Contemporary approaches for assessing the condition of river systems focus primarily on biological information. Increasingly, natural resource managers are becoming interested in the physical condition of river systems. Rivers are naturally complex physical systems that change in time and space, and therefore challenge many traditional scientific approaches for assessing their character. One solution to this problem is the use of hierarchy theory which provides a graded organizational structure to interpret river complexity. However, most geomorphic characterizations of rivers fail to acknowledge the importance of the nested organisation of river systems and scale, thus often misinterpret form-process links. This study outlines a typology for a geomorphic characterization of rivers that can be used to assess their physical condition. It focuses on a specific level within the geomorphic river hierarchy. For this study, a set of criteria are outlined for developing a quantitative river classification scheme. This involves the use of fifteen geomorphic variables in a desktop based taxonomic river typing scheme. Variables are extracted from digital data, using both an automated GIS module developed specifically for such an exercise and combined with manually extracted data. These physical data are analysed using a series of multivariate analyses. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated in the Namoi catchment, NSW, at the basin scale. The physical condition of the river network is based on the community of river types and is assessed by considering the richness, composition and diversity of river types. The applicability of the approach for river management is also outlined.

The Australian Disaster Resilience Index is a snapshot of the capacities for disaster resilience in Australian communities. Understanding these capacities, and how they differ from place to place, will help communities, governments and industry work together to cope with and adapt to natural hazards such as bushfires, floods, storms and earthquakes. The dashboard (www.adri.bnhcrc.com.au) allows users to explore disaster resilience around Australia, and to uncover the different strengths and barriers to disaster resilience in different locations.

Natural hazards, such as bushfires, cyclones, floods, storms, heatwaves, earthquakes and tsunamis, have always occurred and will continue to occur in Australia. These natural hazards frequently intersect with human societies to create natural hazard emergencies that, in turn, cause disasters.

The effects of natural hazards on Australian communities are influenced by a unique combination of social, economic, natural environment, built environment, governance and geographical factors.

Australian communities face increasing losses and disruption from natural hazards, with the total economic cost of natural hazards in Australia averaging $18.2 billion per year between 2006 and 2016 (Deloitte Access Economics, 2017). This is expected to almost double by 2030 and to average $33 billion per year by 2050 (Deloitte Access Economics, 2016). The social impacts of disasters are also substantial. Costs associated with social impacts may persist over a person’s lifetime and can be greater than the costs of tangible damages (Deloitte Access Economics, 2016).

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of some natural hazard types in Australia (BOM & CSIRO, 2018). An increasing population, demographic change, widening socio-economic disparity, expensive infrastructure and the location of communities in areas of high natural hazard risk also contributes to the potential for increasing losses from natural hazards.

There are two prominent schools of thought about the influence of natural hazards in human societies:

• a vulnerability perspective, where distributional inequalities in physical, social, economic and environmental factors influence the susceptibility of people to harm and the ability of people to respond to hazards (Cutter et al., 2003; Birkmann, 2006; Bankoff, 2019).
• a resilience perspective, where people are learning to live with a changing, unpredictable and uncertain environment (Folke et al., 2002; Bankoff, 2019), of which natural hazards are a part. Resilience is a process linking a set of capacities to a positive trajectory of functioning and adaptation after a disturbance (Norris et al., 2008).

This resilience perspective has been adopted in the Australian Disaster Resilience Index, with the aim of better understanding and assessing the disaster resilience of Australian communities nationwide.

As such, disaster resilience can be understood as a protective characteristic that acts to reduce the effects of, and losses from, natural hazards. Resilience arises from the capacities of social, economic and government systems to prepare for, respond to and recover from a natural hazard event, and to learn, adapt and transform in anticipation of future natural hazard events.

The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index will assess and report the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards. Assessment of disaster resilience is based on eight themes that encapsulate the influences on disaster resilience. The index results for the eight themes are presented here. Further work will compute coping and adaptive capacity indexes, and an overall index of disaster resilience.

Australian communities face increasing losses and disruption from natural disasters. Disaster resilience is a protective characteristic that acts to reduce the effects of, and losses from, natural hazard events. Disaster resilience arises from the capacities of social, economic and government systems to prepare for, respond to and recover from a natural hazard event, and to learn, adapt and transform in anticipation of future natural hazard events. This assessment of disaster resilience estimates the status of these capacities and shows how they are spatially distributed across Australia.
Composite indices are frequently used to summarize and report complex relational measurements about a particular issue. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index measures disaster resilience as a set of coping and adaptive capacities. Coping capacity is the means by which available resources and abilities can be used to face adverse consequences that could lead to a disaster. Adaptive capacity is the arrangements and processes that enable adjustment through learning, adaptation and transformation. Eight themes of disaster resilience encapsulate the resources and abilities that communities have to prepare for, absorb and recover from natural hazards (social character, economic capital, emergency services, planning and the built environment, community capital, information access) or to adapt, learn and solve problems (social and community engagement, governance and leadership). Across the eight themes, 77 indicators were used to compute the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index in 2084 areas of Australia, corresponding to the Statistical Area Level 2 divisions of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The index was then used to undertake the first nationally standardised assessment of the state of disaster resilience in Australia. Disaster resilience is reported at three levels: an overall disaster resilience index, coping and adaptive capacity sub-indexes and themes of disaster resilience that encapsulate the resources and abilities that communities have to prepare for, absorb and recover from natural hazards and to adapt, learn and solve problems (social character, economic capital, emergency services, planning and the built environment, community capital, information access, social and community engagement, governance and leadership).
Volume I (this volume) assesses the state of disaster resilience in Australia, using the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index. Volume I gives a brief overview of the design and computation of the index, then assesses the state of disaster resilience in Australia at different levels: overall disaster resilience, coping and adaptive capacity, and the eight themes of disaster resilience. Volume I also presents a typology of disaster resilience that groups areas across Australia that have similar disaster resilience profiles.
Readers interested in the results of the assessment of disaster resilience in Australia should focus on Volume I.

