Replenishing Australia's Water Future: From Stagnation to Innovation

Abstract

This chapter charts Australia’s leading-edge water law and governance reforms. It discusses progress on implementation and the challenges this has posed. Connections are drawn between Australia’s experience and the water law and governance literature. After outlining the book’s chapters, four fundamental questions are analysed and answered, namely how successful is Australia’s approach to designing and implementing water governance? What conditions have enabled or blocked its success, including environment, social, political and legal? How does Australia’s water governance system compare and contrast with different international water governance practices? And what are the broader insights for future water governance practice and theory?