Land & Water Australia has invested substantially over the years in both biophysical research and social and institutional research that have supported adaptive and sustainable agriculture. This knowledge base has helped Australian farmers to adapt in order to manage climate change, climate variability, biodiversity, water, land-use constraints and the wider expectations placed on farm families and rural communities.
Extensive drainage systems have been constructed on coastal floodplains to mitigate the effects of floods and to enable the development of agricultural industries. They have also greatly increased the rate of acidity entering creeks and estuaries from acid sulfate soils, resulted in a loss of fish breeding habitats and led to changes in the vegetation composition of backswamps. Coastal drains usually have floodgates which prevent tidal inundation of backswamps and reduce the ingress of saline water (more)...
This project has examined the processes causing poor drainage water quality from acid sulfate soil backswamps, quantified the water quality improvements resulting from floodgate opening strategies, quantified the effectiveness of acid groundwater retention strategies, and examined the salinity risks to sugar cane from opening floodgates.
Project Objectives:
1. To identify and quantify the effects of changes to floodgate and land management practices on (more)...
This report describes spatial datasets derived from the Agricultural Census that identify the extent of land used by Australian agricultural industries and maps the spatial footprint of six industries of interest to the Signposts project. These maps show where production of cotton, milk cattle , beef cattle, wine grapes, horticulture and grains occur and have changed over time. There are two spatial boundaries structures that have been used in this report, one is based on statistical local areas and (more)...
Final report prepared for the Bureau of Rural Sciences
Signposts for Australian Agriculture is a project coordinated by the National Land and Water Resources Audit, with initial funding from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Recognising the importance of this initiative, the Bureau of Rural Sciences has allocated its own funding to support Signposts. The 2005-06 funding includes provision to carry out a review of the social components of the Signposts for Australian Agriculture Framework. This review follows on from a review carried out (more)...
Implications for social and institutional research and communication
This ‘stocktake’ is really about sustainable agriculture, of which adaptive agriculture is one important element. Agriculture cannot be sustainable if it does not adapt to the threats and opportunities constantly facing it. Adaptive agriculture may therefore be seen as the means of producing food and fibre in ways that remain dynamic, vibrant, flexible and constantly responding to the natural environment and the operating environment of the market.
Irrigation Futures of the Goulburn Broken Catchment
The Goulburn Broken Catchment is known as the food bowl of Australia. It covers 2.4 million hectares and has a population of around 200,000 people (Department of Sustainability and Environment, 2005). Irrigated agriculture is a major business engine in the Goulburn Broken region, producing more than $1.2 billion at the farm gate in 2001-2002 from about 280,000 hectares of irrigated agricultural land. Investment in on-farm and processing (more)...