Australian communities face increasing losses and disruption from natural disasters. Disaster resilience is a protective characteristic that acts to reduce the effects of, and losses from, natural hazard events. Disaster resilience arises from the capacities of social, economic and government systems to prepare for, respond to and recover from a natural hazard event, and to learn, adapt and transform in anticipation of future natural hazard events. This assessment of disaster resilience estimates the status of these capacities and shows how they are spatially distributed across Australia.
Composite indices are frequently used to summarize and report complex relational measurements about a particular issue. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index measures disaster resilience as a set of coping and adaptive capacities. Coping capacity is the means by which available resources and abilities can be used to face adverse consequences that could lead to a disaster. Adaptive capacity is the arrangements and processes that enable adjustment through learning, adaptation and transformation. Eight themes of disaster resilience encapsulate the resources and abilities that communities have to prepare for, absorb and recover from natural hazards (social character, economic capital, emergency services, planning and the built environment, community capital, information access) or to adapt, learn and solve problems (social and community engagement, governance and leadership). Across the eight themes, 77 indicators were used to compute the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index in 2084 areas of Australia, corresponding to the Statistical Area Level 2 divisions of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The index was then used to undertake the first nationally standardised assessment of the state of disaster resilience in Australia. Disaster resilience is reported at three levels: an overall disaster resilience index, coping and adaptive capacity sub-indexes and themes of disaster resilience that encapsulate the resources and abilities that communities have to prepare for, absorb and recover from natural hazards and to adapt, learn and solve problems (social character, economic capital, emergency services, planning and the built environment, community capital, information access, social and community engagement, governance and leadership).
Volume II (this volume) describes in detail the computation of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index. This includes resilience concepts, literature review, index structure, data collection, indicators, statistical methods, detailed statistical outputs, sensitivity analysis and uncertainty analyses.
Readers interested in the technical aspects of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index should also consider Volume II. Volume II is comprised of six chapters:
Chapter 1: Design of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index
Chapter 2: Indicators
Chapter 3: Computation of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index
Chapter 4: Statistical outputs: ANDRI, coping capacity and adaptive capacity
Chapter 5: Statistical outputs: disaster resilience themes
Chapter 6: Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis

Natural hazard management policy directions in Australia – and indeed internationally – are increasingly being aligned to ideas of resilience. However, the definition and conceptualization of resilience in relation to natural hazards is keenly contested within academic literature (Klein et al., 2003; Wisner et al., 2004; Boin et al., 2010; Tierney, 2014). Broadly speaking, resilience to natural hazards is the ability of individuals and communities to cope with disturbances or changes and to maintain adaptive behaviour (Maguire and Cartwright, 2008). Building resilience to natural hazards requires the capacity to cope with the event and its aftermath, as well as the capacity to learn about hazard risks, change behaviour, transform institutions and adapt to a changing environment (Maguire and Cartwright, 2008).
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index is a tool for assessing the resilience of communities to natural hazards at a large scale. Using a top down approach, the assessment will provide input to macro-level policy, strategic planning, community planning and community engagement activities at National, State and local government levels. First, it is a snapshot of the current state of natural hazard resilience at a national scale. Second, it is a layer of information for use in strategic policy development and planning. Third, it provides a benchmark against which to assess future change in resilience to natural hazards. Understanding resilience strengths and weaknesses will help communities, governments and organizations to build the capacities needed for living with natural hazards.
Design of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index will assess resilience based on two sets of capacities – coping capacity and adaptive capacity. We have used a hierarchical structure for the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index. Indicators provide the data for a theme – together the indicators measure the status of the theme. We collected approximately 90 indicators across the eight coping and adaptive capacity themes. Indicators were collected at Statistical Area 2 (SA2) resolution where possible.
Results of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index
The results and initial trends in the eight themes of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index are presented below. It should be noted that these interpretations and maps are subject to further change as the State of Disaster Resilience Report is developed. What is presented here is an overview of the pattern of index values. In all maps, lower index values in brown represent lower disaster resilience and higher index values in green represent higher disaster resilience. Each of the sections is an SA2 division of the ABS.

What is the Problem?
In 2010, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted resilience as one of the key guiding principles for making the nation safer. The National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (Australian Government 2011) outlines how Australia should aim to improve social and community resilience with the view that resilient communities are in a much better position to withstand adversity and to recover more quickly from extreme events. The recent Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 also uses resilience as a key concept and calls for a people centred, multi-hazard, multi-sectoral approach to disaster risk reduction. As such each tier of government, emergency services and related NGOs have a distinct need to be able assess and monitor the ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters as well as a clear baseline condition from which to measure progress.
Why is it Important?
Society has always been susceptible to extreme events. While the occurrence of these events generally cannot be prevented; the risks can often be minimised and the impacts on affected populations and property reduced. For people and communities, the capacity to cope with, adapt to, learn from, and where needed transform behaviour and social structures in response to an event and its aftermath all reduce the impact of the disaster (Maguire and Cartwright, 2008) and can broadly be considered resilience. Improving resilience at various scales and thereby reducing the effects of natural hazards has increasingly become a key goal of governments, organisations and communities within Australia and internationally.
How are we going to solve it?
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index project intends to produce a spatial representation of the current state of disaster resilience across Australia. The index will be composed of multiple levels of information that can be reported separately and represented as colour-coded maps where each point will have a corresponding set of information about natural hazard resilience. Spatially explicit capture of data (i.e. in a Geographical Information System) will facilitate seamless integration with other types of information and mapping and allow the use of the project outcomes in the preparation, prevention and recovery spheres. Additionally, the index and indicators will be drawn together as a State of Disaster Resilience Report which will interpret resilience at multiple levels and highlight hotspots of high and low elements of natural hazard resilience.

What is the Problem?
In 2010, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted resilience as one of the key guiding principles for making the nation safer. The National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (Australian Government 2011) outlines how Australia should aim to improve social and community resilience with the view that resilient communities are in a much better position to withstand adversity and to recover more quickly from extreme events. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 also uses resilience as a key concept and calls for a people centred, multi-hazard, multi-sectoral approach to disaster risk reduction. As such each tier of government, emergency services and related NGOs have a distinct need to be able assess and monitor the ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters as well as a clear baseline condition from which to measure progress.
Why is it Important?
Society has always been susceptible to extreme events. While the occurrence of these events generally cannot be prevented; the risks can often be minimised and the impacts on affected populations and property reduced. For people and communities, the capacity to cope with, adapt to, learn from, and where needed transform behaviour and social structures in response to an event and its aftermath all reduce the impact of the disaster and can broadly be considered resilience. Improving resilience and thereby reducing the effects of natural hazards has increasingly become a key goal of governments, organisations and communities within Australia and internationally.
How are we going to solve it?
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index project will produce a spatial representation of the current state of disaster resilience across Australia. The index will be composed of multiple levels of information that can be reported separately and represented as colour-coded maps where each point will have a corresponding set of information about natural hazard resilience. Spatially explicit capture of data will facilitate seamless integration of the project outcomes with other types of information. The index and indicators will also be drawn together as a State of Disaster Resilience Report which will interpret resilience at multiple levels and highlight hotspots of high and low elements of natural hazard resilience.

