Adaptive implementation of information technology for real-time, basin-scale salinity management in the San Joaquin Basin, USA and Hunter River Basin, Australia

Pollutant trading schemes are market-based strategies that can provide cost-effective and flexible environmental compliance in large river basins. The aim of this paper is to contrast two innovative adaptive strategies for salinity management have been developed in the Hunter River Basin, New South Wales, Australia and in the San Joaquin River Basin, California, USA, respectively. In both instances web-based stakeholder information dissemination has been a key to achieving a high level of stakeholder involvement and the formulation of effective decision support tools for salinity management. A common element to implementation of salinity management strategies in both the Hunter River and San Joaquin River basins has been the concept of river assimilative capacity as a guide for controlling export salt loading and the establishment of a framework for trading of the right to discharge salt load to the Hunter River and San Joaquin River respectively. Both rivers provide basin drainage and the means of exporting salt load to the ocean. The paper compares the opportunities and constraints governing salinity management in the two basins as well as the use of monitoring, modeling and information technology to achieve environmental compliance and sustain irrigated agriculture in an equitable, socially and politically acceptable manner. The paper concludes by placing into broader context some of the issues raised by the comparison of the two approaches to basin salinity management.