AGRIBUS 7064 - Water Security and Governance

North Terrace Campus - Trimester 1 - 2022

This course examines the governance, future security and sustainable management of water resources with a particular focus on agricultural production and increasing demands for water by other sectors (e.g. urban growth, environmental flows). Within the course, students will be exposed to topics such as: the historical, cultural and socio-political contexts of water governance; the range of administrative arrangements for developing, allocating, managing and protecting water resources; water and environmental asset valuation methods; the cross-jurisdictional, multi-level and multi-institutional processes for water governance; the intersecting and interrelated interests around water resource use and frameworks for stakeholder consultation; examination of frameworks and economic instruments for addressing increasingly complex water security issues such as allocation and trade; and recent remediation programs to counter land and water degradation.

  • General Course Information
    Course Details
    Course Code AGRIBUS 7064
    Course Water Security and Governance
    Coordinating Unit Centre for Global Food & Resources
    Term Trimester 1
    Level Postgraduate Coursework
    Location/s North Terrace Campus
    Units 3
    Contact Taught as an intensive
    Available for Study Abroad and Exchange Y
    Course Description This course examines the governance, future security and sustainable management of water resources with a particular focus on agricultural production and increasing demands for water by other sectors (e.g. urban growth, environmental flows). Within the course, students will be exposed to topics such as: the historical, cultural and socio-political contexts of water governance; the range of administrative arrangements for developing, allocating, managing and protecting water resources; water and environmental asset valuation methods; the cross-jurisdictional, multi-level and multi-institutional processes for water governance; the intersecting and interrelated interests around water resource use and frameworks for stakeholder consultation; examination of frameworks and economic instruments for addressing increasingly complex water security issues such as allocation and trade; and recent remediation programs to counter land and water degradation.
    Course Staff

    Course Coordinator: Dr Alec Zuo

    Name: Associate Professor Alec Zuo
    Role: Course coordinator and Lecturer
    Location:  6.20, Nexus10 (10 Pulteney Street)
    Email: Alec.Zuo@adelaide.edu.au
    Course Timetable

    The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from Course Planner.

  • Learning Outcomes
    Course Learning Outcomes
    On the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
    1. Describe the historical context of water governance in Australia and other contexts and identify the critical points of institutional change.
    2. List important policy or program options for managing water scarcity and compare their effectiveness in different situations.
    3. Explain the multi-jurisdictional governance of water and analyse reasons as to why this approach is adopted.
    4. Critically analyse the drivers of water scarcity and demonstrate the usefulness of economic instruments such as trade, pricing and allocation.
    5. Apply assessment tools such as cost-benefit analysis, frameworks for interrelated stakeholder consultation and water resource planning to case studies.
    6. Evaluate the possible future outcomes of water governance decisions taken today, and debate the merits/costs of these decisions. 


    University Graduate Attributes

    This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:

    University Graduate Attribute Course Learning Outcome(s)

    Attribute 1: Deep discipline knowledge and intellectual breadth

    Graduates have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of their subject area, the ability to engage with different traditions of thought, and the ability to apply their knowledge in practice including in multi-disciplinary or multi-professional contexts.

    2,3,4,6

    Attribute 2: Creative and critical thinking, and problem solving

    Graduates are effective problems-solvers, able to apply critical, creative and evidence-based thinking to conceive innovative responses to future challenges.

    5

    Attribute 3: Teamwork and communication skills

    Graduates convey ideas and information effectively to a range of audiences for a variety of purposes and contribute in a positive and collaborative manner to achieving common goals.

    1,3,6

    Attribute 4: Professionalism and leadership readiness

    Graduates engage in professional behaviour and have the potential to be entrepreneurial and take leadership roles in their chosen occupations or careers and communities.

    6

    Attribute 5: Intercultural and ethical competency

    Graduates are responsible and effective global citizens whose personal values and practices are consistent with their roles as responsible members of society.

    4,5

    Attribute 8: Self-awareness and emotional intelligence

    Graduates are self-aware and reflective; they are flexible and resilient and have the capacity to accept and give constructive feedback; they act with integrity and take responsibility for their actions.

    2,4
  • Learning Resources
    Required Resources
    There are no specified learning resources required for the course. A lecture outline and recommended reading in preparation for each seminar will be made available, together with a list of additional readings for those wishing to explore issues further. However, there are a number of additional recommended resources that students might like to examine either in preparation for the course discussions or as part of their wider examination of water governance in Australia:
    Recommended Resources
    The following are excellent (but not required) text examples. 

