entered into anArcView GIS that contained layers for RMU, salinitydischarge sites, topography, and remnant vegetation.The expert and mail survey data layers were thenused in a number of analyses requiring the integra-tion of socio-economic and biophysical data layers.

In the first instance, landholder awareness of dry-land salinity and the efficacy of expert maps wereassessed by comparing salinity affected areas identi-fied by landholders and those mapped by experts (KeyResearch Question 3). This analysis adopted amethodology pioneered in previous work (Curtis etal., 2003b). Mail survey data were entered into anArcview GIS that contained other data layers, includ-ing salinity discharge sites provided by the lead natu-ral resource management agency in Victoria (at thattime called the Department of Natural Resources andEnvironment, but in 2004 renamed the Department ofSustainability and Environment; VDSE, June 14,2002, unpublished data; Allan et al., 1997; Centre forLand Protection Research, 2000, unpublished data).The discharge maps had been compiled over timeemploying a mix of air photo interpretation and inten-sive field inspections by agency staff and consultants.The discharge site data layer had been prepared atmuch the same time as the landholder survey andwas assumed to be up to date. The next step in theanalysis involved a comparison of landholder proximi-ty (using a spatial intersection) to salinity prone areasusing a 1 km buffer of the discharge layer. A 1 kmbuffer was adopted to provide some margin of errorwhen comparing the location of discharge sitesmapped on a 1:25,000 map with landholder reportedsaline affected sites that could only be mapped as aproperty location.

In other analyses the survey data and lifeexpectancy tables used were provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (July 12, 2002,



unpublished data) to identify the year when the man-agement of each property was expected to changehands, and therefore, model the extent of propertyturnover across different RMU (Key Research Ques-tion 6).

FINDINGS

This section presents the findings for a limitednumber of the key research questions for theWimmera study. The purpose is to demonstrate therelevance of survey data to watershed managers, andparticularly, the value of combining socio-economicdata obtained through the survey with existing bio-physical data layers.

Providing Information to Improve LandholderEngagement

Linking Natural Resource Management toRegional Development. Survey respondents wereasked to assess the importance of a range of social,economic, and environmental issues in their district.Eighteen topics had been identified through discus-sions with the PRG and survey pretest workshops.The four highest rated issues addressed aspects of thedeclining viability of small towns and rural communi-ties. Subsequent workshop discussions emphasizedthe importance of watershed managers demonstratinghow an investment in NRM would also address issuessuch as the lack of employment opportunities foryoung people in the district.

Dryland salinity is a high priority NRM issue inAustralia. The National Action Plan for Salinity andWater Quality (NAP) has identified 22 priorityregions in Australia for investment. The Wimmera isone of three watersheds in the Lower Murray NAPregion. Twenty-three percent of survey respondentsindicated they had areas where plants showed signsof the effects of saline water. For most of these respon-dents the area affected was relatively small (median10 ha compared to median property size of 900 ha).Only 22 percent of respondents rated dryland salinityas an important or very important issue affecting thelong term productive capacity of land in their district.By comparison, 58 percent rated reduced river flowsimpacting on river health as an important or veryimportant issue. Overall, dryland salinity was ranked11 out of the 18 topics included in the survey. Again,the clear message is that watershed managers need tolink efforts to manage high priority national or stateissue, in this case dryland salinity, with improved

outcomes across the social and economic issues thatare a higher priority for most land managers.

Social Structure Affects Responses to NaturalResource Management. As explained above (Figure2), the Wimmera has been divided into nine RMUthat have similar landform, soils, and vegetation. Asmight be expected, there were statistically significantdifferences in the high priority issues of surveyrespondents across the different RMU.

Further analysis using Pearson or Kuskal-Wallacechi square tests showed that the social context of theRMU was also different (Table 1) and this informationsuggested that watershed managers should takethese differences into account. Local watershed orLandcare groups are currently the most importantmeans of engaging landholders in watershed NRMprograms (Curtis et al., 2002). Survey data showedalmost half of all landholders across the Wimmerawere Landcare participants and there was a signifi-cant positive relationship between participation inthese groups and NRM programs and watershed plan-ning outcomes, including adoption of more sustain-able farming practices (Table 2).

