Water is a key input in the production of many goods and services and under certain conditions can become a critical limiting factor with significant impacts on regional development. This is the case of many agricultural European Mediterranean basins, where water deficit during drought events is...

The Drought Management Plans (DMPs) are a regulatory instrument that establishes priorities among the different water uses and defines more stringent constraints to access to publicly provided water during droughts, especially for non-priority uses such as agriculture. These plans have recently...

In several arid and semi-arid Mediterranean basins, water deficits in irrigated agriculture during drought events are relieved by illegal abstractions from aquifers. Illegal abstractions are largely tolerated by the authorities and are regarded by farmers as a reliable and inexpensive form of...

For an irrigator, investments in on-farm water infrastructure that increase the marginal productivity of water may improve use efficiency. However, increasing on-farm water use efficiency invariably diminishes return flows, compromising the ability to maintain sufficient water flows in streams...

Alternatives to the current buy-back of water entitlements by the government in the Murray Darling Basin are assessed using multiple criteria based on the western U.S. experience, real options theory, scenario analysis and policy adoption criteria. This analysis suggests the following benefits...

This study investigates the role that certified-organic farming systems play in irrigation water-use in the Murray–Darling Basin, where large-scale government policy has focussed on returning water from irrigation to key ecological sites. Information from Australia's agricultural census in...

Governments in Australia are purchasing water entitlements to secure water for environmental benefit, but entitlements generate an allocation profile that does not correspond fully to environmental flow requirements. Therefore, how environmental managers will operate to deliver small and...