The potential to map the adaptive capacity of Australian land managers for NRM policy using ABS data

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Resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity are terms increasingly used in rural policy, but rarely defined or converted into practical measures that support policy design and implementation. Adaptive capacity measures based on rural livelihoods analysis have been developed and trialled using ABARE data for broadacre industries. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the potential to expand the application to all agricultural industries and to broaden the range of data used to inform the five capitals in the framework.

Rural livelihoods analysis can empower rural communities and policy advisers by identifying the attributes of adaptive capacity that can be enhanced through individual and collective action. It provides a pragmatic tool for policy agencies to prioritise capacity building towards the land managers in industries and regions most likely to benefit. An assessment of the model against existing national data sets suggests that ABS data could be used to create practical measures of adaptive capacity of Australian land managers.

There would be, however, a number of statistical issues associated with aggregating data from different sampling populations. A scoping project for a limited set of agricultural regions has been designed, to evaluate options to address these issues and to inform the usefulness of the adaptive capacity framework for development of policy advice.