The Murray Darling Basin Current is currently in drought. There are low water levels in most dams, and increased uncertainty about future rainfall. As a result management of the ecosystems in the basin that depend on river flows involves some hard decisions about what assets to save and what...

Australia has long been considered a commodity based economy, with the relationship between the terms of trade and the real exchange rate well documented. Less well documented are the determinants of the Australian terms of trade and how these have moved in response to structural change and...

The intertemporal management of irrigation water involves a consumption-storage decision, where the benefits of using water today are evaluated against the uncertain benefits of storing water for future use. Traditionally in Australia, state governments have centrally managed the major water...

We analysed to what extent the stochastic effects of two biological control agents (i.e. weevils and mycoherbicides) affect the optimal choice of Californian thistle control. A stochastic, dynamic optimisation model was set up to analyse strategies that maximise the expected net present values....

The welfare costs of urban water restrictions are now well recognised, even if not yet quantified with precision (see, for example, Edwards 2008). Notwithstanding the costs that attend this form of intervention, governments have proven reluctant to abandon them, at least until additional...

Dairy farming in the Waikato Region has contributed greatly to the reduction of water quality. Part of this is attributable to the issue of inappropriate disposal of dairy effluent. Regional authority data shows both costs and benefits of complying with effluent management regulations. Private...

The $2.1 million invested for the sweet corn research breeding program resulted in the release of Hybrix5 in 1995 which is a new sweet corn variety with improved insect and disease resistance. Based on the ex-post evaluation of this research program, it was estimated that the net benefits of the...