AUSTRALIA–INDONESIA JOINT SYMPOSIUM IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Jakarta, 13-17 September 2006
Cycles and trends in water management in Australia
Richard Hopkins, CEO, International Centre of Excellence in
Water Resources Management
(ICE WaRM)
Humankind has been struggling with the issues of water management for thousands of years. Managing water seems to have been a feature of civilizations past, and a symptom of development in our time and for the future. This presentation focuses on the recent history of water management in Australia, the cycles of development and management of water resources, and the trends which may provide some indicators for the way ahead. Superficially, the water-related challenges faced in Australia are in stark contrast to those in Indonesia – population, settlement patterns, landforms, climate and hydrology – but water management issues are really not so different. For much of Australia's 200 years of settlement, the approach to development was characterised as the triumph of technology over the environment, led by government. So implementation was predominately through public sector institutions of engineers and scientists, recruited with basic technical skills and further trained and specialised in the course of their careers, often a lifetime with the same employer. These agencies were technically (and financially) very competent and responsible, if somewhat conservative, and commanded significant resources and respect. But they were far from perfect as the guardians of land and water resources. The first serious challenges to their position of authority and public trust appeared in the form of environmental issues, and business practices. Reforms were relatively swift, even hasty. Large-scale infrastructure investments were shelved, replaced in the short-term by economic management approaches, and staffing of the technical institutions reduced dramatically and restructured. There have been consequences, both positive and negative, discussed in the presentation. While political attention to water management issues is often short-lived (heightened as ever by crises of surpluses and deficits – floods and droughts) it is the steady hard work on policy that has steered the long-term progress. There remains much to be done, including rebuilding community trust in technology, and ownership of the decisions to be made.
Richard Hopkins is the Chief Executive of the Australian government-sponsored International Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Management (ICE WaRM) based in Adelaide. He has spent most of his thirty-year career in water resources planning, development and management, working in more than 20 countries. For six years prior to taking up his current role he was based in Jakarta with the World Bank, principally assigned to the Water and Sanitation Program's assistance to the Government of Indonesia in policy reform. This followed earlier shorter assignments on AusAID's contributions to the Indonesian water sector, and many roles in water projects and programs in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin America, as well as Australia.
