Bringing ecosystem services into integrated water resources management

I just realize I have never used this blog to promote my own work!  Um, it must be due to my Chinese roots of being modest and all that...Anyway, here is my first attempt of self-promotion :).

We just published a paper in the Journal of Environmental Management on the ecosystem services work for our Murray-Darling Basin Multiple Benefits project.  The project received lots of media attention (e.g. ABC and Nature), and I was amazed by how much we achieved in six months (CSIRO report to the Murray–Darling Basin Authority).  

The key message of the paper is that we need to consider the multiple environmental benefits provided by  the river in addition to the conventional benefit of irrigation water provision.  Figure 7 in the paper summaries the message very well (thanks to Martin who came up with the cool figure!). 

The preliminary results of this work identified the sub-catchments in the river basin with the greatest potential synergies and trade-offs of ecosystem service provision under the integrated water resources management reform process.  The framework we proposed was certainly not perfect, but I see a lots of potentials for further development...


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