FAQs

What is an action?

A water quality improvement action is a land management action such as a change in agricultural practice that has an impact on water quality.

What happens if I change an action?

When a scenario is run, a snapshot of the actions in the scenario are created. If you change the action, it will not change the results unless you rerun the scenario.

What is the action response shape?

There are four action response shapes. These are used to predict the temporal load reduction. The immediate response assumes all water quality improvement occurs in the year the action is applied. The linear, slow and fast response assume a response over 15 years from the year of action implementation.

How is adoption potential calculated?

The peak adoption level and the time to achieve that adoption is determined using the ADOPT method. The values are determined based on a survey conducted for each action. Adoption is not catchment specific. The level of adoption for each year is a linear relationship required to achieve the peak adoption level over the predicted time to peak adoption.

Do I have to use adoption?

No. In a scenario setup you can choose to assume 100% adoption, or assume immediate adoption up to the predicted annual adoption rate. These options are designed to allow comparison of the relative importance of considering adoption in planning.

What are co-benefits?

The co-benefits of an action are those additional benefits, over and above water quality improvement. Co-benefits are represented across five different co-benefit domains;

• Environmental (to capture local environmental benefits),
• Economic (to capture farm and regional economic benefits)
• Social (to capture social learning benefits)
• First Nations People (to capture first nations inclusion in project design)
• Climate ( to capture carbon sequestration and land resilience benefits)

How are co-benefits calculated?

Co-benefits are capture via a survey for each action. The survey scores are averaged for each co-benefit element to give an average for each co-benefit domain. The co-benefit score is determined by scaling the action co-benefit by the area of implementation of the action.

What are the different action types?

There are three action types;

• Efficacy (proportional reduction in load)
• Yield (reduction in load per area)
• Fixed load (fixed reduction in load for an action)

What is an efficacy action?

An efficacy action reduces the load from a pollution source (industry) by applying a percentage reduction to the proportion of the pollution source that the action is applied to.

What is a yield action?

A yield action reduces the load from a pollution source (industry) by applying a load per ha reduction to the proportion of the pollution source that the action is applied to.

What is a fixed load action?

A fixed load action reduces the load from a pollution source (industry) by applying a fixed load reduction to the pollution source that the action is applied to.

What is the difference between an ffficacy and yield action?

Yield actions will reduce load by the same amount, irrespective of the order of actions, but the load reduced from efficacy actions is effected by the order of actions. An efficacy action is a percentage reduction. As actions are applied, the pollution load will reduce, the efficacy (percentage) remains the same, but the net load reduction will reduce because the load from the pollution source reduces as actions are applied.

Where would you use efficacy or yield actions?

As a general rule, if actions interact, then an efficacy approach is appropriate. An example of using the different action type is for grazing pasture management, which might be represented as a yield (fixed load per ha reduction), but riparian management actions which effectively filter the load from the pasture areas could be represented as an efficacy (percent reduction).

What  does the ‘area from’ and ‘area to’ mean?

In order to track how much action can be applied, Reefonomics keeps track of the available area such as a management practice subcategory. Some actions transition from one management practice to another.

What  does the ‘pollution source’ mean?

The pollution source is the industry or process to which the load reduction applies. For example, a sugar cane action will only reduce the load from the sugar cane industry.

Learn more about the action input data >>