Non-urban water governance: rethinking compliance and enforcement

Funding: 2020: $10,000
2021: $5,000

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)
Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2020

Summary: Building on decades of work with Australian and international regulators, this project partners with water regulators in France, USA and Australia to advance strategies and practices of non-urban water compliance and enforcement and identify and develop innovations for water regulation. Fusing cutting edge regulatory theory, empirical insights from world leading water regulators, and collaborative modelling approaches, the project will help solve vexing second wave environmental issues, and bolster policy reforms for delivering more robust, effective, efficient, and politically acceptable compliance outcomes for non-urban water management. The project pays particular attention to identifying, advancing and diffusing innovations in intelligent regulation across jurisdictions and socio-political gradients. This includes testing and exploring insights on the use of regulatory networks and new technologies, such as third-party regulators, self-regulation, remote monitoring, and mobile reporting, using computational social science and participatory agent-based simulation for compliance, including the development of escalation, targeting and behavioural tipping models, with the potential for connectivity with hydrological and hydrogeological models.

FOR Codes: Environmental management, Environmental Science and Management, Environmentally Sustainable Plant Production, Environmental and Natural Resource Evaluation, Land and Water Management, Rural Water Policy, Fresh, ground and surface water systems and management, Water policy (incl. water allocation)

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.