Compared to other parts of the Wimmera, only asmall proportion (10 percent) of the landholders inRMU 1 were involved in Landcare. Landholders inRMU 1 were also atypical of most Wimmera landhold-ers in that most were living on smaller properties andwere not farmers by occupation (Table 1). Efforts toengage RMU 1 landholders in watershed manage-ment would need to move beyond appeals to protectagricultural production or income and address theirinterest in biodiversity conservation and recreationand their long term plans to remain on their property(Table 1). With relatively low household incomes,efforts to engage nonfarmers in on-ground work mightalso need to be supported by strong cost sharingarrangements (Table 1). At the same time, informa-tion in Table 2 suggests that strong incentives will beneeded to overcome the reluctance of Wimmera farm-ers to implement practices expected to lead to biodi-versity conservation that are either expensive(fencing to protect gullies/waterways) or have highopportunity costs in terms of lost agricultural produc-tion (trees and shrubs planted).

Providing Information to Refine Policy Approaches

Awareness of Dryland Salinity. A key assump-tion underpinning the NHT and NAP is that land-holders are often unaware of the extent and impact ofless obvious forms of land degradation such as dry-land salinity. It has also been assumed that a lack of



awareness was an important factor contributing tothe limited adoption of practices likely to manage dry-land salinity (Vanclay, 1992). As a result, there hasbeen a large investment in community education toraise awareness and understanding of dryland salini-ty in priority watersheds, including the Wimmera. Aspart of the Wimmera survey the PRG wanted toassess landholder awareness of dryland salinity andto explore links between concern and awareness ofdryland salinity and adoption of more sustainablefarming practices.

As explained above, ArcView GIS was employed tocompare survey respondents’ assessments of whetherthey had areas where plants were affected by salinity,with maps of saline discharge sites prepared by stateagency watershed managers. There was also theopportunity to test the efficacy of the expert maps byassessing the capacity of these maps to predict theareas identified by survey respondents as beingaffected by salinity.

In the Wimmera, the expert maps agreed with theassessments of 90 percent of the respondents whosaid they did not have plants affected by drylandsalinity (Figure 3). A substantial number (15 of 43) ofthe survey respondents that the expert maps suggest-ed were unaware of dryland salinity were located inRMU 6 (Figures 2 and 3).

Although dryland salinity was not rated as highlyas many other issues, those who reported areas affect-ed by dryland salinity were significantly more con-cerned about the impacts of dryland salinity on waterquality and the productive capacity of their propertyand the district. Those reporting areas affected bydryland salinity were also significantly more likely toadopt the practice of planting trees and shrubs, a keyto managing saline affected land (Table 2).

These findings suggest that most landholders havean accurate understanding of the current extent ofdryland salinity and that the substantial investmentin salinity education in the Wimmera has been effec-tive in raising awareness and enhancing adoption.Landholders may not be aware of future salinity prob-lems and this may be a factor inhibiting the adoptionof ameliorative action by landholders. To the extentthat state and regional watershed managers expectthe extent and impact of dryland salinity to expandsignificantly, they will need to invest in efforts toidentify and map these trends so they can presentcredible information to landholders.

Understanding Landholder Adoption of Sus-tainable Farming Practices. Survey data providedstrong affirmation of the efficacy of the capacity building approaches currently used by watershed



TABLE 1. Social Structure and Landholder Characteristics in Selected ResourceManagement Units Within the Wimmera Watershed in 2002 (N = 619).

RMU 1 RMU 3 TotalVariables (n = 33) (n = 10) All RMU

Farmer as primary occupation 70% 50% 80%

Median property size 1,290 ha 161 ha 900 ha

Median hours worked on property per week 50 hours 11 hours 50 hours

Median total household income (annual) AU$75,000 AU$30,000 AU$60,000

Percent said property provided majority of household income 70% 10% 81%

Median time lived in local area 42 years 30 years 46 years

Percent said they planned to continue to live on property 30% 60% 55%

Landcare membership 49% 10% 47%

Percent reported saline affected areas on their property 50% 25% 23%

Percent said salinity was a threat to water quality 28% 40% 22%

Percent said access to health services was a priority issue 53% 40% 56%

Percent said soil acidity was a threat to on-property productive capacity 13% 00% 10%

Percent said changes to waterways affect the quality of recreational experiences 31% 50% 45%

