3.1: Socio-economic activity and water use in the Tropical Rivers region

Leader:

Natalie Stoeckl

Abstract

<p>An understanding of the socio-economic systems and their relationships with the environment is a key component in assessing the implications of future developments in northern Australia.  This project will study a range of economic, cultural, institutional and human-capital aspects of northern populations to look for differences and similarities among communities and to describe how the region's socio-economic systems might change under the different future development scenarios.</p>

Outcomes

The project will benefit natural resource managers, policy makers, local and state governments, community groups enhancing their knowledge about:

the current status, and growth rate of the region's socio-economic systems,
some of their 'interactions' with the environment and
the likely impacts on the socio-economic systems and, by extension, environmental systems of alternative development paths.

In addition, it will:

identify critical knowledge gaps about the region's socioeconomic systems.

This information may also be useful to local residents, and/or others considering moving to, or investing in, the TRaCK region.

Where is the research happening?

Population projections, tourism, socio-economic profiles and demographic profiles will be developed for catchments in the TRACK region - although in some cases we will need to combine catchments with small populations, giving 39 (rather than 55) separate profiles.

An economic model will be built for just two focal catchments - the Mitchell, Qld, and the Daly, NT.

Please access the lists of these Socio-Economic Profiles and Demographic Profiles produced for the TRACK catchments by following the link below to our Project Showcase page. The publication 'Fact Sheets' to the right will also display the individual catchment data.

Who's involved

The project is being lead by Dr Natalie Stoeckl from James Cook University in Townsville. Researchers from James Cook University (including Natalie and Owen Stanley) are collaborating with Dean Carson, Suzanne Campbell and Andrew Taylor from Charles Darwin University and with Silva Larson and Kostas Alexandridis from CSIRO Townsville.