Modelling the economic, social and ecological links in the Murray-Darling basin: A conceptual framework

The water policy reform in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) will have a range of implications on the social-ecological system (SES) of the Basin. We propose an analytical framework that may be useful in analysing how policy changes or external shocks, which originate in one part of a SES can be traced transparently throughout the SES by sequentially linking a series of models, where each model has demonstrated strength in explaining a part of the whole system. This framework is suitable to analyse the national, regional and spatial socio-economic and distributional effects of regional-specific policy reforms or external shocks.