A Survey of Australian Farms to Assess Water Risk and Resilience

Kelly, S; Cunningham, R; Plant, R

A Survey of Australian Farms to Assess Water Risk and Resilience

Kelly, S

Cunningham, R

Plant, R

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Publisher:: University of Technology Sydney
Publication Type:: Report
Citation:: 2019
Issue Date:: 2019-07-08

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Kelly, S https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8454-6144	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Cunningham, R https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8066-9019	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Plant, R https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3006-741X	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-07-08	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	2019	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/134419
dc.format	Report	en_US
dc.publisher	University of Technology Sydney	en_US
dc.title	A Survey of Australian Farms to Assess Water Risk and Resilience	en_US
dc.type	Report
utslib.location	University of Technology Sydney	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/DVC (Research)
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/DVC (Research)/Institute For Sustainable Futures
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - ISF - Institute for Sustainable Futures
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.consider-herdc	false	en_US
pubs.confidential	false	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	University of Technology Sydney	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.rights-statement	This research aimed to understand the materiality of water risk to Australian Farms. The survey asked farmers a series of questions about how they manage water risk, where they source their water and how they use technology. The majority of respondents (47%) owned or managed farms within the Murray Darling Catchment, the remaining farms were spread across other catchments in NSW, Victoria, QLD, Tasmania and WA. A total of 72% of respondents used irrigation and the remainder indicated that irrigation was not applicable to their situation. A total of 849 farms across Australia were surveyed. The mean turnover of the primary farm was $1.48 million and mean operational expenses was $841,000. The mean water expenditure across all farms was $25/hectare or a mean of $34,000 per farm. The thirstiest crops were sugarcane, cotton, rice and tobacco, requiring. The mean number of years a farm experienced water stress was 3.04 years. The Murray-Darling Basin had the highest mean years of water stress reported at 4.5 years. The primary source of water for most farms is on-farm water storage with the next highest source being owned water rights. Surprisingly, very few farms participate in the short term water markets, although farms actively monitor the water price, farmers prefer to exhaust all other water resources before water is purchased on the open markets. Only 22% of farms have purchased water from the short term water markets and only 8.6% have sold water through a temporary trade. When farms do need to purchase water from the markets 80% of farms only purchase between 0-10% of total water requirements. This shows water markets offer an important resource to farms to get gain access to water when they need it.	en_US

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