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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101503
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$357,996.00
Summary
Using improved markets to reduce over-extraction of groundwater. This project aims to investigate the key aspects needed for a successful groundwater market, including extraction limits, innovative trading systems and reasonable transaction costs. The outcomes of the project can contribute to environmental benefits that minimise short-term financial losses to irrigators. The project also expects to enhance the capacity of water agencies to implement cap and trade systems that can reduce over-ext ....Using improved markets to reduce over-extraction of groundwater. This project aims to investigate the key aspects needed for a successful groundwater market, including extraction limits, innovative trading systems and reasonable transaction costs. The outcomes of the project can contribute to environmental benefits that minimise short-term financial losses to irrigators. The project also expects to enhance the capacity of water agencies to implement cap and trade systems that can reduce over-extraction.Read moreRead less
Enhancing and evaluating stakeholder engagement for improved water outcomes. Stakeholder engagement, widely recognised as essential in successful water governance, remains ad hoc both in practice and as a research theme. Using a detailed analysis of a complex evolutionary case of stakeholder engagement in water management in the Murray-Darling Basin (1900- 2020), this project aims to develop new approaches to measure the structure and form of socio-culturally derived stakeholder engagement syste ....Enhancing and evaluating stakeholder engagement for improved water outcomes. Stakeholder engagement, widely recognised as essential in successful water governance, remains ad hoc both in practice and as a research theme. Using a detailed analysis of a complex evolutionary case of stakeholder engagement in water management in the Murray-Darling Basin (1900- 2020), this project aims to develop new approaches to measure the structure and form of socio-culturally derived stakeholder engagement system, to improve socio-economic and environmental benefits from water. The expected output is a new diagnostic tool for evaluating stakeholder engagement that can be taken up by governing bodies. The expected benefit is more inclusive, equal, and adaptive water governance through more effective stakeholder engagement.Read moreRead less
Benefits and costs of non-market valuation for environmental management. Benefits from environmental policies are often unpriced “non-market values” (NMVs). Environmental agencies struggle to know how best to measure these relatively intangible benefits, but doing so is important to ensure value for money from public investments. Environmental economists have developed and applied a wide range of methods for estimating NMVs. The methods vary in their comprehensiveness, accuracy and cost. Yet no ....Benefits and costs of non-market valuation for environmental management. Benefits from environmental policies are often unpriced “non-market values” (NMVs). Environmental agencies struggle to know how best to measure these relatively intangible benefits, but doing so is important to ensure value for money from public investments. Environmental economists have developed and applied a wide range of methods for estimating NMVs. The methods vary in their comprehensiveness, accuracy and cost. Yet no rigorous tool is available to assess (a) which NMV method is best to implement, accounting for its cost and its potential to improve decisions, or (b) whether any NMV method improves decisions enough to warrant its cost. In creating such a tool, this project will deliver a key breakthrough in environmental economics.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190101512
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$383,960.00
Summary
Inclusive community planning for people with disabilities in regional areas. This project aims to produce new knowledge to foster inclusion of people with disabilities in local community planning practice in regional areas. Exclusion of people with disabilities in local communities persists despite the national disability reform agenda. This project will place spatial justice thinking and critical disability theory within a community planning and development context to examine the concept as a s ....Inclusive community planning for people with disabilities in regional areas. This project aims to produce new knowledge to foster inclusion of people with disabilities in local community planning practice in regional areas. Exclusion of people with disabilities in local communities persists despite the national disability reform agenda. This project will place spatial justice thinking and critical disability theory within a community planning and development context to examine the concept as a scaled phenomenon. Using participatory research methods, the project will directly engage persons with disabilities and community planners in co-producing an adaptive model of practice. The project outcomes will help to create more inclusive, healthy, and resilient communities that enable people with disabilities to lead ordinary and fulfilling lives.Read moreRead less
Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and pr ....Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and protocols will improve our ability to generate better data and better understand how social and incentive mechanisms can constructively interact to facilitate collaborative environmental action. Results will help make the achievement of environmental targets and the use of public funds more cost-effective. Read moreRead less