Percent knew the processes leading to soil acidification 21% 11% 20%

Percent said farming practices leading to soil erosion undermined on-property productive capacity 06% 40% 12%

Percent adopted planting trees and shrubs 48% 80% 60%

Percent adopted watering stock off stream 90% 40% 72%


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managers to support the adoption of more sustainablefarming practices by private landholders. There weresignificant positive relationships between adoption ofpractices and both respondent’s concern and aware-ness of dryland salinity and between their self-assessed knowledge of the processes leading to landand water degradation and their adoption of practicesrecommended to manage those processes (Table 2).There were also significant positive relationshipsbetween involvement in Landcare, Top Crop (anindustry led extension program), property planning,and other publicly funded NRM programs likely tolead to increased awareness, knowledge, and adoption(Table 2). Research findings suggested that invest-ment in these capacity building programs needed tobe sustained. For example, a majority of respondentsindicated there were topics where they lacked suffi-cient knowledge to take action. Information providedabout the long term plans of land owners revealedthat half of all properties in the Wimmera wouldchange hands by 2015. Many of the new owners willbe new settlers who would benefit from exposure tothe knowledge and skills of those more experienced

with local conditions that can occur through extensionprograms such as Landcare and Top Crop.

Modeling the Impact of Stronger Cost Shar-ing Arrangements. Low returns from agriculturehave affected the capacity of landholders to take uprecommended practices, particularly those that areexpensive or are likely to lead to substantial public oroff-site benefits (Curtis et al., 2001). In this study,higher on-property profitability was linked to signifi-cantly higher adoption of the recommended practice ofwatering stock off stream (Table 2). Successive Aus-tralian and state governments have acknowledged thepublic benefits that flow from much of the remedialaction taken by private landholders, for example, toaddress the impact of dryland salinity on water quali-ty, and have agreed to share the cost of on-groundwork on private property where this is the case (Cur-tis and Lockwood, 2000).

The Wimmera PRG was particularly interested inexploring the extent that stronger cost sharingarrangements would motivate landholders to increasethe replanting of native trees and shrubs on their



Figure 3. Comparing Landholder Awareness of Salinity With ExpertMaps Within the Wimmera Watershed in 2002 (N = 619).

properties. Survey recipients were asked to indicatetheir level of interest in committing to additionalrevegetation work in exchange for an incentive pack-age that provided for establishment costs (AU$1,000per ha), plus a fee to cover opportunity cost and theactive management of the revegetated area over a 10year period (equal to per ha returns from grazing).

About half (48 percent) said they would take up theincentive proposal and all of these respondents saidthat the proposal would substantially increase thearea they planned to revegetate over the next threeyears (median of 12 ha). The total area to be revege-tated over the three years was equal to one percent ofthe entire watershed, or an area equal to the amountof saline affected land in the watershed. Armed withsurvey data for each RMU, watershed managers inthe Wimmera will be able to model the extent thatstronger cost sharing arrangements will achieve theirrevegetation targets in high priority RMU for bothbiodiversity conservation (habitat conservation) andsalinity mitigation (lowering water tables; Lockwoodet al., 2002). The view that a variety of policyapproaches is needed was reinforced by the findingthat 52 percent of respondents would not/were unlike-ly to take up the incentive scheme.

CONCLUSIONS

A Role for Watershed Based Data Collections

Given the limited availability of socio-economicdata relevant to watershed planners, watershed part-ners settled on the collection of spatially-referenceddata through a mail survey to the rural landholders.Data collection has focused on exploring landholderawareness and concern about issues; knowledge ofand confidence in recommended sustainable farmingpractices; adoption of those practices; and the long-term plans of landholders for their properties.

This approach represented a break from previousefforts to provide socio-economic data to underpinwatershed planning that have relied on national datacollections such as the Population and Household andFarm censuses. These national collections are a par-ticularly cost effective source of useful information forwatershed planners about the spatial and temporaltrends in population size and composition; industryand occupation structures; and levels of employment,education, and incomes. The additional costs of thewatershed based survey work outlined in this paper is justified on the grounds that large public invest-ments are being made through regional watershedplans that depend on the cooperation of the private

landholders who control most of the land in the water-sheds.