What is the Problem?
In 2010, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) adopted resilience as one of the key guiding principles for making the nation safer. The National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (Australian Government 2011) outlines how Australia should aim to improve social and community resilience with the view that resilient communities are in a much better position to withstand adversity and to recover more quickly from extreme events. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 also uses resilience as a key concept and calls for a people centred, multi-hazard, multi-sectoral approach to disaster risk reduction. As such each tier of government, emergency services and related NGOs have a distinct need to be able assess and monitor the ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters as well as a clear baseline condition from which to measure progress.
Why is it Important?
Society has always been susceptible to extreme events. While the occurrence of these events generally cannot be prevented; the risks can often be minimised and the impacts on affected populations and property reduced. For people and communities, the capacity to cope with, adapt to, learn from, and where needed transform behaviour and social structures in response to an event and its aftermath all reduce the impact of the disaster and can broadly be considered resilience. Improving resilience and thereby reducing the effects of natural hazards has increasingly become a key goal of governments, organisations and communities within Australia and internationally.
How are we going to solve it?
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index project will produce a spatial representation of the current state of disaster resilience across Australia. The index will be composed of multiple levels of information that can be reported separately and represented as colour-coded maps where each point will have a corresponding set of information about natural hazard resilience. Spatially explicit capture of data will facilitate seamless integration of the project outcomes with other types of information. The index and indicators will also be drawn together as a State of Disaster Resilience Report which will interpret resilience at multiple levels and highlight hotspots of high and low elements of natural hazard resilience.

The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index (ANDRI) is Australia's first national-scale standardised snapshot of disaster resilience. Because of its national extent, the ANDRI takes a top-down approach using indicators derived from secondary data. The ANDRI has a hierarchical design based on coping and adaptive capacities representing the potential for disaster resilience in Australian communities. Coping capacity is the means by which people or organizations use available resources, skills and opportunities to face adverse consequences that could lead to a disaster. Adaptive capacity is the arrangements and processes that enable adjustment through learning, adaptation and transformation. Coping capacity is divided into themes of social character, economic capital, infrastructure and planning, emergency services, community capital and information and engagement. Adaptive capacity is divided into themes of governance, policy and leadership and social and community engagement. Indicators are collected to determine the status of each theme. This paper will present a preliminary assessment of the state of disaster resilience in Australia, and the spatial distribution of disaster resilience across Australia. We then outline the framing of the assessment outcomes as areas of strength and opportunities for enhancing the capacities for disaster resilience in Australian communities. The utilisation of the ANDRI into emergency management agency programs and tools will also be discussed.

Australia faces increasing losses from natural hazard events. Resilient communities will be better able to anticipate hazards, withstand adversity, reduce losses and adapt and learn in a changing environment. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index is a system to assess and report the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards.

Resilient communities are better able to anticipate hazards, withstand adversity, reduce losses and recover from natural hazard events. The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index is a system of indicators that will assess and report the resilience of Australian communities to natural hazards.

Natural hazard management policy directions in Australia – and indeed internationally – are increasingly being aligned to ideas of resilience. There are many definitions of resilience in relation to natural hazards within a contested academic discourse (Klein et al., 2003; Wisner et al., 2004; Boin et al., 2010; Tierney, 2014). Broadly speaking, resilience to natural hazards is the ability of individuals and communities to cope with disturbances or changes and to maintain adaptive behaviour (Maguire and Cartwright, 2008). Building resilience to natural hazards requires the capacity to cope with the event and its aftermath, as well as the capacity to learn about hazard risks, change behaviour, transform institutions and adapt to a changing environment (Maguire and Cartwright, 2008). The shift from a risk-based approach to managing natural hazards towards ideas of disaster resilience reflects the uncertainty associated with predicting the location and impacts of natural hazard events, the inevitability of natural hazard events, and the uncertainty of future natural hazard risks in a changing climate and population.
The emergency management community sits at the forefront of operationalizing ideas of disaster resilience. Australia’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience champions a resilience based approach to the challenges posed by natural hazards. Emergency management and other government agencies involved in hazard management are also adopting principles of natural hazard resilience in policies, strategic planning and community engagement (e.g. Queensland Reconstruction Authority, 2012). It is in light of the need to operationalize the concept of disaster resilience that we are developing the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index.
The index is a tool for assessing the resilience of communities to natural hazards at a large scale. It is designed specifically to assess resilience to natural hazards – not derived for another purpose then modified to suit a resilience focus. The assessment inputs in several ways to macro-level policy, strategic planning, community planning and community engagement activities at National, State and local government levels. First, it is a snapshot of the current state of natural hazard resilience at a national scale. Second, it is a layer of information for use in strategic policy development and planning. Third, it provides a benchmark against which to assess future change in resilience to natural hazards. Understanding resilience strengths and weaknesses will help communities, governments and organizations to build the capacities needed for living with natural hazards.
There are two principal approaches to assessing disaster resilience using an index. Bottom-up approaches are locally based and locally driven and are qualitative self-assessments of disaster resilience (Committee on Measures of Community Resilience, 2015). Bottom-up approaches survey individuals or communities using a scorecard consisting of indicators of disaster resilience such as preparation, exposure to specific hazards, community resources and communication (e.g. Arbon, 2014). In contrast, top-down approaches are often intended for use at broad scales by an oversight body (Committee on Measures of Community Resilience, 2015) and use secondary spatial sources such as census data to quantitatively derive indicators that describe the inherent characteristics of a community that contribute to disaster resilience (Cutter et al., 2010). It is important to align the approach used with the purpose of the resilience assessment because bottom-up and top-down approaches both have a point of spatial or conceptual limitation beyond which conclusions about resilience are no longer valid. A framework that outlines the philosophical underpinnings of a project, linked to the mechanisms used to collect and interpret data, can help to scope and define relevant assessment approaches. A framework is an important tool for a resilience assessment because it defines the boundaries - the why, what and how - around the evidence that we use to derive our assessment of natural hazard resilience.
In this document we set out the framework for the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index. The framework outlines the conceptual underpinnings of our approach – why we are doing what we are doing – then explains what we will assess about resilience using data aligned to our resilience philosophy. We then briefly explain how we intend to measure these data and the indicators that we will collect to form the index.