Managing Carbon Offsets to Improve Australian Climate Policy Effectiveness. This project aims to evaluate the Emissions Reduction Fund-Australia’s flagship climate policy-by using a combination of state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental economic methods. This project expects to generate new knowledge by investigating how the use of aggregators (intermediaries) and contract design impact the current regulation. Expected outcomes of this project include a clear scholarly understanding of how ....Managing Carbon Offsets to Improve Australian Climate Policy Effectiveness. This project aims to evaluate the Emissions Reduction Fund-Australia’s flagship climate policy-by using a combination of state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental economic methods. This project expects to generate new knowledge by investigating how the use of aggregators (intermediaries) and contract design impact the current regulation. Expected outcomes of this project include a clear scholarly understanding of how to redesign the regulatory system to deliver better environmental outcomes for less public funds. The insights gained should provide significant benefits to both Federal and State Australian policymakers (as well as policymakers worldwide) on the design and implementation of carbon offsetting mechanisms.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101918
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$417,990.00
Summary
Fair conservation: pathways to equitable and effective protected areas. This project aims to determine the conditions under which coral reef protected areas are likely to be considered fair by local stakeholders and how perceived fairness is related to cooperation with management. With protected areas set to cover 30% of the world’s surface by 2030, addressing the understudied question of what constitutes fairness for stakeholders is of pressing importance. This project will conduct the first mu ....Fair conservation: pathways to equitable and effective protected areas. This project aims to determine the conditions under which coral reef protected areas are likely to be considered fair by local stakeholders and how perceived fairness is related to cooperation with management. With protected areas set to cover 30% of the world’s surface by 2030, addressing the understudied question of what constitutes fairness for stakeholders is of pressing importance. This project will conduct the first multi-country comparative analysis of perceived protected area fairness, the factors that shape those perceptions and their implications for cooperation with management. Project outcomes include enhanced capacity to plan for and inform effective protected areas that are considered fair by the people most affected by them.Read moreRead less
Sustainable Water Reuse and Resource Recovery through Cost-Effective BNR. The recycling of treated wastewater effluents is needed to achieve water security, where very low nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) levels must be achieved for wastewater to be effectively recycled. This research investigates a more sustainable and cost-effective N&P removal process from wastewater, benefiting the environment and improving the viability of wastewater recycling. Phosphorus is a limited resource worldwide and ....Sustainable Water Reuse and Resource Recovery through Cost-Effective BNR. The recycling of treated wastewater effluents is needed to achieve water security, where very low nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) levels must be achieved for wastewater to be effectively recycled. This research investigates a more sustainable and cost-effective N&P removal process from wastewater, benefiting the environment and improving the viability of wastewater recycling. Phosphorus is a limited resource worldwide and will be effectively recovered in the process to be used as a fertiliser. This project develops wastewater treatment process tools, solutions and management strategies that addresses the current challenges of how optimal nutrient removal and recovery from wastewater is achieved, enabling water recycling and saving costs.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100190
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$379,729.00
Summary
The effectiveness of impact investing for biodiversity conservation. This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of impact investing for biodiversity conservation. Over $150 billion of private capital is invested worldwide to deliver social and environmental “impact” alongside a financial return. Impact investing promises “win-win-wins” for investors, governments and biodiversity alike, but also risks exacerbating accountability failures, transaction costs and conflicts of interest within hi ....The effectiveness of impact investing for biodiversity conservation. This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of impact investing for biodiversity conservation. Over $150 billion of private capital is invested worldwide to deliver social and environmental “impact” alongside a financial return. Impact investing promises “win-win-wins” for investors, governments and biodiversity alike, but also risks exacerbating accountability failures, transaction costs and conflicts of interest within highly complex governance networks. This project seeks to discover factors that enable or inhibit the effectiveness of impact investing using a governance perspective. Project outcomes are expected to inform how impact investing may be harnessed to improve biodiversity conservation while minimising perverse outcomes.Read moreRead less
Activating lazy stormwater wetlands through real time monitoring & control. Constructed stormwater wetlands are the last line of defence preventing pollution of urban waterways, but wetlands often fail, with their passive operation unable to adapt to the highly variable climate and hydrology they experience. This project aims to use advances in real-time control technology to turn these lazy wetlands into active wetland systems, optimising their performance. It aims to deliver new-generation tec ....Activating lazy stormwater wetlands through real time monitoring & control. Constructed stormwater wetlands are the last line of defence preventing pollution of urban waterways, but wetlands often fail, with their passive operation unable to adapt to the highly variable climate and hydrology they experience. This project aims to use advances in real-time control technology to turn these lazy wetlands into active wetland systems, optimising their performance. It aims to deliver new-generation technologies to enhance water quality treatment, enhance urban water security and guarantee environmental flows to maintain healthy waterways. Working in partnership with waterway managers and water retailers, this project strives to deliver a nationally and globally relevant technology to change how we manage water in cities.Read moreRead less