Risk assessment is a fundamental process that underpins natural resources management. Based on the AS/NZS ISO31000:2009, the South Australian Department for Environment and Water’s (DEW) water resource risk assessment focusses on western concepts of natural resource management: economic production and environmental conservation. This western framework fails to engage with Indigenous worldviews that focus on reproduction and interconnected benefit and give effect to Indigenous values and interests.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan requires Basin states to consider Aboriginal cultural values in water resource risk assessment, further highlighting a significant policy gap for DEW and other jurisdictions with possible implications for the accreditation of South Australia’s water resource plans.
Over the past 15 years, Ngarrindjeri have emerged as a leading Indigenous Nation in relation to Indigenous engagement in water resource management and were awarded the Australian Riverprize in 2015. Recent Ngarrindjeri collaborations with Flinders University* have supported the emergence of the Ngarrindjeri Yannarumi Assessment process that enables assessments of environmental and water health, based on Ngarrindjeri principles and philosophies.
Flinders University, DEW and the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority partnered in this project that seeks to translate Ngarrindjeri Yannarumi assessments into water resource risk assessments. The project seeks to articulate the points of connection between the two processes and informs the necessary adaptations required to DEW’s current water risk assessment conceptual models to integrate Aboriginal cultural values. The outcomes of this project may have application across all aspects of natural resources management improving the recognition of Aboriginal values and interests.
* lead researchers Steve Hemming and Daryle Rigney have since moved to UTS
The project was completed in February 2020. The project had four research tasks, which included:
1. Literature review – Review national and international contexts regarding the integration of Indigenous knowledge, values and wellbeing into natural resources management risk assessments.
2. Workshop to share assessment processes – For DEW staff to improve their understanding of the Yannarumi assessment process and for Ngarrindjeri to improve their understanding of the DEW water risk assessment process. For DEW staff, Ngarrindjeri and researchers to better understand how these two processes can connect.
The project team coordinated two workshops between DEW water policy and planning staff and Ngarrindjeri in early 2019 to inform a connecting methodology to translate Yannarumi assessment outcomes into water risk assessment. The outputs of these workshops were used by the project team to design changes to the DEW Risk Management Framework for Water Planning and Management to better engage First Nations peoples. The key design changes related to the inclusion of a new category of risk creating a space for First Nations to speak to: Risks to First Nations peoples, including the following sub-categories:
3. Develop translating mechanism and test – Create a connecting methodology and process that can translate Ngarrindjeri Yannarumi assessment outcomes into water resource risk assessment, while also considering principles that could be utilised to engage other Aboriginal Nations. The project tested the methodology and process using the River Murray context and documented a methodology for applying the conceptual model to Aboriginal engagement for the River Murray WRP risk assessment.
The project team engaged a DEW water planner with no previous involvement in the project to test the adaptations to the risk management framework and the engagement guideline. Two risk assessment workshops with Ngarrindjeri were delivered in late 2019. Recommended improvements to the risk assessment and engagement guideline were collated. Risk assessment workshop outcomes are summarised in the bowtie diagram. The diagram summarises the assessment of risks to Ngarrindjeri goals and objectives related to water resource management. The diagram integrates Ngarrindjeri Cultural Knowledge, applied a Yannarumi assessment methodology and remains the property of the Ngarrindjeri Nation. The diagram is being shared to communicate and demonstrate the inclusion of a new category of risk in the DEW Risk Management Framework: Risks to First Nations peoples. Other First Nations may view risks to Country in different ways.
4. Adapting DEW’s risk assessment process – To develop a prototype water risk assessment methodology and process based on the AS/NZSISO31000 that connects with Aboriginal health and wellbeing principles.
The project team generated recommended adaptations to the DEW Risk Management Framework for Water Planning and Management and updated draft First Nations Engagement Guideline were submitted these to the Department for its consideration.
DEW staff involved in the project are complete a review of the DEW Risk Management Framework for Water Planning and Management in early 2021 based on over eight years of implementation. The project’s recommendations to the Framework were integrated into the review. The First Nations Engagement Guideline was also developed with the assistance of the research team and an endorsed Guideline was completed in 2021.