Factors that influence behavioral response (barriers and drivers) are important for household water-conservation practices. These factors either support or inhibit sustainable behavior. In this research, a latent profile analysis (LPA) was used within the capability-, opportunity-, and motivation-behavior (COM-B) framework to identify key barriers and drivers of household water-conservation behaviors. Participants (N = 510, mean age = 56.08 years, SD = 14.71) completed measures of psycho-social constructs related to barriers and drivers of water-conservation behavior. An LPA yielded a 3-profile statistical solution: capability (35.8%), opportunity (23.2%), and motivation (41.0%) conceptualizing levels of barriers and drivers of water-conservation behavior. Major identified barriers and drivers associated with these profile groupings were time constraints, acuity of water-efficient devices, lack of skills to adopt conservation practices, and availability of incentives/disincentives for water-saving devices. Validation analyses showed that the three COM-B groups diverged considerably based on socio-demographic status and actual water-conservation behavior. Results are pertinent to water authorities in identifying interventions to reduce barriers and promote drivers of positive household water-conservation behaviors by altering and directing appropriate COM-B dimensions to individual water consumers.

This case study describes the experience of using and embedding components of the national-scale Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index into the state scale Victorian Emergency Management Community Resilience Index.

Perception of the risks of natural hazards is considered to be one of the precursors of desirable behaviors of mitigation, preparation, and resilience. However, the processes of risk perception are complex and are likely related to underlying cognitive factors associated with information processing. Cultural worldview theory suggests that people actively choose what to fear (and how much to fear it) in order to support their ways of life (Kahan, 2012). Aspects of these choices may include prioritizing public vs. private interests, choice vs. control, and differing levels of belief and/or adherence to egalitarianism, hierarchy, individualism, and communitarianism. To assess whether and how cultural worldviews relate to perceptions of risk to natural hazards we recruited 503 residents of New South Wales (stratified between urban and regional areas) who completed a cultural worldview questionnaire and a new questionnaire developed by the researchers to assess four aspects of natural hazards: 1) perceptions of the risk of natural hazards; 2) perceptions of control over natural hazards; 3) perceptions of responsibility for natural hazard preparation and outcome; and 4) trust in different sources of information about natural hazards. Results indicated significant but varying relationships among cultural cognition types (i.e., egalitarianism, hierarchy, individualism, communitarianism) and the four aspects of natural hazard risk perception. Some consistency was found regarding how cultural cognition types predicted risk perception across four different types of natural hazards (bushfire, flood, severe thunderstorm, earthquake) but this also varied by geographical location. Understanding the influence of cultural worldviews on attitudes toward natural hazards might lead to community engagement messages orientated to the views of egalitarianism, hierarchy, individualism, and communitarianism.

Most discussions of environmental crime typically refer to environmental degradation at the macro level, such as the large scale pollution of rivers or oceans, where there is no clear victim. This paper reports on a study which examined environmental crime from a more micro, place-based perspective, namely incidents that occur on farms where individual farmers are victims. Almost half of the 1926 respondents to a nation-wide survey of Australian farmers reported experiencing some type of environmental harm over the previous two years. Three case studies then examined whether farmers defined such harms as environmental 'crime'. Many but not all harms were described as crimes and there was divergence as well as convergence with formal law. In some areas, farmers' appreciations led formal proscriptions. Where farmers 'lagged' behind, contextual reasons were provided for the exceptions. All actions leading to harm were considered criminal if intentional, while accidental acts were not. Negligence was also used to define some actions as environmental crimes. The findings add to the growing literature on Green Victimology and the need to understand informal norms and appreciations of law as well as formal impositions and structures.

Despite the demonstrated utility of the Australian River Assessment Scheme (AUSRIVAS) to provide national-scale information on the biological condition of rivers, there is no commensurate scheme that can provide standardised information on physical habitat. Existing habitat assessment methods are not suitable for implementation on a national scale, so we present a new habitat assessment protocol that incorporates favorable elements of existing methods. Habitat Predictive Modelling forms the basis for the protocol because it can predict the occurrence of local-scale features from large-scale data, uses the reference condition concept, can be modified to incorporate a range of biologically and geomorphologically relevant variables, and employs a rapid survey approach. However, the protocol has been augmented with geomorphological variables and incorporates principles of hierarchy and geomorphological river zonation. There are four sequential components to the implementation of the protocol: reference site selection, data collection, predictive model construction and assessment of test sites using the predictive models. Once implemented, the habitat assessment protocol will provide a standardised tool for the assessment of river habitat condition at a variety of governance levels.

This paper reports a national-scale assessment of disaster resilience, using the Australian Disaster Resilience Index. The index assesses resilience at three levels: overall capacity for disaster resilience; coping and adaptive capacity; and, eight themes of disaster resilience across social, economic and institutional domains. About 32% of Australia's population (7.6 million people) live in an area assessed as having high capacity for disaster resilience. About 52% of Australia's population (12.3 million people) live in an area assessed as having moderate capacity for disaster resilience. The remaining 16% of Australia's population (3.8 million people) live in an area assessed as having low capacity for disaster resilience. Distribution of disaster resilience in Australia is strongly influenced by a geography of remoteness. Most metropolitan and inner regional areas were assessed as having high capacity for disaster resilience. In contrast, most outer regional, remote and very remote areas were assessed as having low capacity for disaster resilience, although areas of low capacity for disaster resilience can occur in metropolitan areas. Juxtaposed onto this distribution, themes of disaster resilience highlight strengths and barriers to disaster resilience in different communities. For example, low community capital and social cohesion is a disaster resilience barrier in many metropolitan areas, but higher community capital and social cohesion in outer regional and some remote areas supports disaster resilience. The strategic intent of a shared responsibility for disaster resilience can benefit from understanding the spatial distribution of disaster resilience, so that policies and programmes can address systemic influences on disaster resilience.

Eco-geomorphology is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of river systems that integrates hydrology, fluvial geomorphology and ecology. This approach facilitates a new understanding of river systems by bridging dominant paradigms from individual disciplines. Each discipline views river systems from a spatial and temporal perspective, but we suggest that one of the main impediments to further expansion of intterdisciplinary study is the mismatch of scales between disciplines. A hierarchical and integrative framework for interdisciplinary study is required and would overcomes scale issues by matching a problem with a river system process to identify causal explanations at the correct spatial and temporal scales. We use the example of enviromnental flows to demonstrate the utility of an eco-geomorphological approach for identification of characteristic scales of hydrological, geomorphological and ecological influence in the Condamine-Balonne River.

