Catchments as Assets: an Australian Case Study of Control Measures for Source Water Protection

摘要: This paper addresses the economics of improving drinking water quality by investing in catchment management. Three catchment management scenarios were studied for the mid-Yarra catchment in Victoria, Australia. Impacts of management interventions on water quality and volume were compared against ‘business as usual’investment in water quality management. Preliminary results for the mid-Yarra catchment in Victoria suggest that land use in this well-developed catchment would be expensive to modify. The cost of buying back land in order to protect the source water would be extremely high, whereas a suite of catchment management practices would be comparatively cheap.(97 words)