Policy Diversity:
Creative Potential or Wasteful
Redundancy?
Amanda H. Lynch
Diffusion of Innovation
• Reform of environmental policy and decisions is
most likely to fail when a threat to a power or value
position is perceived.
• When this occurs, the credibility, admissibility, or
domain of empirical knowledge is often called into
question on normative grounds.
• One model to explore this dynamic is the diffusion
of empirical knowledge and values*.
*
Rogers, E.M. (1995) Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. Free Press, New York
Henry A.D. (2009) The Challenge of Learning for Sustainability, Research in Human Ecology
Centralized and Decentralized Decisions
Centralized
Decentralized
Innovation utilizes primarily expert
sources. Consultation often pro forma.
Innovation relies on practitioners in
regional government, communities and
industry.
Diffusion occurs as a uniform package.
Diffusion occurs through adaptation.
Primary advantage:
Access to formal power, including
sanctions and resources, can ensure
robust environmental outcomes.
Flexibility and redundancy allows a
reserve of creative potential that
enhances resilience in the face of
uncertainty.
Examples:
• Yellow River Delta, wetlands
restoration
• Colorado River Basin, “The Law of
the River”
• Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement • EU Public Health Heat Alert Systems
EU environmental regulation
Case Analysis: Murray-Darling River Basin
• Australia’s three longest rivers
• 14% of Australian land area, across 4
states and 1 territory
• Red gum forests, grass plains, intensive
agriculture, small towns
• 52% of Australia’s water consumption
• 41% Australia’s gross national
agricultural product
• 35 endangered birds, 16 endangered
mammals, 20 mammals already extinct
Murray-Darling Basin Climate
Murray-Darling Basin Climate
“With low water allocations, I had to buy extra water just to keep
the trees alive. I've just spent an extra $200,000 so I'm virtually
going to be working the whole year for no return. I mean, it's just a
survival mode that I can see and that's for this next 12 months and
how do we know - this could go on for years - we don't know.”
...Richard Swinstead
2007
Murray-Darling Basin Climate
“The tormented irrigators are family farmers of our national food
bowl, the producers of the nation’s food supply, who have barely
held on through a decade of drought exacerbated by water
restrictions for phony ‘environmental flows’, but now when they
finally have an opportunity to replenish their land and grow full
crops, they are being blocked”
...Craig Isherwood
2010
Murray-Darling Basin Governance
1905: Regulation negotiations commence
1914: River Murray Water Agreement
1917: River Murray Commission
1936: Hume Dam ensures continuous flow
1983: Scope of Commission expanded
1988: Murray-Darling Basin Commission
1994: “The Cap”
1997-2003: Catchment Management Authorities
2007: Water Act
Water Market initiated
2008: Murray-Darling Basin Authority
Commonwealth Water Holder
“Law of the River”
1944 Wimmera
Murray-Darling Basin Authority
Survey
“Principle 7: The best available knowledge (including
scientific, local and cultural knowledge), evidence and
analysis should be used where practicable to ensure
credibility, transparency and usefulness of monitoring and
evaluation findings” (Murray-Darling Basin Authority, 2012,
p.147).
What are the sources and conduits of policy innovation and
diffusion concerning water allocations during drought and
risk management during flood?
1. Benign Command and Control
• Promotes protecting the river though government
regulation.
• Supports the Commonwealth water buyback
scheme to underpin environmental flows.
• Strong focus on allowing bank over-topping as a
natural environmental renewal process.
• Seeks exercise of formal power through
government regulation and enforcement.
“YES!! The abuse & overuse must stop. Sadly, most people
won't until they HAVE to.”
2. Supported Industry Innovation
• Promotes government assistance for local
practitioner innovation.
• Concerned about flexibility of water allocation
programs as region oscillates between drought and
flood.
• Places the policy question in the context of national
food security and viability of export industry.
“You can’t be GREEN if you are in the RED.”
3. Culture and Community
• Promotes legitimate engagement with long time
residents, including Indigenous Traditional Owners
in co-management agreements.
• Community sustainability outweighs broader
economic and environmental outcomes.
• Innovation arises through shared experience.
• Mistrust of government and science.
“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan will only focus on economic
relief for the most tax protected people in the world
FARMERS”
Is there any common ground?
• Scientific and federal government expert contributions to the
development of policy has been the hallmark of the Murray-Darling
Basin planning process.
• The Plan is supported by State Government and Catchment
Management Authority representatives.
• The Plan does not enjoy strong support from farmers, community
members, and tribal groups.
• Successful diffusion of water policy innovation is not likely to be
achieved using the present strategy (“invite, inform, ignore”)
While policy innovations are being generated, the diffusion of policy is still
sufficiently contested that it remains an open question as to whether the
Plan will survive judicial scrutiny.
What have we learned?
Centralized
Decentralized
Advantages
Access to expert knowledge
Access to sanctions and resources
Well defined environmental outcomes
Efficiency
Access to contextual and local knowledge
Robust to high uncertainty
Innovation “dividend”
Redundancy
Disadvantages
One size fits all
Slow to adjust to changing signals
Partial incorporation
Single point failure
Limited resources and attention
Venue shopping
Partial incorporation
Allocative inefficiencies
What have we learned?
1. High uncertainty and large variability demand the
innovation dividend of policy diversity.
2. Critical environmental and social outcomes
demand the efficiency dividend of centralized
goal-setting.
Subsidiarity principle “holds that government should
undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacity
of individuals or private groups acting independently”
Questions?