This project has been informed by previous Goyder research projects (each partnerships between the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority and Flinders University):
The project also builds on partnerships between DEW, NRA and Flinders University through the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth (CLLMM) Ngarrindjeri Partnerships Project.
Chris Wright holds significant experience in public sector senior leadership, having led policy, scientific and operational business units over the last twelve years in both State and Commonwealth government agencies. Chris has excellent experiences in leading policy and strategy formulation. He is skilled in building and maintaining networks across the public and private sectors to facilitate business delivery; leading and negotiating with others to achieve outcomes; and in bridging the science-policy gap, drawing on earlier roles in geospatial information systems (GIS) consulting. Chris’s formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Social Science, a Masters of Spatial Information Science and graduation from the AICD Company Directors course in 2019.
Dr Ilka Wallis is a hydrogeologist with areas of expertise in quantitative hydrogeology and geochemistry. Ilka focuses on the development of reactive geochemical transport models which integrate fundamental processes that are normally studied in isolation (hydrogeological, mineralogical, geochemical and biochemical).
Ilka is also an Adjunct Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Manitoba, Canada since 2017.
Peter Goonan is the Principal Aquatic Biologist in the Environmental Science Branch of the EPA. He has over 30 years’ experience monitoring the condition of aquatic ecosystems in SA and assessing the environmental effects caused by discharges, deposits and contaminants entering inland and coastal waters. He specialises in aquatic invertebrate identification and their responses to contaminants and water quality stressors. He also provides expert professional advice relating to water quality risks, regulation, policy, and strategic directions, and represents the EPA as an expert witness in court.
Dr Paul Monis is a technical expert within SA Water’s Business Services group, which provides scientific expertise to support the delivery of water and wastewater services to SA Water’s customers. He has specialist expertise in the areas of biotechnology and microbiology, with almost 20 years’ experience applying DNA-based and other technologies to address water quality challenges posed by microorganisms, especially enteric pathogens. Dr Monis also holds title of Adjunct Associate Professor at Flinders University, the University of Adelaide and UniSA.
Jennie’s role in the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) allows her to foster and strengthen opportunities for researchers to better connect with government to enable evidence-based decision making. Jennie has extensive experience working in both universities and government, allowing her to bridge the divide between the two sectors. She is focused on connecting natural resource researchers with natural resource decision makers, and facilitating fit for purpose partnerships.
Dr Tanya Doody is a Principal Research Scientist working on high impact spatial eco-hydrological projects within CSIRO’s Land and Water Business Unit. Dr Doody leads the Managing Water Ecosystems Group, based in Adelaide, Albury and Canberra and has significant experience in quantifying the water requirements of vegetation and at times, their impact on water resources. This involves ecophysiological field-based research to underpin remote sensing tools to scale regionally to improve our understanding of the effect of flood regimes on the health of water-dependent ecosystems on the Murray-Darling Basin floodplains. Additional research includes investigating the ecological response of vegetation to water availability and environmental water to inform integrated basin water planning and management.
Professor Lin Crase is Professor of Economics and Dean of Programs (Accounting & Finance) at UniSA. He joined UniSA in February 2016 as Head of School of Commerce. Prior to commencing at UniSA, Lin was Professor and Director of the Centre for Water Policy and Management at La Trobe University.
Lin’s research has focused on applied economics in the context of water. He has analysed water markets and the property rights that attend them, water pricing and numerous applications of water policy. Whilst his expertise includes the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, he has also worked on projects in south Asia, Japan and Europe. Lin has published over 100 journal articles, numerous book chapters, four books and a range of other papers and opinion pieces.
Justin has broad research interests in limnology and water treatment with a primary focus on coupling between hydrodynamics, biology and water quality contaminants such as cyanobacteria and pathogens. He is a founding member of the management committee of the IWA Specialist Group on Lake and Reservoir Management and member of the Steering Committee for the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network.
Justin has a PhD and a Bachelor of Science degree with Honours from the University of Adelaide.
Daniel Flaherty is the Accountant for the Goyder Institute for Water Research.
Daniel has extensive experience in higher education having worked in senior financial management roles at the University of South Australia, Flinders University and the University of Adelaide over the past 26 years. Daniel has also been a Board Director on a number of university related entities. Prior to that, Daniel has worked in a range of agencies in the Commonwealth and State Governments.
