Tag: Murray-Darling Basin

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Wicked learning: Reflecting on Learning to be drier

Author/s: Barry Golding, Mike Brown, Annette Foley, Erica Smith, Coral Campbell, Christine Schulz, Jennifer Angwin & Lauri Grace

Edition: Volume 49 / Number 3 /  November 2009

Summary: In this final, collaborative paper in the Learning to be drier edition, we reflect on and draw together some of the key threads from the diverse narratives in our four site papers from across the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Our paper title, Wicked learning, draws on a recent body literature (Rittel & Webber 1973) about messy or ‘wicked problems’ as characterised by Dietz and Stern (1998). It picks up on our identification of the difficulty and enormity of the learning challenges being faced by communities, associated, at best, with a decade of record dry years (drought) and severely over-committed rivers. At worst, drought is occurring in combination with and as a precursor to recent, progressive drying of the Basin associated with climate change. Our research is suggestive of a need for much more learning across all segments of the adult community about ‘… the big picture, including the interrelationships among the full range of causal factors …’ (Australian Public Service Commission, APSC 2007: 1) underlying the presenting problem of drying. We conclude that solutions to the messy or wicked problem of drying in an interconnected Basin will lie in the social domain.

This will include building a wider knowledge and acceptance of the problems and likely future risks across the Basin including all parts of communities. The problem of drying as well as its causes and solutions are multidimensional, and will involve comprehensive learning about all five key characteristics of other ‘wicked’ policy problems identified in previous research in the environmental arena. The narratives that we have heard identify the extreme difficulty in all four sites of rational and learned responses to being drier as the problem has unfolded. All narratives about being drier that we have heard involve a recognition of a combination of the five characteristics common to wicked problems: multi-dimensionality, scientific uncertainty, value conflict and uncertainty, mistrust as well as urgency. All narratives identify the importance of social learning: to be productive, to be efficient, to survive, to live with uncertainty, to be sustainable and to share. Combating the extent and effects of drying, causality aside, will require new forms of learning through new community, social and learning spaces, apart from and in addition to new technological and scientific learning.

Keywords: Murray-Darling Basin, climate change, environment, community education

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Bearing the risk: Learning to be drier mid-river

Author/s: Barry Golding & Jennifer Angwin

Edition: Volume 49, Number 3, November 2009

Summary: This paper investigates learning related to the phenomena of drying over the past decade in the southern Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, as perceived in a mid-river site within the western Riverina of New South Wales, Australia. The insights from audio-recorded interviews, with a wide range of adults across the water-dependent community, mostly relate to the catchment of the Murrumbidgee River in the Shire of Hay. Our overarching theme is about how people are learning about, understanding and bearing the risks, of what is widely regarded as a prolonged drought. For some, the learning is about how to cope with less water in the Basin, and particularly from the river, as predicted in the climate change literature. Our narrative-based, empirical research registers the felt experience of those located, in situ, as a severe ‘irrigation drought’ extends into 2009. The paper dramatises the many obstacles to learning how to think and act differently, in difficult and rapidly changing ecosocial circumstances.

Keywords: Murray-Darling Basin, drought, risks, climate change

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Learning to be drier in the southern Murray-Darling Basin: Setting the scene for this research volume

Author/s: Barry Golding & Coral Campbell

Edition: Volume 49, Number 3, November 2009

Summary: In this paper we undertake a brief review of the literature related to the background of water in the southern Basin, and of the literature related to adult and community learning about water. We also describe the overall method of the project, in order to set up the context for the four, site-specific case studies that follow. These ‘site’ papers are presented in terms of their perceived positions in the broad Basin or water catchment. The first site paper, Water, weeds and autumn leaves: learning to be drier in the Alpine region  (Foley & Grace 2009) examines water-related learning issues in the Victorian Alpine region, particularly from the perspective of diverse community frames of reference (Bekhout, Hertin & Gann 2006). In this alpine ‘water harvesting’ area, the learning has to do with the many impacts of drying, aside from less snow and water runoff, particularly to do with wildfires, weeds, conservation and tourism.

Keywords: Murray-Darling Basin, water-related learning issues, Victorian Alpine, water harvesting, environmental impacts

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.