About Reefonomics
Reefonomics is an investment planning application that couples economic and environmental modelling. It allows the Queensland and Australian governments to create and run alternative investment portfolio scenarios and determine the cost and likely water quality benefits and co-benefits of those scenarios. Reefonomics scenarios can be set to meet a budget, achieve water quality targets, or perform a set number of on-ground actions.
Reefonomics allows users to:
- create optimised portfolios of water quality improvement actions for the Great Barrier Reef catchments based on:
- water quality targets
- budget limitations, and
- filtering of preferred actions by catchment, industry, confidence in water quality improvement, likely adoption levels
- predict the water quality improvement (load reduction) for action portfolios.
Special features
- Optimised action portfolios provide the greatest water quality improvement per dollar.
- The temporal response of water quality improvement is predicted (how long will it take to achieve the water quality improvement).
- The confidence in water quality improvement is predicted.
- The likelihood of adoption of actions is used to create the investment portfolio.
- The co-benefits of action portfolios are predicted.
Who it is for
Reefonomics is for planners of natural resource investment in the Great Barrier Reef catchments.
Where it applies
All contributing catchments of the Great Barrier Reef are included.
Acknowledgements
Creator: Reefonomics has been created by Truii Pty Ltd.
Funding: Development of Reefonomics was through an initial grant from the Queensland Water Modelling Network and the Queensland Office of the Great Barrier Reef. A subsequent grant provided by the Queensland Water Modelling Network supported the inclusion of the adoption and co-benefits functionality. Truii Pty Ltd has also significantly co-invested in the development of Reefonomics. The latest release is co-funded by the Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation and the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Owner: Truii Pty Ltd owns Reefonomics. Reefonomics is provided as a service by Truii Pty Ltd. Truii charges an access fee to cover the cost of development, hosting and support.
How development is managed: The prioritisation of new functionality and refinement is management by a steering committee chaired by Truii. The Reefonomics steering committee meets up to quarterly (as demand requires). The steering committee considers development priorities and the timing of future functionality releases.
Data sources:
- Actions water quality improvement data for the Sugarcane, Grain and Banana industries is derived from modelling simulations conducted by the Paddock to Reef paddock modelling team.
- Gully related water quality improvement effectiveness is from the Gully Toolbox.
- The cost of actions is derived from expert input.
- The base load data is from the Paddock to Reef catchment Modelling team.
- The available land for implementing each activity is from the Paddock to Reef Land Management team.
