Transitions Toward Sustainability in Water Management Laws in Australia: Lessons for the Sister Federation - The USA
American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, 28th Annual Water Law Conference February 17-19, 2010
11 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2014
Date Written: 2010
Abstract
In recent decades, Australia has confronted climate change and prolonged drought, creating a new, drier "normal" in Australian hydrology. In response to international initiatives and its own climate change, Australia and its states have changed the laws that apply to water management, to reflect the reality of this drier climate. These changes and the court decisions upholding the changes have shown a strict consideration of achieving environmental objectives first, even if this really changes the community and its economic basis. In response, water practices, in agriculture and urban water use, have had reduced water allocated. The history of Australian water management has five distinct epochs over the period from 1788 to 2009. These epochs will be identified and the main legal issues will be presented through the lens of several cases. All Australian systems can be called administrative allocations with the transition now to providing volume to preserve the environment. There will be a detailed analysis of the epochs from 1992 onwards, where the concept of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) has been placed in the water management laws of each State and recently in a new Federal Act - the Water Act 2007. These create justiciable ESD protocols The paper will also foreshadow future directions in the juridification of these protocols. There will be several visual presentations and illustrations of the political processes at work to achieve this quasi-centralism, as well as discussion of the potential lessons for the United States.
Keywords: water management, water sustainability, water allocation
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