Daniel is a Fellow of CPA Australia and has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Adelaide.
Alec Rolston joined the Institute in 2021 as Research Program Manager of the Goyder Institute’s research projects in the Healthy Coorong, Healthy Basin program. He has extensive experience in integrated water resource management, integrated catchment management, drinking water source protection and wetland ecology, conservation and management across Europe and Australia.
Alec holds a PhD from the National University of Ireland Maynooth and has worked with An Fóram Uisce|The Water Forum and the Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland as well as the MANTEL Innovative Training Network across Europe.
Alec spent his early career in Adelaide working with Flinders University through the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth (CLLAMM) Ecology Research Cluster and within the Department for Environment and Water.
Daniel Pierce has managed research projects at the Goyder Institute for Water Research since November 2017 under both the second and third terms of the Institute.
Daniel brings experience in project management and knowledge transfer and application from 4 years working as a Senior Hydrogeologist in the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) in South Australia and from 13 years of private sector work in environmental management, science and engineering in Australia and the South Pacific. His work with DEW has included providing technical advice to the development and revision of Water Allocation Plans around South Australia in collaboration with researchers and policy makers, and managing a team of groundwater modellers and hydrogeologists involved in an assortment of water resource management issues.
Daniel has a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons, Environmental) and a Bachelor of Science (Geography) from the University of Western Australia.
Professor Lombi’s main contributions to environmental research cover various aspects of contaminant risk assessment, biogeochemistry, ecotoxicology and waste management. Furthermore, the methodological development he has pursued in his research has provided the basis for collaborative efforts in a variety of research areas ranging from soil fertility and plant physiology to human health issues related to contaminant uptake via occupational exposure and diet. In the last few years he has been increasingly focusing on the transformation and toxicity of manufactured nanomaterials in the environment.
Dr Carmel Pollino is a Research Director for Land and Water at CSIRO. She has 20 years of experience working on water issues in Australia and throughout Asia. Carmel has degrees in science and environmental law and works across the science and policy interface. Significant areas of research in Environmental Flows, Hydrology, Ecology and Integrated River Basin Planning. Carmel is the lead and also a contributor to global working groups on water and has published widely in this domain.
Professor Bronwyn Gillanders is interim Head of School of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide. Prof Gillanders completed her BSc at the University of Canterbury, MSc at the University of Otago and her PhD at the University of Sydney. She has a research background in environmental science focused predominantly on freshwater and marine ecology.
Her research interests include integrated marine management; coastal carbon opportunities; multiple use activities and cumulative impact assessment; biology, ecology and fisheries of cephalopods; stocking and provenance of fish; plastics in the marine environment including in seafood; use of fish bones (and other calcified structures) for assessing ecological and environmental change. She has trained and mentored ~70 Honours and Higher Degree Research students and shaped the future of 1000s of students through her undergraduate teaching. She is passionate about encouraging capable women to enter and remain in science careers.
Dan Jordan is the Director, Water Security, Policy and Planning, Department for Environment and Water (DEW). Dan is also the Basin Officials Committee Alternate Member for South Australia.
Professor Okke Batelaan is a graduate of the Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (MSc – Hydrogeology) and of the Free University Brussels, Belgium (PhD – Engineering). He worked for more than 20 years at the Free University Brussels and also led the hydrogeology group at the KU Leuven, Belgium since 2006. He was chairman of the Interuniversity Programme in Water Resources Engineering.
Since 2012 Okke Batelaan is Strategic Professor in Hydrogeology and currently Dean of the School of the Environment, Flinders University. Okke has broad experience in teaching groundwater hydrology, groundwater modelling, GIS and remote sensing for hydrological applications. He was supervisor of more than 140 MSc and 25 PhD students. He has extensive research experience and a publication record in shallow groundwater hydrology and modeling, recharge-discharge estimation and modeling, urban hydrology and distributed modelling, ecohydrology and impacts of land use and climate change on groundwater systems. He coordinated and participated in a large number of projects in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and Australia. He is editor-in-chief of Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies and of MDPI-Hydrology.
