Final Review Report For the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA): An Independent Review of the Social and Economic Modelling Inputs to the Northern Basin Review

Abstract

The MDBA is reviewing the water recovery targets for the Northern Basin and to inform their decision-making, in our independent view, they have undertaken an extensive series of works on modelling the social and economic impacts of water recovery from the communities of the Northern Basin. They bring this together in an interim summary report that allows the reader then to see the extent of work and the key assumptions and results, while at the same time if required, being able to drill deeper into the detail of the accompanying reports. Undertaking this modelling work is no easy task, given data limitations and methodological hurdles, however we are confident that through our review process, the MDBA have shown a willingness to refine and enhance their modelling by taking on board the majority of our improvement recommendations, if not in the short term due to time constraints, then as part of their medium to longer term planned work program. We are also in agreement with the MDBAs overall approach to the use of the modelling work, and refer to Feldstein's quote that "a useful model is not one that is 'true' or 'realistic' but one that is parsimonious, plausible and informative". Because of this inherent limitation in all models, the MDBA has a broad range of supporting social, economic, contextual and local information that is presented and should be duly considered along with the modelling outputs in reaching any given decision. Similarly, no rural community exists in a 'stable state' of perfect predictability, but is a dynamically complex system that is in a continual state of adjustment to some socio-economic change or another. Having a healthy appreciation of this complexity, such as by understanding that each community has a different adaptive capacity to change, shows that the MDBA's modelling and supporting information are together critical to making decisions over water withdrawals.