An environmental economic assessment of water sharing alternatives for the Broken catchment in the Northern Victoria

Abstract

Combinations of climatic factors and potential policy initiatives such as Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs), which define water diversions for consumption while maintaining environmental assets and ecosystem functions, will continue to challenge water resource management in the future. Irrigation currently consumes major share of water entitlements and is likely to be affected in terms of reduced yield and quality as a result of reduced water availability. Previous studies have quantified the economic impacts of water sharing and climate change by only changing irrigable area as a response to variations in water availability. In this study we incorporate complex crop water profit functions..