    Dinar, A. and Schwabe, K. (2015), A Handbook of Water Economics, Edward Elgar Press, Northampton MA. (ebook can be downloaded from university's library website http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/)
     
    Griffin, R. (2016), Water Resource Economics, 2nd Edition, MIT Press, Cambridge MA. (hardcopy can be found in the univesrity library)

    Young, R., & Loomis, John B. (2014). Determining the Economic Value of Water Concepts and Methods (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. (ebook can be downloaded from university's library website http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/)


    Legislation and planning:
    • The Water Act (C’wth: 2007)
    • The National Water Initiative
    • The Murray–Darling Basin Agreement
    • Commonwealth Environmental Watering Plans
    Websites:
    Academic journals frequently referred to:
    • Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE)
    • Ecological Economics (Ecol Econ)
    • The American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE)
    • Water Resources Research (WRR)
    • Water Resources Management (WRM)
    • Agricultural Water Management (AWM)
    Cases:
    All case studies will be made available on the course website or via links to relevant external sites. All cases will be freely available.
  • Learning & Teaching Activities
    Learning & Teaching Modes
    The course will be delivered intensively over five weeks: Weeks 1, 3 and 5 involve two 6-hour lecture/workshop contact session (Tuesdays and Thursdays); Weeks 2 and 4 are for preparation/reading in between each contact week. Weekly sessions will be delivered by one of the lecturers, but all lecturers will participate in the course delivery at critical stages (e.g. the debate). The course coordinator will provide a central point of contact for students.
     
    The delivery will be a blended approach using 1.5 hour lectures, course discussion of readings to provide for flipped learning outcomes, and class activities (e.g. game-playing, case studies, debate etc.) for learning development beyond the lecture mode. Students will be required to demonstrate their capacity to locate information, absorb its detail, consider the implications of that information in the context of interest and demonstrate that in the provision of solutions or suggestions for policy/program arrangements. Useful links and tips will be provided in the course materials, and interaction will assist all students to learn from one another.
     
    A debate will be the culmination of the learning mode toward the end of the course where students will be asked to separate into two teams of different stakeholders and debate the merits/costs of two current programs for dealing with water scarcity in Australia: buyback and efficiency improvements. Participation in these activities will form a small part of the course assessment.
    Workload

    The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

    There is no expected pre-requisite knowledge or course-work for this course. However, students are anticipated to have a basic background knowledge through their undergraduate programs that will enable them to contextualize the importance of better water governance across their own area of interest. It is also expected that the student group will thus have a diverse range of professional experience, including some students with no postgraduate work experience. Therefore, consistent with the nature of real-world water governance requirements, students will be encouraged to develop a multi-disciplinary perspective and approach to tackling problems posed in the course.

    As such:

    Core information will be provided to students ahead of course commencement and basic principles will be outlined and developed in the lecture component of the course. Seminar sessions will be used to more deeply develop and apply these core concepts through the use of flipped discussion, problem solving activities and interactive student engagement. Case studies will form a basis for much of this activity, where real-world issues will be discussed and solutions developed by the group on the basis of their learning to date.

    The structure of these cases will be such that examples will range from relatively simple through to complex governance arrangement requirements as the course progresses, highlighting the development of skills and the scale and range of water governance requirements by the end of the course.

    Students will be expected to read the assigned papers or resources ahead of the weekly sessions, and encouraged to read any additional resources supplied for further background information of knowledge. They will then be expected to use that knowledge to actively participate in the seminar discussions and activities as part of their total assessment.

    Learning Activities Summary
    The structure and seminar topics for each session is set out below. At the commencement of the course a more detailed structure would be made available to the student group. Note that as an intensive course it is expected that the course delivery will be broken into two six-hour sessions per week (e.g. Wednesdays and Fridays) over a total of three weeks to accumulate the required 36 contact hours. Format for those sessions would be two 1.5-hour lectures followed with two 1.5-hour practical seminars for flipped discussion, case study analysis, debate and small-group work. Additional work outside of contact hours for course reading and planning by students would also be taken into account.

