Beyond a 'just add water' perspective: environmental water management for vegetation outcomes.

Practitioners of environmental water management (EWM) operate within complex social-ecological systems. We sought to better understand this complexity by investigating the management of environmental water for vegetation outcomes. We conducted an online survey to determine practitioners' perspectives on EWM for non-woody vegetation (NWV) in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia with regards to: i) desirable outcomes and benefits; ii) influencing factors and risks; iii) challenges of monitoring and evaluation, and iv) improving outcomes. Survey participants indicated that EWM aims to achieve outcomes by improving or maintaining vegetation attributes and the functions and values these provide. Our study reveals that EWM practitioners perceive NWV management in a holistic and highly interconnected way. Numerous influencing factors as well as risks and challenges to achieving outcomes were identified by participants, including many unrelated to water. Survey responses highlighted six areas to improve EWM for NWV outcomes: (1) flow regimes, (2) vegetation attributes, (3) non-flow drivers, (4) management-governance considerations, (5) functions and values, and (6) monitoring, evaluation and research. These suggest a need for more than 'just water' when it comes to the restoration and management of NWV. Our findings indicate more integrated land-water governance and management is urgently required to address the impacts of non-flow drivers such as pest species, land-use change and climate change. The results also indicate that inherent complexity in EWM for ecological outcomes has been poorly addressed, with a need to tackle social-ecological constraints to improve EWM outcomes.

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Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Cherie Campbell reports financial support was provided by Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. Cherie Campbell reports financial support was provided by Australian Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO). Siwan Lovett reports a relationship with Australian River Restoration Centre that includes: employment. Samantha Capon reports a relationship with Eco Logical Australia Pty Ltd that includes: employment. Ross Thompson reports a relationship with Australian Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) that includes: funding grants. Fiona Dyer reports a relationship with Australian Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) that includes: funding grants. Siwan Lovett reports a relationship with Australian Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) that includes: funding grants. All the authors have, over many years, received funding from various Australian government departments, such as the Murray Darling Basin Authority and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office, to undertake river and wetland research, and to provide advice on technical issues and policy implications. Siwan Lovett is managing director of the not-for-profit Australian River Restoration Centre. Samantha J. Capon is a senior consultant with Eco Logical Australia Pty Ltd. Ross Thompson, Fiona Dyer and Siwan Lovett have all received funding from the Australian Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) though not specifically in relation to this study.