Events Ensuring the safety and security of precious catchment runoff

An Australian perspective of the need for accounting-informed practice and policy for decision making around agricultural water use and storage

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020, 11 AM MIT Campus, E51-275, 70 Memorial Drive RSVP Here Organizer: J-WAFS

This talk is the second in a seminar series on water accounting and decision support tools for water management by J-WAFS visiting scholar Dr Joanne Tingey-Holyoak  CPAg, CPA, PhD, BBus (Hons 1A), a senior lecturer and researcher in the Sustainable Engineering, Accounting and Law Group in the University of Southern Australia (UniSA) Business School.  In it, Dr. Tingey-Holyoak will address the need for accounting-informed practices to manage agricultural runoff.

With the demand for food increasing globally, farmers are pressed to capture, store and use more water to achieve higher yields under worsening climate extremes. Around the world this is creating unfair runoff capture and storage practices during droughts, and unsafe structures in times of flood. A lack of accounting for dams that are not managed properly at the individual level results in a lack of awareness of the equity challenges and safety threats to downstream communities and to the environment as a result of runoff catchment.  This talk draws on evidence from 80 on-site dam assessments and 558 farmer surveys in 4 states in Australia. It offers an understanding of the problem and the associated water accounting practice and policy needs within the Australian setting, one that comprises the dual hydrologic extremes of floods and droughts which are further exacerbated by climate change.   

Please RSVP here.