Role:	Course coordinator and Lecturer
Location:	6.18, Nexus10 (10 Pulteney Street)
Email:	Adam.Loch@adelaide.edu.au

Other Lecturer(s)

Name:	Prof Sarah Wheeler
Role:	Lecturer
Location:	6.17, Nexus10 (10 Pulteney Street)
Email:	Sarah.Wheeler@adelaide.edu.au

Name:	Dr Alec Zuo
Role:	Lecturer
Location:	6.20, Nexus10 (10 Pulteney Street)
Email:	Alec.Zuo@adelaide.edu.au

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 discuss the drivers of water scarcity and explain the usefulness of economic instruments such as trade, pricing and allocation.
5. Identify appropriate assessment tools such as non-market valuation techniques, frameworks for interrelated stakeholder consultation, and water resource planning to case studies.
6. Identify the possible future outcomes of water governance decisions taken today, and explain the merits/costs of these decisions.

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

The following are excellent (but not required) text examples. The library does not hold a copy of these texts in its collection, but an electronic version of the individual contributions is freely available at http://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781782549642.xml :

Dinar, A. and Schwabe, K. (2015), A Handbook of Water Economics, Edward Elgar Press, Northampton MA.
 
Griffin, R. (2016), Water Resource Economics, 2nd Edition, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

Legislation and planning:

• The Water Act (C’wth: 2007)
• The National Water Initiative
• The Murray–Darling Basin Agreement
• Commonwealth Environmental Watering Plans

Websites:

• The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) http://www.agriculture.gov.au/
• The Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) http://www.mdba.gov.au/
• The Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) https://www.environment.gov.au/water/cewo
• The National Water Commission (archived) http://www.nwc.gov.au/
• The Victorian Environmental Water Holder (VEWH) http://www.vewh.vic.gov.au/
• New South Wales Office of Water (DPI-Water) http://www.water.nsw.gov.au/
• Council of Australian Governments (CoAG) http://www.coag.gov.au/

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.

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 role-playing game will be the culmination of the learning mode toward the end of the course where students will be asked to separate into seven teams representing different stakeholders in a fictitious basin setting. Each team has set objectives and must negotiate under the supervision of a coordinating authority (the Ministerial Council) in an attempt to reach consensus. All teams have set instructions and notes to assist them play their role, and assessment is based on preparation, engagement, and eventual negotiation outcomes

There is no expected pre-requisite knowledge or course-work for this course. During the course, 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 through group-work and in-class exercises.

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. In-class activities will form the basis for much of the interaction, where real-world issues will be discussed and solutions developed by the group on the basis of their learning to date. Students will be assessed on their participation in these activities.

At the conclusion of the course, students will take on a Basin management role as part of a role-playing game that explores water management issues and the realities of negotiation and strategy. Depending on numbers, students may undertake the role individually or as a group member. Students will be expected to read and understand their respective role ahead of that session, and come prepared to defend their assigned position with argument. Engagement with the role, innovative thinking, and eventual negotiation outcomes will form the basis for their final assessment.

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. Tuesdays and Thursdays) 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	Uncertainty as a growing influence in water governance complexity
3	Supply and demand solutions to water resource governance
4	Sectoral use of water resources
5	Values of water resources I
6	Values of water resources II	Student paper presentations
7	Property rights, allocation mechanisms and rights structures
8	Economic instruments as a tool for water governance
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

Both lecturers would be involved in the course delivery through both intensive lecture sessions and assistance during seminar discussions, group work, judging the debate etc. However, the specific lecture topic load would be split as follows:
• First Session: Prof Sarah Wheeler (topics 1-4)
• Second Session: Associate Prof Alec Zuo (topics 5-8)
• Third Session: Associate Prof Alec Zuo (topics 9-12)

Task	Group/Individual	Session Deadline	Weighting	Learning Outcome
Attendance and Participation	Individual	NA	10%	1-6
Problem solving essays	Individual	Sessions 6 and 10	30%	1,4,5,6
The Great Water Game	Group	Session 11	20%	4-6
Short-answer essays (3 of 6 choices)	Individual	Session 13	40%	1-6
Total			100%

There will be four (4) assessment requirements in the course, as follows:

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.

---

Problem solving essays (30%):

In each of Week 1 and Week 2, students will be provided with a piece of reading and a set of questions. They are required to answer the questions in short-essay formats. Each week accounts for 15%. Detailed instructions will be made available in due course. 

---

The Great Water Debate (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 at least one (1) and a maximum of two (2) representatives that will talk for the group at the common table;
Assign roles to the other group members (e.g. fact-checker, side-negotiator, scribe etc.);
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.

---

Short-answer essay responses (40%):
As a final exam assessment, students will be provided with eight 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.

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