The social–ecological status of rivers is particularly pronounced during extreme flood events. Extreme floods are a substantial threat to people, infrastructure, and livelihoods. Efforts to address the threats of extreme floods are aligned largely with social values of flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and avoidance of loss. However, extreme floods are also a fundamental driver of river ecosystems, aligned with ecological (biophysical) values of event effectiveness, river change, disturbance, biotic response, and heterogeneity. A survey of the public perceptions of extreme floods revealed that participants generally understood the ecological values of extreme floods through concepts of naturalness, climate change, and knowledge production. However, participants had less understanding of how river integrity might influence the response of rivers to extreme floods. Resilience can be used as a framework for uniting the social and ecological values of extreme floods because it embodies a common language of change, disturbance, and adaptation and complements the socially dominated discourse of risk and emergency management. Three strategies are given for river scientists to frame ecological values in parallel with the paradigms of the socially dominated discourse of extreme floods: be prepared to act following an extreme flood disaster, learn and use the language of the flood risk and emergency management sector, and undertake assessments of the ecological values of extreme floods to highlight the threats to those values that may occur with climate change and river modification.

Groundwater in Pacific Small Island Developing States is a critical source of freshwater for island ecosystems and human communities. Groundwater systems face challenges from growing populations, climate change and climate variability. Many groundwater systems in the region have been inappropriately managed, with increasing occurrences of groundwater pollution and saltwater intrusion. This limits the availability of freshwater, increases the likelihood of contracting water borne diseases, and the cost of access to alternative freshwater sources. In this paper, we argue that groundwater systems are social-ecological systems, where anthropogenic activities and groundwater conditions are linked through dynamic, non-linear processes. We also argue that groundwater management failures in the region, are associated with traditional command and control approaches to management, which ignore the systemic nature of coupled social and ecological groundwater systems; and assumes that groundwater resources, and the dependant human communities can be managed independently. Recognising the linkages and feedbacks between groundwater and dependant social communities is important for the long-term sustainability of groundwater in these regions. Conceptual frameworks are useful tools to order phenomena and material, revealing patterns and processes, and enabling the joining of multiple areas of understanding into a single conceptual-empirical structure. We propose a framework to manage groundwater as a social-ecological system. The framework is comprised of three building blocks: complex adaptive systems, resilience thinking and strategic adaptive management. We discuss how the application of the framework in the Republic of Nauru may alter decades of groundwater mismanagement and steer the resource towards a sustainable path.

Physical heterogeneity is a strong driver of ecosystem function in rivers, but it is not clear whether this relationship persists in "Anthropocene" rivers: those affected by pronounced and persistent anthropogenic stressors. Such stressors can result in regime shifts of rivers, altering not only ecosystem structure and function, but also their heterogeneity. This study examines the heterogeneity of the physical template and ecosystem function of the Illinois River (Illinois, USA), as an example of an Anthropocene River. This river was biologically dead for most of its length in the mid 1900′s because of multiple anthropogenic stressors. A systemic reduction in physical heterogeneity of the Illinois River also resulted in simplification of its physical environment. Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate the physical simplification of the river channel caused the homogenization of ecosystem function. The significant overlap in trophic niche spaces, convergence of isotope ratios, dominance of benthic contributions to higher-level consumers, increased food chain lengths, plus the emergence of only two food webs indicate a simpler river ecosystem. Limited attention to the role of heterogeneity in anthropogenically modified river systems not only restricts understanding of resilience in rivers, but also the application of resilience thinking to managing these globally important ecosystems.

The interplay of biological and physical patterns and processes within river ecosystems generates a complex matrix of interactions. A challenge in interdisciplinary river science is to dissect patterns and processes in multi-causal river ecosystems into hierarchical levels of organization. Hierarchy theory, and the associated concept of scale, provides a sound framework for achieving this. We present two interdisciplinary case studies that demonstrate how a multi-scale approach can dissect hierarchies of organization in river ecosystems. The first case study examined patterns of large wood character and distribution at three scales of a hierarchy of morphological river system organization in the large, lowland River Murray. The character and distribution of large wood was uniform at the largest reach scale (95 km length of river) because stream energy conditions are relatively uniform within the reach. However, there was an association between lower-level functional sets (straight or bend sections of river) and functional units (12 quadrats within each functional set) and the character and distribution of large wood, because stream energy differs between straight and bend morphologies, and the inner- and outer-channel functional units. Thus, functional sets and functional units are important levels of organization for large wood in the River Murray. The second case study examined the associations between macroinvertebrate assemblage distribution and environmental influences across a hierarchy of river system organization in the upland Murrumbidgee River catchment. We previously demonstrated that macroinvertebrate assemblages were arranged hierarchically at the region, cluster within region, reach within cluster and riffle within reach scales, with region and reach being the strongest signatures. In this study we related different scaled environmental factors, collected across a hierarchy of catchment, zone (valley confinement), reach (similar stream orders) and riffle scales to the region and cluster levels of macroinvertebrate distribution. The hierarchical pattern of large, region-level and local, reach-level macroinvertebrate distribution was matched by a large catchment-scale and local reach-scale of environmental influence. Intermediate zone-scale environmental factors and smaller riffle-scale factors were not important influences. Thus, large regions and catchments and local reaches are important levels of organization for macroinvertebrate-environment associations in rivers of the upper Murrumbidgee catchment. Both case studies support the applicability of hierarchy theory to describe the organization of physical–biological associations in river ecosystems. The multi-scaled approach allowed the detection of levels of hierarchical organization, and showed other hierarchical characteristics such as emergent properties and top–down constraint/bottom–up influence. Hierarchical understanding of river ecosystem organization will enhance river conservation and management because it facilitates a holistic, ecosystem perspective rather than a partial, single-scale, single-component or single-discipline perspective.

Understanding the psychological-social drivers of water-use behavior in households is essential for enhancing the effectiveness of water-conservation strategies and subsequent environmental benefits. This study used the Behaviour Change Wheel framework to review associations between capability, opportunity, and motivation (COM) dimensions and household water-use behaviors. A meta-analysis of 88 correlation coefficients from a combined sample of 15,656 participants showed positive relationships between water-use behavior and COM dimensions. These three dimensions were statistically significant in predicting household water-use behavior, with opportunity being the most moderate predictor of water-conservation behavior (r = 0.25, p < 0.001), followed by motivation (r = 0.24, p < 0.001) and then capability (r = 0.18, p < 0.001). Collectively, these dimensions explained 37% of the variance in household water-conservation behavior. Correlation coefficients also diverged as a function of COM dimension subtypes (psychological, physical, social, reflective, and automatic) and study location, study design, and the gender of participants. Overall, the results are consistent with the Behaviour Change Wheel assertion that the integrative components of behavior are important sources of psychological-social drivers of water-use behavior. COM dimensions are useful for the identification of behaviors that influence water-use and how these may diverge depending on the water-use character of the region and environment.

