Evaluation of policy approaches to dryland salinity management in the Kent river catchment

Kington, E.A. and Smettem, K.R.J.ORCID: 0000-0003-2650-4429 (2001) Evaluation of policy approaches to dryland salinity management in the Kent river catchment. In: Conacher, A.J., (ed.) Land Degradatio’: Papers Selected from Contributions to the Sixth Meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification, Perth, Western Australia, 20-28 September 1999. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 347-362.

Abstract

To date, the Australian government has attempted to use various legislative and policy initiatives to manage the spread of dryland salinity and protect the natural environment. Despite these initiatives, the area of land affected by dryland salinity continues to increase and may now be difficult to control using existing management capabilities.

This paper evaluates three quite different approaches to dryland salinity management which have been attempted in the Kent River catchment, located in the southwest of Western Australia. The approaches are; regulatory, co-operative and market driven. The implementation and impact of each management approach are assessed within their respective historical, social and environmental contexts. The assessment reveals that existing regulatory and co-operative approaches have implementation problems and have not been effective in controlling dryland salinity at the catchment scale.

It is concluded that although current policy evaluation methods are somewhat underdeveloped, it is possible to combine a number of evaluation approaches in order to gain insight into the advantages and disadvantages of economic and behavioural incentives to manage salinity problems.

Item Type:	Book Chapter
Publisher:	Kluwer Academic Publishers
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/39155

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