Water policy is not that simple

Neither of these priorities is spelt out in the NWI and it is not clear that governments recognise the dangers that are created by their absence. Someone, somewhere, will have to change that situation.

Funds for consultancies related to the implementation of the NWI are mainly being directed to the requirements of water markets and the installation and upgrading of infrastructure but much more needs to be done if the NWI is to succeed.

Water issues affect all sections of society. Committed individuals can make important contributions but in most cases they lack the capacity for substantial research. Universities, on the other hand, are among the very few institutions with the resources needed to generate a critical mass of high quality thinking about complex policy issues such as water. They are also one of the very few sectors that can discuss important public issues with a degree of economic and intellectual distance from the priorities of governments of the day.

The ANU and its research partners have established strengths across a broad spectrum of water-related issues, from global change, public health, policy analysis, environmental law, resource and environmental economics, indigenous and gender issues, through to hydrology, geochemistry and membrane technology which are applied over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales.

By linking the University’s resources and those of its partners, the ANU Water Initiative will develop the knowledge and understanding of water systems - encompassing not just the economic aspects but also the institutional, legal, social, cultural and biophysical components - to provide the education necessary to change or improve practices, promote innovation, inform and support policy development and facilitate successful implementation.

The intellectual cornerstone of the water program at ANU is therefore strategic, problem-based integration of the issues connected with water, across the relevant disciplines and societal structures. The value of the program depends crucially on how well it contributes to the synthesis and accrual of knowledge for water systems, on how closely it works with the community to identify and solve problems, and on its ability to deliver practical decision-support tools based on sound understanding.

Without this kind of approach to complex environmental issues, the National Water Initiative and its subsequent water plans will suffer the same fate as previous efforts to manage this most precious of natural resources.