Catchment care - Developing an auction process for biodiversity and water quality gains.A market-based instrument pilot project.Report to the Onkaparinga Catchment Water Management Board.Volume 1

[摘要] Executive Summary:This report describes the design, development and trial of Catchment Care.Catchment Care is an auction-based system which aims to increase the cost effectiveness of funds for private on-ground natural resource management (NRM) actions distributed by the Onkaparinga Catchment Water Management Board (the Board).Catchment Care is a first-price sealed bid procurement action where the Board purchases the most cost effective on-ground NRM works by landholders.A risk analysis framework is developed to score, rank and select bids that offer the greatest benefits for biodiversity and water quality for the limited amount of funding available.The Catchment Care process begins by advertising the availability of funds for private on-ground works which is designed to generate a competitive market for natural resource management contracts.Interested landholders are sent detailed information about all aspects of the auction process and best practice NRM techniques.The level of information supplied allows landholders to make an informed bid and address Board priorities but does not give enough information provide a basis for rent seeking.Proposed sites are assessed in the field and specific environmental value and threat characters associated with the geomorphology, hydrology and remnant vegetation are scored.Based on discussion with field officers, landholders propose certain environmental restoration and protection actions to reduce specific threats acting upon the site.Landholder actions are described and priced in a Site Action Plan and submitted as a competitive bid.Bids are then assessed, ranked, selected, and contracted by the Board.Bid selection begins by calculating the risk of the site as the environmental value multiplied by threat.The impact of proposed landholder actions is calculated as the risk of the site multiplied by the level of threat reduction expected by proposed actions.An environmental benefit score is then calculated for each bid by multiplying the impact of each proposal by the area over which the action is conducted.Cost effectiveness of each bid is then calculated by dividing the environmental benefits by the price.Bids are then ranked according to cost effectiveness and the most cost effective bids are selected for funding until the funds are exhausted or the reserve price is reached.Landholders are then contracted to perform the proposed actions and a milestone based payment scheme is devised.The bid scoring and risk analysis framework of Catchment Care was tested by Monte Carlo simulation and refined before going to trial.Following this a full trial of the auction system was run in the Onkaparinga catchment.A total of 52 expressions of interest were received, 42 site assessments were made and 29 bids were submitted.A total funding limit of $150, 000 was set resulting in the funding of the 17 most cost effective bids.To assist agencies considering moving from a devolved grant scheme to an auction system for distributing funds for on-ground works, we estimate that the minimum cost of doing so is around $100,000 not including funding costs.The cost effectiveness of Catchment Care is compared against the Board's previous Watercourse Management and Assistance Program (WMAP) based on historical data on prices paid for landholder actions.Considering both implementation and funding costs we estimate that Catchment care is between 23 and 34% more cost effective than WMAP although this estimate is subject to some uncertainty.Depending on the amounts of funding distributed the upfront development costs of an auction would be quickly recouped through increased efficiency.Despite the overall improvement in cost effectiveness of the auction system, there are advantages and limitations of both programs.The auction enables landholders who are able to supply environmental benefits very cheaply to do so.However, the more expensive environmental benefits are lost to the system.Whilst the negotiation and leverage ability inherent to WMAP enables access to high priced environmental benefits, the total environmental benefits gained from these higher priced bids are limited.significant learnings were made about many aspects of the auction system and many areas have been identified for improvement.There is substantial interest in another trial over the larger Mt. Lofty Ranges and Greater Adelaide NRM region.Before this occurs there is a need for substantial modification and refinement of the processes and protocols and for enhanced sophistication of the site assessment characters.There is potential to add a series of regional scale characters according to conservation planning principles and to directly map auction priorities to regional resource condition targets identified in the NRM plans.

[发布机构] CSIRO

[学科分类] 地球科学(综合)