    Session Lecture Topic Key seminar activitites
    1 Introduction to global water security issues Get to know your classmates and interests
    2 Future water supply and demand, and water conflicts 
    3 Supply and demand solutions to water issues I
    4 Supply and demand solutions to water issues II
    5 Values of water resources I
    6 Values of water resources II Student paper presentations
    7 Property rights and allocation mechanisms I
    8 Property rights and allocation mechanisms II
    9 The Murray-Darling Basin water reform case: Australia leading the world
    10 Basin Planning and reform options: buyback versus efficiency Student paper presentations
    11 The Great Water Game
    12 Review, key messages and course summary
  • Assessment

    The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:

    1. Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
    2. Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
    3. Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
    4. Assessment must maintain academic standards.

    Assessment Summary
    Task Group/Individual Session Deadline Weighting Learning Outcome
    Attendance and Participation Individual NA 10% 1,2,3,4,5,6
    Paper reading analyses and presentation Individual/Small Group Sessions 6, and 10 30% 1,4,5,6
    The Great Water Game Group Session 11 20% 4,5,6
    Short-answer essays (4 of 6 choices) Individual Session 12  40% 1,2,3,4,5,6
    Total 100%
    Assessment Detail
    There will be four (4) assessment requirements in the course, as follows:

    1. Attendance and participation in seminars (10%):

    For students enrolled for face-to-face classes, they are expected to attend 10 of the 12 seminars and actively participate in discussion. They should be familiar with the materials, and show that they have read the assigned minimum reading for each seminar session such that they can ask informed questions and contribute in an informed way. This is key assessment of flipped learning outcomes from the course; that is, we will use this to gauge the students’ development of course knowledge, critical thinking and application of knowledge to issues. Early discussion will be guided by the lecturers, but this development will be reinforced by the case-study assessments.

    For offshore/insterstate students, they are expected to watch the lecture recordings of each session and actively participate in group discussion with peers. They are also encouraged to interact with lecturers through emails and appointments via zoom if feasible. 

    2. Paper presentations (30%):

    Paper presentations take place in Week 2 and Week 3 of course delievery. In Week 2, students will need to present topics covered in Week 1 and in Week 3, students will need to present topics covered in Week 2. Each presentation will be around 10 mins in length and only one group member need to make the presentation on be half of the whole group. Presentation topics will be made avaialbe in Week 1 and Week 2, respectively. Marks will be awarded on the basis of: summary of the given topic; key message and insights of the topic, and answers to student questions. 

    3. The Great Water Game (20%):

    Each student will be assigned into one of seven (7) groups; each one a specific representative organisation of interests in the fictitious Finn River Basin (FRB). It will be each group's responsibility to:
    Carefully read the instructions and understand your position/objectives in the game;
    Agree upon and identify one representative that will talk for the group at the common table;
    Meet prior to the game and set your agenda, agreed tactics, bargaining chips etc.

    A total time of 3 hours approximately will be allocated on the second teaching day of Week 3 to reach an agreement, as per the game instructions. How well each group and its individual members perform in their game roles will (in-part) determine the final assessment grade for this component.

    HOWEVER, the main objective here is one of learning and practical experience so please do not stress about the group nature of this assignment, or individual parts. The idea is to get into the roles assigned, enjoy the experience, have fun, and learn something valuable about yourselves and water governance in practice.

    4. Short-answer essay responses (40%):

    As a final exam assessment, students will be provided with six questions to which they will be required to submit four short-answer essay responses. For example, students may be asked to list the critical requirements for effective water governance and site an example where they are used in the world context. They may then be required to also critically appraise reasons as to why the system in question succeeded/failed over time.

    The proposed assessment is summarised in the table above, together with due dates, learning outcomes etc.
    Submission
    Assignments must be submitted in Softcopy through Turnitin on MyUni

    All assignments must be presented professionally with clear headings, appropriate referencing and using one and a half spacing.

    Extensions will only be granted if requests are received in writing to the course coordinator at least 24 hours before the final due date unless they are requested on medical or compassionate grounds and are supported by appropriate documents.

    Please contact the course coordinator, preferably by email, at any time to make an appointment for assistance or guidance in relation to course work, assignments or any concerns that may arise. Assignments will normally be returned two weeks after they have been submitted
    Course Grading

    Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

    M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme)
    Grade Mark Description
    FNS   Fail No Submission
    F 1-49 Fail
    P 50-64 Pass
    C 65-74 Credit
    D 75-84 Distinction
    HD 85-100 High Distinction
    CN   Continuing
    NFE   No Formal Examination
    RP   Result Pending

    Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.

    Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.

    Final results for this course will be made available through Access Adelaide.

  • Student Feedback

    The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.

    SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.

  • Student Support
  • Policies & Guidelines
  • Fraud Awareness

    Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student’s disciplinary procedures.

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