Sustainable Groundwater Management: A Comparative Analysis of French and Australian Policies and Implications to Other Countries (Global Issues in Water Policy, 24, Band 24)

This book describes and analyses the diversity of possible approaches and policy pathways to implement sustainable groundwater development, based on a comparative analysis of numerous quantitative management case studies from France and Australia.

This unique book brings together water professionals and academics involved for several decades in groundwater policy making, planning or operational management to reflect on their experience with developing and implementing groundwater management policy. The data and analysis presented accordingly makes a significant contribution to the empirical water management literature by providing novel, real world insights unpublished elsewhere.

The originality of the contributions also lies in the different disciplinary perspectives (hydrogeology, economics, planning and social sciences in particular) adopted in many chapters.

The book offers a unique comparative analysis of France, Australia and experiences in countriessuch as Chile and the US to identify similarities, but also fundamental differences, which are analysed and presented as alternative policy options – these differences being mainly related to the role of the state, the community and market mechanisms in groundwater management.

Dr. Jean-Daniel RINAUDO is researcher at Brgm (French Geological Survey) where he coordinates the scientific program on environmental and risk economics Initially trained as an agricultural engineer (Montpellier SupAgro 1994), he specialized in agricultural and resource economics (PhD University of Auvergne, 2000). Prior to joining Brgm, he worked for the International Water Management Institute in Pakistan where his research focused on the political economy of irrigation management reforms. His current research mainly focuses on the institutional economic dimension of groundwater management. Most of his research is conducted in France but he also works in Morocco and Chile. He is currently developing new research activities in the field of natural disasters economics, focusing on the methods to assess economic vulnerability and resilience. Dr. Jean Daniel Rinaudo is also member of the Scientific Council of the Adour Garonne River basin agency.

Cameron HOLLEY is a Professorat UNSW Law and is a member of the Global Water Institue and Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre, UNSW Australia. Cameron has worked closely with Australian and international government and non-government organizations on a range of water and natural resource management research projects. He currently holds ARC Discovery Grants on Non-Urban Water Regulation and Integrating the Governance of Water and Coal Seam Gas. He is an Editorial Board member on the Environmental and Planning Law Journal, and in 2016 was the guest editor of a Special Issue (EPLJ Vol 33 Part 4), entitled Rethinking Water Law and Governance.

Steve BARNETT is Principal Hydrogeologist at the Water Science and Monitoring Branch of the Department for Environment and Water in South Australia. He has been involved in the investigation, monitoring and management of groundwater resources in SA for over 40 years, and has contributed technical and policy input into ten groundwater management plans which incorporate a variety of different aquifers and management issues. He is a past-president of Australian Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists. Steve will be one of the key authors of this edited book, contributing to several chapters of the book dealing with the evolution of water policy in Australia, to South Australian case study chapters and to the concluding chapter.

Dr. Marielle MONTGINOUL is senior researcher in Economics at the National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA) and she is a member of the Joint Research Unit G-Eau. Her work focuses on understanding and modeling farmers and households’ water consumption behaviors. She more specifically studies instruments that can be used to reveal these behaviors when information is incomplete. Her research also focuses on economic tools to manage water withdrawals, with a focus on water pricing. She mobilizes a wide range of methodologies including surveys, experimental economics, and scenarios workshops. Marielle is member of the scientific council of the Rhone Méditerranée and Corsica Water agency. She coordinates a Master in Social sciences applied to water management in Montpellier University.