Many environmental flow approaches calculate hydrological indicators on an annual or daily basis and do not consider the multiple scales of a rivers' hydrological character. However, hydrologic processes operate within a temporal and spatial dimension, in accordance with multidimensional and hierarchical views of river systems. This study investigates spatial and temporal patterns of the hydrological character of a large river system, and examines the impact of water-resource development on these patterns. Over 300 regime, history and pulse-scale flow variables have been calculated from simulated discharge data representing 'reference' and 'current' water-resource development scenarios. Multivariate statistical analyses are used to identify measurement nodes with similar hydrological character and to determine the association between different temporal scale flow variables and groups of nodes. Six spatial hydrological zones are identified in the Condamine–Balonne River, Australia. These hydrological zones are found to have become homogenized with water-resource development. Different temporal scales of flow variables are related to the different hydrological zones, and to water-resource development scenarios. Thus, the temporal dimension of hydrological character is embedded within a spatial dimension of river zonation. Both dimensions should be considered in a hierarchical context, and environmental flow restoration targets may need to be set for each dimension of a river system.

The Australian natural disaster resilience index (ANDRI) will assess the state of disaster resilience in Australia.

In observance of 'World Water Day' 201 7, the World Water Council called on all governments to prioritise global water security (World Water Council, 2017). The World Economic Forum's 'Global Risk Report 2017' has declared water crises a 'societal risk' ranking within the top three in the high-impact category for the third consecutive year (World Economic Forum, 2017). Two billion people are affected by contaminated drinking water (World Health Organization, 2017) and the World Health Organization (2017) has identified that 'countries are not increasing spending fast enough to meet the water and sanitation targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)'. Both surface and groundwater resources are in decline, with the United Nations predicting a shortfall by 2030, and there are concerns of 'water wars' in high risk countries resulting from the slowing of economic growth, food price spikes and increasing human migration (The National Geographic, 2016). Water conflicts are very much in the political psyche 'as much as oil shaped the global geopolitics of the 20th century, water has the power to reorder international relations in the current century' (Engelke & Sticklor, 2015). As we enter the 'International Decade of Action: Water for Sustainable Development 2018-2028' (United Nations, 2017), humanity is challenged by a critical juncture: What we do in the next 50 years will determine the outcome for the next 10,000 years. We are that generation right at that tipping point. We were alive at that exponential journey that took us here, we will probably be alive in the journey that will decide the outcome for the next 10,000 years (Rockstrom, 2017).

Because of their size and social impact, the floods of February and March 2000 attracted the attention of the world. In Kruger National Park, flooding of the Sabie and Letaba Rivers caused significant damage to park infrastructure. Damage to bridges, buildings and roads has since been repaired, but what were the effects of the flood on river ecosystems?

The idea for this research came from previous studies of farm crime which revealed that informal social norms or 'the way things are done' in rural communities had extraordinary influence for tolerating certain types of crime such as livestock theft and for proscribing the reporting of such crimes. Many victims of crime suffered in silence. Some were pressured to keep the peace, and not accuse someone in the community of theft under threat of exclusion from the community. I suspected that these same cultural practices and social judgements may impact on other social practices such as individual and community management of natural resources. In parallel to this Robyn Bartel's work on evaluating the success of land clearance regulation and the implementation strategies of agencies had opened up the need for an examination of the informal order of norms and attitudes, and the way that these interact with the formal order of the law, to uncover the full regulatory picture in this area. So this was the focus of this CERF significant project which we conducted over the past two and a half years.

The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index is an assessment of disaster resilience at a large, all-of-nation scale. It is the first national snapshot of the capacity for community resilience to natural hazards.
The conceptual model outlining the reasoning and design of the index has been reported previously in two publications:
The Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index: Milestone report on conceptual framework and indicator approach. Available from:
http://www.bnhcrc.com.au/research/resilient-people-infrastructure-andinstitutions/251
An academic manuscript titled “Top-down assessment of disaster resilience: a conceptual framework using coping and adaptive capacities”. This is available in open access from the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
This report overviews the indicators being used in the index, including their justification, source and measurement level. Once the data for all indicators have been collected and compiled, statistical analysis will then commence to compute the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index.

Despite the increasing acceptance of the shifting mosaic model of floodplain vegetation community organization, there is little quantitative analysis of patterns of floodplain vegetation organization in unconfined valley settings. This study examines the organization of vegetation community and land cover types in a large (10 519 km²) unconfined floodplain landscape (the Lower Balonne floodplain, NSW, Australia). We analysed a published 1:50 000 vegetation map using landscape metrics of the area, shape and interspersion & juxtaposition of eight types of vegetation community and land cover patches. Rather than forming a predictable linear gradient across the floodplain, vegetation communities of the Lower Balonne floodplain landscape depict a heterogeneous patch mosaic. Grassland forms the matrix element of the landscape because it dominates the floodplain (40 % of the total landscape area), occurs in large patches, and is highly interspersed among the other vegetation community and land cover types. Coolibah and river red gum trees occur along the major river courses and form the corridor element of the floodplain landscape. The other land cover types form the patch element of the floodplain landscape, where each land cover type has a characteristic patch area, shape and interspersion or juxtaposition. Conventional riverine vegetation monitoring generally focuses on the narrow riparian strip immediately adjacent to the main channel. The application of such approaches in the Lower Balonne floodplain would fail to capture the dominant matrix and patch elements of the floodplain vegetation landscape. We suggest that new techniques of vegetation assessment need to be developed for large, unconfined floodplains to monitor changes in the composition and configuration of the matrix, corridor and patch elements of the vegetation mosaic.

Floodplains are multi-state systems in which vegetation distribution is associated with the presence or absence of water as a resource. Less is known about the associations between the presence and absence of water and vegetation productivity. We examined patterns of vegetation productivity in a large (10 519 km²) unconfined floodplain during flood, rain and dry resource states. Mosaics of vegetation greenness were derived at two scales using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index: a whole-of-landscape scale and a geomorphic unit scale with a riparian and floodplain unit. The NDVI was also calculated within a-priori vegetation community types within the floodplain. In all resource states over 50% of the floodplain showed no discernible vegetation greenness. When water is added as rain or flooding vegetation greenness increases, but the highest greenness occurs in the flood state. Trees situated in the riparian geomorphic unit maintain greenness during the dry resource state, whereas grasses situated in the floodplain contribute greenness during rain and flood resource states, with the highest greenness in the flood resource state. Aligned with views that dryland floodplains are boom-bust ecosystems, we suggest that flooding is a fundamental driver of vegetation productivity in this unconfined floodplain, contributing functional heterogeneity to the landscape.

