Abstract
There is an urgent need to reverse the declining environmental condition of rural landscapes across southern Australia. Current approaches focus on natural resources management planning, policy and decision making at the regional level. Regional plans and associated onground investment have the potential to have widespread and long-lasting environmental, economic and social impacts. However, rarely are these impacts quantified and clearly understood.
In this chapter we describe part of a large integrated project called the Lower Murray Landscape Futures (LMLF) which aimed to assess the impact of regional plans for the Lower Murray on selected environmental and socioeconomic indicators under alternative future landscape scenarios with input from stakeholders. The dryland component of the LMLF is a large-scale integrated regional planning and landscape futures analysis focussing on issues such as: agricultural production including food, fibre and bioenergy production; soil erosion; loss of terrestrial biodiversity; rising watertables; and the salinisation of the land and waterways. The project was designed to be inclusive and engender collaboration amongst researchers, participation by regional stakeholders, and communication to regional stakeholders and communities.
The intention is to provide useful evidence-based natural resourcemanagement planning advice to regional agencies. Landscape futures are plausible spatial arrangements of management actions (vegetation management, ecological restoration, conservation farming, deep-rooted perennials, biomass, and biofuels) that achieve regional natural resource management targets, assessed under six policy options and five climatic and economic scenarios. The triple bottom line impacts of landscape futures under each scenario and policy option were then assessed and visualised. The costs and benefits of landscape futures were compared and the trade-offs assessed to inform regional planning in the Lower Murray.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Baker JP, Hulse DW, Gregory SV, White D, Van Sickle J, Berger PA, Dole D, Schumaker NH (2004) Alternative futures for the Willamette River basin, Oregon. Ecological Applications 14:313–324
Baker JP, Landers DH (2004) Alternative futures analysis for the Willamette River basin, Oregon. Ecological Applications 14:311–312
Berger PA, Bolte JP (2004) Evaluating the impact of policy options on agricultural landscapes: an alternative-futures approach. Ecological Applications 14:342–354
Bryan BA, Crossman ND (in press) Systematic regional planning for multiple objective natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Management,doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.06.003
Bryan BA, Crossman ND, King D, McNeill J, Wang E, Barrett G, Ferris MM, Morrison JB, Pettit C, Freudenberger D, O’Leary G, Fawcett J, Meyer W (2007a) Lower Murray landscape futures dryland component: volume 2 – analysis of regional plans and landscape futures. Land Technologies Alliance and CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country, Canberra
Bryan BA, Crossman ND, King D, McNeill J, Wang E, Barrett G, Ferris MM, Morrison JB, Pettit C, Freudenberger D, O’Leary G, Fawcett J, Meyer W (2007b) Lower Murray landscape futures dryland component: volume 3 – preliminary analysis and modelling. Land Technologies Alliance and CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country, Canberra
Carpenter SR, Pingali PL, Bennet EM, Zurek MB (2005) Ecosystems and human wellbeing: scenarios. Millenium ecosystem assessment report volume 2. Island Press, Washington
Dole D, Niemi E (2004) Future water allocation and in-stream values in the Willamette River Basin: a basin-wide analysis. Ecological Applications 14:355–367
Hulse DW, Branscomb A, Payne SG (2004) Envisioning alternatives: using citizen guidance to map future land and water use. Ecological Applications 14:325–341
IPCC (2001) Climate change 2001: mitigation. Third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Raskin PD (2005) Global scenarios: background review for the millennium ecosystem assessment. Ecosystems 8:133–142
Raskin P, Kemp-Benedict, E (2002) GEO scenario framework. Background paper for UNEP’s third Global Environmental Outlook Report. United Nations Environment Program, Nairobi
Saaty TL (1980) The analytic hierarchy process. McGraw-Hill, New York
Santelman MV, White D, Freemark K, Nassauer JI, Eilers JM, Vaché KB, Danielson BJ, Corry RC, Clark ME, Polasky S, Cruse RM, Sifneos J, Rustigian HCoiner C, Wu J, Debinski D (2004) Assessing alternative futures for agriculture in Iowa, USA. Landscape Ecology 19:357–374
Schumaker NH, Ernst T, White D, Baker J, and Haggerty P (2004) Projecting wildlife responses to alternative future landscapes in Oregon’s Willamette Basin. Ecological Applications 14:?381–400
Schwartz P (1996) The art of the long view: planning for the future in an uncertain world. Doubleday, New York
Steinitz C (1990) A framework for theory applicable to the education of landscape architects (and other environmental design professionals). Landscape Journal 9:136–143
Steinitz C, Arias H, Bassett S, Flaxman M, Goode T, Maddock T III, Mouat D, Peiser R, Shearer A (2003) Alternative futures for changing landscapes – the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora. Island Press, Washington,DC
Suppiah R, Preston B, Whetton PH, McInnes KL, Jones RN, Macadam I, Bathols J, Kirono D (2006) Climate change under enhanced greenhouse conditions on South Australia. An updated report on: Assessment of climate change, impacts and risk management strategies relevant to South Australia. Climate Impacts and Risk Group, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Victoria
Theobald D (2005) Landscape patterns of exurban growth in the USA from 1980 to 2020. Ecology and Society 10:32. Available online, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vo110/iss1/art32/
Van Sickle J, Baker J, Herlihy A, Bayley P, Gregory S, Haggerty P, Ashkenas L, Li J (2004) Projecting the biological condition of streams under alternative scenarios of human land use. Ecological Applications 14:368–380
Ward JR, Trengove G (2005) Developing re-vegetation strategies by identifying biomass based enterprise opportunities in the mallee areas of South Australia. CSIRO client report for South Australian Department Water, Land, Biodiversity and Conservation
Wilhere GF, Linders MJ, Cosentino BL (2007) Defining alternative futures and projecting their effects on the spatial distribution of wildlife habitats. Landscape and Urban Planning 79:385–400
Williams J, Saunders D (2005) Land use and ecosystems. In: Goldie J, Douglas B, Furnass B (eds) In search of sustainability. CSIRO Publishing, Victoria
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bryan, B.A., Crossman, N.D., King, D. (2008). Analysing Landscape Futures for Dryland Agricultural Areas: a Case Study in the Lower Murray Region of Southern Australia. In: Pettit, C., Cartwright, W., Bishop, I., Lowell, K., Pullar, D., Duncan, D. (eds) Landscape Analysis and Visualisation. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69168-6_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69168-6_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69167-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69168-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)