Engaging Watershed Project Partners

The intention was to provide a thorough descrip-tion of the research approach, especially the process ofwatershed partner engagement. Above all else, thisprocess must be flexible to meet the needs of water-shed partners and their unique regional contexts andthe process cannot be fast tracked without jeopardiz-ing the substantial benefits of CNRM processes. Theexperiences described herein suggest that the use of aproject reference group, part of a wider commitmentto collaborative partnerships, has benefits in terms ofdrawing on local knowledge, providing access to localgovernment mailing lists and state agency data lay-ers, and building lasting commitment and capacity tounderstand and utilize data and research findings.Working collaboratively with watershed partners, con-cerns about the confidentiality of survey respondentinformation and the need for longer-term partneraccess to research data were addressed effectively.Also, it was demonstrated that by applying soundresearch methods it is possible to consistently achievemail survey response rates in excess of 60 percent:response rates that provide watershed managers withhigh levels of confidence in the reliability of dataobtained.

By drawing on findings from the Wimmera water-shed study the value of the spatially referenced land-holder information collected through the mail surveyswas illustrated.

Spatial and Temporal Differences in Social Structure

In the Wimmera region there were significant dif-ferences in social structure at the RMU scale, includ-ing differences in the size of properties, landholderoccupations, and land management practices. Water-shed managers who were aware of these differencesand the key factors affecting the uptake of recom-mended practices should be better equipped to devel-op communication strategies and policy options toaccomplish watershed targets.

Combining information survey respondents provid-ed about their age and long term plans with Aus-tralian government life expectancy tables allowed usto model the extent and location of future propertyturnover across the region. Half of all properties arelikely to be in different hands in just over 10 years.This will be an unprecedented transfer of propertymanagement and will represent both an opportunity



and a challenge to watershed planners. To the extentthat these new landholders will be new settlers in thewatershed there is likely to be a loss of local knowl-edge and a greater need for Landcare and TopCropgroups to undertake outreach or extension work. Atthe same time, watershed managers may decide thatthis turnover in property ownership represents anopportunity to achieve substantial changes in landmanagement practices, for example, through marketpurchases of strategic parcels of land.

Exploring Landholder Responses to Dryland Salinity

By integrating the survey data with state agencymaps of saline discharge sites the extent to whichlandholder awareness of dryland salinity matched theexpert maps was tested. The assumption had beenthat landholders underestimated the extent of dry-land salinity on their properties and that this lack ofawareness undermined efforts to ameliorate theeffects of salinity. The analyses suggested that almostall landholders had accurate knowledge of existingsaline affected areas. This finding has important poli-cy implications. In the first instance, the high level oflandholder awareness of areas currently affected bydryland salinity appears to affirm the value of thesubstantial investment that has been made in com-munity education, including through Landcare andTopCrop groups, to raise awareness and understand-ing of salinity.

Informing the Selection of Policy Instruments

Wimmera survey questions also explored respon-dent interest in taking up incentives for work thatwould lead to increased native vegetation on privateland. Analysis of survey data suggested that strongerincentives would make an important contribution tothe achievement of watershed plan objectives, butthat other policy options would be needed to engage atleast half the survey respondents.

Watershed partners will be able to return to theirsurvey data to explore other questions. For example,private farm forestry is a priority action identified bya number of watershed plans to counter the effects ofrising water tables that have mobilized saline groundwater. Survey respondents have been asked to provideinformation about their current and intended involve-ment in farm forestry and the importance of a rangeof social and economic constraints affecting theircapacity to adopt farm forestry. Only some parts ofmost regions are suited to farm forestry in terms of

rainfall, soils, and proximity to processing plants. Byintegrating survey data with these data layers it willbe possible to assess the extent landholders havetaken up or are interested in adopting farm forestryin locations where it is considered a viable option.

Survey data can also assist with the evaluation ofprograms where those programs have been applied toa specific region or part of a region. It is relativelystraightforward to make a comparison between thoselandholders where there has been an interventionand those landholders where there has not been anintervention to assess program impact across land-holder awareness, knowledge, confidence, or uptake ofspecific practices.

These examples and others provided earlier illus-trate the potential of survey data to assist watershedmanagers to refine their investment priorities; devel-op and improve their communication with privatelandholders; select from the range of policy options toaccomplish watershed targets; and over time, use thisbaseline data to evaluate the achievement of interme-diate watershed plan objectives (improved awareness,knowledge, confidence in practices, adoption of prac-tices).

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