With the prison population steadily increasing in Australia and over half of prisoners reoffending, it is evident that prison is ineffective for deterring and rehabilitating current and future offenders and reducing recidivism. As a result, there has been a gradual shift toward community corrections, placing an emphasis on interventions that address the criminogenic needs of prisoners. One such intervention is the implementation of prison dog programs (PDPs). PDPs involve a dog being paired with one or more specially selected inmates, who train, socialise and care for a dog for a specified period of time or until the animal is ready to be rehomed or move on to advanced training as an assistance or service dog. Although PDPs have been implemented in many correctional facilities in Australia, there is little evidence to support the existence of such programs. As such, this research sought to address this gap and add to the literature by conducting three studies. The first aimed to examine the nature and extent of PDPs operating in Australia through a national survey of eight corrections staff and 18 representatives from animal welfare, and training organisations involved in administering the program. The second study conducted semi-structured interviews with eight inmates, six corrections staff and one animal welfare representative involved in PDPs in Queensland, to identify the circumstances in which inmates are most likely to benefit from PDPs and how these programs can assist inmates in meeting their immediate and future needs. The third study aimed to explore the effect of PDPs on ten inmate participant's emotional intelligence; specifically, their ability to read emotions in others by comparing their ability, with current and previous dog owners, to provide judgements of emotion in photographs of dogs. The results of these studies support findings of other research and suggest that PDPs not only benefit inmates participating in PDPs, but also non-participant inmates, prison staff, prison culture, the dogs and society. The most reported benefits included positive changes to the prison environment, improved relationships with other inmates and staff and the opportunity to give back to society. The most commonly identified negative aspects were a lack of resources, personality clashes between inmates within the program and inmates' inability to socialise the dogs outside of the prison. Data from the studies as well as a review of the literature were used to develop a program logic model to improve the development, implementation, and evaluation of future PDPs.

Adaptive management is a structured approach for people who must act despite uncertainty and complexity about what they are managing and the impacts of their actions. It is learning-by-doing through deliberate cycles of experimentation, review, and synthesis. However, understanding the processes of learning and how they relate to achieving resource management goals is in its infancy. Reflexive learning-a process of identifying and critically examining assumptions, values, and actions that frame knowledge-is critical to the effectiveness of adaptive management. It involves adaptive feedbacks between stakeholders as they examine assumptions, values, and actions. Adaptive management has been applied to environmental flows because it offers a system for making decisions about tradeoffs. In the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), Australia, adaptive management is applied as a cycle of plan, do, monitor, and learn, facilitated by short- and long-term learning among stakeholders. An alternative conceptualization of adaptive management as an integration of single-, double-, and triple-loop learning across multiple levels of governance is presented. This is applied to environmental flows in the MDB to map adaptive feedbacks of reflexive learning. At the lowest level of governance (Water Resource Planning Area), goals are assessed as Thresholds of Potential Concern related to flow-ecology responses, which are reviewed every 3-6 years. At the second level of governance (Basin-States), Water Management Targets are the key goals; reviewed and reframed every 6-10 years.The highest level of governance (the MDB) is concerned with policy targets, with review and reframing over 8-15 years. Feedbacks that generate reflexive learning are complex and require commitment to move through the modes of single-, double-, and triple-loop learning. Effective adaptive management of environmental water requires practitioners to situate themselves within a matrix of information flow across modes of learning, levels of governance, and components of a social-ecological system, where reflexive learning drives the achievement of management goals.

