Policy Diversity: Creative Potential or Wasteful

Redundancy?

Amanda H. Lynch

Diffusion of Innovation

• Reform of environmental policy and decisions is most likely to fail when a threat to a power or value position is perceived.

• When this occurs, the credibility, admissibility, or domain of empirical knowledge is often called into question on normative grounds.

• One model to explore this dynamic is the diffusion of empirical knowledge and values*.

* Rogers, E.M. (1995) Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. Free Press, New YorkHenry A.D. (2009) The Challenge of Learning for Sustainability, Research in Human Ecology

Centralized and Decentralized Decisions

Centralized Decentralized

Innovation utilizes primarily expert sources. Consultation often pro forma.

Innovation relies on practitioners in regional government, communities and industry.

Diffusion occurs as a uniform package. Diffusion occurs through adaptation.

Primary advantage:

Access to formal power, including sanctions and resources, can ensure robust environmental outcomes.

Flexibility and redundancy allows a reserve of creative potential that enhances resilience in the face of uncertainty.

Examples:

• Yellow River Delta, wetlands restoration

• Colorado River Basin, “The Law of the River”

• Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

• EU Public Health Heat Alert Systems

EU environmental regulation

Case Analysis: Murray-Darling River Basin

• Australia’s three longest rivers• 14% of Australian land area, across 4

states and 1 territory• Red gum forests, grass plains, intensive

agriculture, small towns• 52% of Australia’s water consumption• 41% Australia’s gross national

agricultural product• 35 endangered birds, 16 endangered

mammals, 20 mammals already extinct

Murray-Darling Basin Climate

Murray-Darling Basin Climate

“With low water allocations, I had to buy extra water just to keep the trees alive. I've just spent an extra $200,000 so I'm virtually going to be working the whole year for no return. I mean, it's just a survival mode that I can see and that's for this next 12 months and how do we know - this could go on for years - we don't know.”

...Richard Swinstead 2007

“The tormented irrigators are family farmers of our national food bowl, the producers of the nation’s food supply, who have barely held on through a decade of drought exacerbated by water restrictions for phony ‘environmental flows’, but now when they finally have an opportunity to replenish their land and grow full crops, they are being blocked”

...Craig Isherwood 2010

Murray-Darling Basin Climate

Murray-Darling Basin Governance

1905: Regulation negotiations commence1914: River Murray Water Agreement1917: River Murray Commission1936: Hume Dam ensures continuous flow1983: Scope of Commission expanded1988: Murray-Darling Basin Commission1994: “The Cap”1997-2003: Catchment Management Authorities2007: Water Act

Water Market initiated2008: Murray-Darling Basin Authority

Commonwealth Water Holder

“Law of the River” Murray-Darling Basin Authority

1944 Wimmera

Survey

“Principle 7: The best available knowledge (including scientific, local and cultural knowledge), evidence and analysis should be used where practicable to ensure credibility, transparency and usefulness of monitoring and evaluation findings” (Murray-Darling Basin Authority, 2012, p.147).

What are the sources and conduits of policy innovation and diffusion concerning water allocations during drought and risk management during flood?

1. Benign Command and Control

• Promotes protecting the river though government regulation.

• Supports the Commonwealth water buyback scheme to underpin environmental flows.

• Strong focus on allowing bank over-topping as a natural environmental renewal process.

• Seeks exercise of formal power through government regulation and enforcement.

“YES!! The abuse & overuse must stop. Sadly, most people won't until they HAVE to.”

2. Supported Industry Innovation

• Promotes government assistance for local practitioner innovation.

• Concerned about flexibility of water allocation programs as region oscillates between drought and flood.

• Places the policy question in the context of national food security and viability of export industry.

“You can’t be GREEN if you are in the RED.”

3. Culture and Community

• Promotes legitimate engagement with long time residents, including Indigenous Traditional Owners in co-management agreements.

• Community sustainability outweighs broader economic and environmental outcomes.

• Innovation arises through shared experience.• Mistrust of government and science.

“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan will only focus on economic relief for the most tax protected people in the world

FARMERS”

Is there any common ground?• Scientific and federal government expert contributions to the

development of policy has been the hallmark of the Murray-Darling Basin planning process.

• The Plan is supported by State Government and Catchment Management Authority representatives.

• The Plan does not enjoy strong support from farmers, community members, and tribal groups.

• Successful diffusion of water policy innovation is not likely to be achieved using the present strategy (“invite, inform, ignore”)

While policy innovations are being generated, the diffusion of policy is still sufficiently contested that it remains an open question as to whether the Plan will survive judicial scrutiny.

What have we learned?

Centralized Decentralized

Advantages

Access to expert knowledgeAccess to sanctions and resourcesWell defined environmental outcomesEfficiency

Access to contextual and local knowledgeRobust to high uncertaintyInnovation “dividend”Redundancy

Disadvantages

One size fits allSlow to adjust to changing signalsPartial incorporationSingle point failure

Limited resources and attentionVenue shoppingPartial incorporationAllocative inefficiencies

What have we learned?

1. High uncertainty and large variability demand the innovation dividend of policy diversity.

2. Critical environmental and social outcomes demand the efficiency dividend of centralized goal-setting.

Subsidiarity principle “holds that government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently”

Questions?