Learning-by-doing strategies allow for inherent uncertainty in the management of complex social-ecological systems. Adaptive management epitomises learning-by-doing, an iterative process based on incremental, experiential learning within adaptive management cycles. This learning is supported by strategic monitoring of, and feedback from the impacts and outcomes of decisions. Adaptive management of freshwater ecosystems facilitates a greater social context within freshwater management. This is achieved through an increased emphasis on flexible, open institutions and multi governance-level systems that allow for critical thinking and learning. Adaptive management of freshwater ecosystems is an important approach for practicing resilience because it addresses uncertainty in a complex world.
Lack of an effective natural resource management practice is frequently confounded by the requirement for complex social and technical (environmental) components to learning. Integrating societal learning based on increasing time-scales for social and technical change through the modes of single-, double-, and triple-loop learning, into adaptive natural resource management is intricate. This is because of many "enabling conditions" and facilitators associated with practicing this learning. Key "enabling conditions" for societal learning include stakeholder participation, learning-centred organizations, social learning capacities, and adaptive governance arrangements. In addition, reflexive learning (adaptive feedback systems) must be explicitly used and incorporated within adaptive management cycles in order to facilitate the three modes of societal learning. This thesis proposes that for efficient adaptive freshwater management single-, double-, and triple-loop learning must be exercised more deliberately within any adaptive freshwater management system, by the explicit facilitation of adaptive feedback systems.
The thesis employs an inductive approach to the research undertaken. It is comprised of two phases. The first phase involves the development of the frameworks, and aims to advance knowledge about the complex relationship between societal learning and the practice of adaptive natural resource management. The conceptual framework is hierarchical in nature and its design enhances understanding about how to integrate societal learning (the central learning construct) into adaptive natural resource management. Learning-centred organisations, which foster social learning capacities and achieve adaptive institutional arrangements within natural resource management have a place in adaptive natural resource management as critical enabling conditions for societal learning. However, development and use of a reflexive learning foundation of stakeholder networks and adaptive feedback systems is needed as a core mechanism for practicing single-, double-, and triple-loop learning. These feedbacks facilitate societal learning within adaptive natural resource management.
The development of the Strategic adaptive management Reflexive Learning Framework (SRLF) within this thesis uses a multi governance-level adaptive feedback system that works to enhance the facilitation of single-, double-, and triple-loop learning within adaptive natural resource management. The SRLF emphasizes the types, roles, and transfer of information within a reflexive learning context. The SRLF is a key enabler for implementing the adaptive management cycle, and thereby translating the theory of adaptive natural resource management into practice. It promotes the heuristics of adaptive management within a cohesive framework and its deployment guides adaptive natural resource management within and beyond typical single-loop learning, across all governance levels.
Under thesis phase two, application of the SRLF's adaptive feedback system to Ecological Reserve implementation in the Crocodile River Catchment of South Africa demonstrates the importance of the SRLF adaptive feedback system for societal learning and achieving ecosystem objectives. Adaptive feedbacks for lower grade single-loop learning are mandatory because frequent adjustment to Ecological Reserve operations is required due to uncertainty about implementing the required river flows. Upper grade single-loop learning is often neglected within the Crocodile River Catchment with too much attention focused on operations to implement the Ecological Reserve. However, these river flows are hypotheses about maintaining an agreed upon ecological condition in the rivers, and therefore must be assessed against end-point goal achievement, to adjust operations as required. The skill with incorporating double-loop learning is avoiding the trap of "learning for the sake of learning" because resources for this learning are scarce in the Crocodile River Catchment. However, reframing of interventions and end-point goals is required based on new knowledge becoming available and/or changing human values. Triple-loop learning is compulsory and deliberately imposed over longer time intervals because objectives require revision over time and stakeholder values also change. Triple-loop learning is required for completion and then regeneration of the adaptive management cycle.
Achieving societal learning within and across multiple governance levels within the Murray- Darling Basin is needed in order to practice an effective adaptive freshwater management. Societal learning is fostered via an explicit recognition of practitioner mandates across governance levels. In addition, by adopting a flexible objectives hierarchy and seeking stakeholder participation and finding adaptive management champions to steer the learning requirements. Achieving an effective balance between the modes of societal learning is key, while working toward implementing adaptive freshwater management in water resource plan areas of the Murray-Darling Basin is needed for stimulating learning in the upper governance levels.
Thesis chapters two to five are presented as manuscripts for journal publication. Each provide an original research contribution. Chapter Two advances our understanding about the complexity of learning within the practice of adaptive natural resource management (ANRM). Chapter Three demonstrates a unique way for deploying an adaptive feedback system within adaptive management cycles, for facilitating single-, double- and triple-loop learning within and across governance levels. Chapter Four sets an important precedent for implementing adaptive freshwater management in the real-world, using single-, double-, and triple-loop learning explicitly and deliberately within the adaptive management cycle. Lastly, Chapter Five advances our knowledge about how to implement adaptive freshwater management in the real-world, within and across governance levels. This adaptive freshwater management uses societal learning to embrace uncertainty under complex water reforms.
The thesis proposes that a complex adaptive feedback system must replace the typical linear interpretations of feedbacks within the adaptive management cycle, and therefore learning. In addition, a mind-set change is required for the translation of natural resource management theory into practice. The research (theory) mind-set, with its "idealism" frame-of-mind ("enhancing angle to learning") emphasises an enhanced version of societal learning within adaptive freshwater management, i.e. with full double-, and triple-loop learning occurring. However, in the real-world practice of adaptive freshwater management a "pragmatism" frame-of-mind ("requisite angle to learning") is needed. This mind-set focuses on getting single-loop and some initial form of double-loop learning going, within any given adaptive freshwater management system using current resources/structures available. Implementation of a complex nested and overlapping set of adaptive feedbacks is required to activate the more immediate responses, and adaptive assessment and reflection routines within the adaptive management cycle, and this bequeaths a critical foundation of "facilitating processes" for both learning angles. In addition, for assessing potential success or effectiveness of any given adaptive freshwater management system, taking a hierarchical, scaled perspective to implementation of the adaptive management cycle, across all governance levels, bestows a better gauging method for the practice of adaptive freshwater management. This is because societal learning is more achievable at the lower governance levels.
The SRLF and its principles developed in this thesis promote the practice of resilience. This is achieved via several emergent themes; thinking in multiple scales, paying attention to thresholds, celebrating/embracing change and uncertainty/surprise, fostering innovation, and remembering adaptive governance. Hence, the SRLF has implications for further research to advance knowledge about harnessing adaptive capacity within natural resource management (e.g. integrating with panarchy theory). In addition, research exploring application of the SRLF Environment theme with the other SRLF themes, i.e. Economic and Community/Social themes, is needed due to the integrated nature of freshwater legislation and management. Testing implementation of the SRLF principles at the upper governance levels of adaptive freshwater management is another area requiring further research, within a multiple governance-level practice of adaptive freshwater management.

This Waterlines report is part of a series of papers commissioned on issues relating to Australian aquatic ecosystems. These Waterlines reports will contribute to improved environmental water management by stimulating discussion, synthesising current thinking, identifying knowledge gaps, and highlighting areas that warrant further investigation. With increasing anthropogenic pressures on river ecosystems, the way that rivers are managed is critical for the maintenance and improvement of human wellbeing. Like much of the world, Australian practices of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem management have relied on notions of a uniform equilibrium state, where the focus has been on increasing or optimising efficiency and performance in order to deliver defined benefits, including supply or sustainability (Hillman et al. 2005; Walker and Salt 2006). Yet Australian river ecosystems are under pressure and continue to degrade under existing management practices. This is not surprising. Ecosystems are moving targets, which are characterised by episodic change, patchiness, variability, multiple scales of operation, and multiple stable states in both the social and biophysical domains (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Time and time again, ecosystems managed for some type of equilibrium carrying capacity have been thwarted by surprise events, changes in thresholds, and market failures (Carpenter and Folke 2006). Time and time again it has been shown that optimising efficiency to deliver a defined benefit does not lead to sustainability, but rather to collapse (Walker and Salt 2006). New ideas are required to improve the management of Australian river ecosystems. One such idea - resilience thinking - provides an umbrella under which to consider the future management of river ecosystems. Resilience is the amount of change a system can undergo (its capacity to absorb disturbance) and remain within the same regime that essentially retains the same function, structure and feedbacks (Walker and Salt 2006). Resilience thinking seeks to determine how societies, economies and ecosystems can be managed to confer resilience: that is, how to maintain the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance without changing to a different state. The aims of this project are to: 1. review the concepts of resilience and thresholds as they apply in river ecosystems 2. identify the components of a framework to assist planners in managing the resilience of river ecosystems.

The Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law is a specialist law and institutions research centre with a focus upon issues affecting rural communities and industries. One of the core components of our work has been evaluation of the effectiveness, efficiency and fairness of natural resources rules frameworks. This submission is intended to bring to the attention of the group this body of work, and to propose some specific future regulatory reform directions based upon this work. We welcome and support the decision by COAG to address the issue of environmental law reform, and to identify the particular need for reform in the rules governing primary production. We believe that there is a number of pathways to potentially add impetus and innovation into this mix, and the purpose of this submission is to point to some of these directions. We will not attempt to reiterate here the detailed research we have conducted, to which we will refer you later in this submission. The Deregulation Group can evaluate this information without our assistance, and we are always happy to respond to questions. There is a number of aspects of the Stakeholder consultation paper where we think the discussion can be criticised, but it does not seem to be useful to focus on these issues as they will probably come into focus at the implementation stage. However if the Deregulation Group wishes to have comments on these matters, that would be possible.