Michael Mitchell

Michael Mitchell
Charles Sturt University · Institute for Land, Water and Society

BSc (hons); MPhil; PhD

About

36
Publications
31,911
Reads
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647
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2012 - March 2015
University of Tasmania
Position
  • Research Associate
November 2009 - June 2012
Charles Sturt University
Position
  • PostDoc Position

Publications

Publications (36)
Article
Full-text available
Agricultural intensification is increasing global demand for water, with groundwater especially susceptible given its year-round reliability. Climate change impacts on groundwater recharge exacerbate uncertainties for future access and use, especially for large aquifers across alluvial plains such as the Indus Basin of Pakistan. To generate better...
Article
The growing issues with groundwater quality and quantity worldwide are particularly impacting regions of South Asia, where groundwater use plays a crucial role in human well‐being. As the severity of the situation becomes clearer, there are increasing calls for transformation in water management. In this paper, we consider institutional influences...
Article
Full-text available
Effective governance of social‐ecological systems (SES) is an enduring challenge, especially in coastal environments where accelerating impacts of climate change are increasing pressure on already stressed systems. While resilience is often proposed as a suitable framing to re‐orient governance and management, the literature includes many different...
Article
Full-text available
In light of the global challenges of the Anthropocene, including biodiversity loss, there are increasing calls for positive, inspirational futures to motivate action and help steer away from current, largely unsustainable trajectories. The three horizons framework is an approach in future studies that engages with normative futures and helps develo...
Book
Full-text available
This book presents the first comprehensive assessment of water resources in Pakistan including surface water resources and groundwater resources. It gives a detailed overview of issues and challenges related to water which have not been adequately addressed e.g. water resource vulnerability to climate change, groundwater depletion and contamination...
Chapter
Pakistan has a vision to become one of the top ten global economies by the middle of this century, but has to achieve that transition despite being one of the most water-stressed and arid countries in the world. Its water availability goes through extremes from too much to too little water, and climate change is projected to exacerbate these extrem...
Chapter
High quality research informed by systems thinking can contribute to positive outcomes in complex, dynamic situations related to managing natural resources such as water. This chapter refers to social-ecological systems thinking to identify characteristics of high quality transdisciplinary research that makes a lasting impact. We primarily draw on...
Article
Full-text available
This paper outlines the experience of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in developing and managing research for development projects concerning land and water resources. The complexity of the contexts in which such research is undertaken has resulted in two discernible shifts. First, to more effectively guide pro...
Article
Conventional approaches to environmental governance and management are limited in their responses to uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological system (SES) change. Prevailing neoliberal and efficiency-based mindsets tend to focus on avoiding risk and creating "fail-safe" systems. In the last decade, resilience thinking has emerged as a means...
Article
Scholars argue that conventional environmental governance approaches have not been effective in reversing or slowing the deterioration of coupled social-ecological systems (SESs). Recent research suggests that resilience thinking offers a useful framework to analyse problems in SESs and could help improve the effectiveness of associated governance...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Available from https://www.aciar.gov.au/sites/default/files/project-page-docs/final_report_lwr-2017-028.pdf
Article
Full-text available
Global biodiversity is facing an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the highest terrestrial species extinction rates in the world. Scientists, policy advisors and governments have recommended that the issue be addressed at a landscape-scale, while noting that there are significant knowledge gaps that are hampering implementation of such an app...
Article
Full-text available
Developing regional scenarios enables planners to engage land managers in discussions about the future, especially in contexts that are complex, uncertain and difficult to control. Richly-crafted qualitative narratives are an effective way to document future scenarios that integrate social, economic and biophysical attributes. Converting such narra...
Article
Full-text available
Biodiversity loss is a globally significant problem. Institutional failure to halt this loss suggests current arrangements are not fit for the purpose of conserving biodiversity. The objective of this paper is to diagnose institutional fitness for conserving biodiversity in the Tasmanian Midlands of Australia, a highly modified agricultural landsca...
Article
Full-text available
Improving biodiversity futures requires a systems-based appreciation of the dynamic human and biophysical interactions shaping landscapes. By combining a structured approach to identifying key drivers of change on biodiversity with a collaborative approach to scenario planning, biodiversity planners and managers can work with stakeholders to identi...
Article
Governance arrangements frame and direct how land managers respond to the multiple demands and challenges of conserving biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation requires attention to how social-ecological systems (SES) change and can be influenced over time. It is important that governance settings within these systems can support achievement of bio...
Chapter
Full-text available
All environments have been modified by human activity and those interactions produce “winners” and “losers”. Improvements require changes in human behaviour, especially when these activities deny opportunities for future generations. However, changing human behaviour can be difficult to accomplish. We need to establish better ways to reach and impl...
Article
Full-text available
The poor performance of biodiversity institutions has prompted calls for reform. Adaptive governance has been promoted as a means of supporting improved biodiversity outcomes. However, incorporating adaptive elements into biodiversity governance has been a challenge. In particular, efforts to make institutions more “adaptive” often fail to account...
Article
Full-text available
Addressing environmental problems requires sophisticated approaches to complexity and uncertainty. Conceptual models are increasingly used to improve understanding of complex system interactions. However, cursory treatment of governance limits their analytical potential. This study included governance considerations in a social-ecological system mo...
Article
Current policy interventions are having limited success in addressing the ongoing decline in global biodiversity. In part, this is attributable to insufficient attention being paid to the social and governance processes that drive decisions and can undermine their implementation. Scenario planning that draws on social–ecological systems (SES) analy...
Article
Transformation is a key concept in social-ecological systems research, and transition theory in particular; however, the essential elements of a transformation are yet to be clearly articulated. This article explores the changes that took place when Australian governments deliberately set out to restructure the Australian dairy industry. Using the...
Article
Full-text available
Biodiversity conservation continues to be a challenging task for societies worldwide. We undertook a resilience assessment to address the following question: What are the ramifications of social-ecological system dynamics for biodiversity governance of a nationally significant landscape? Resilience assessment offers promise for guiding response str...
Article
Full-text available
Natural resource management (NRM) organizations are increasingly looking to resilience thinking to provide insights into how social and environmental systems interact and to identify points of intervention. Drawing on complex systems analysis, resilience thinking emphasizes that landscapes constantly change from social and ecological interactions,...
Article
Full-text available
Agricultural industries in developed countries may need to consider transformative change if they are to respond effectively to contemporary challenges, including a changing climate. In this paper we apply a resilience lens to analyze a deliberate attempt by Australian governments to restructure the dairy industry, and then utilize this analysis to...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, I compare refl ections from my action research engagements with two Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) natural resource management (NRM) organisations, Murrumbidgee Irrigation (MI) and Murray Catchment Management Authority (CMA) in NSW, Australia. My engagement with MI (2005–2007) coincided with the most extreme years of the extended Millenn...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Appendix to Griffith, R., Ryan, P., Mitchell, M., Walkerden, G., & Robinson, S. (2013). Taking transformative action in the NSW Murray catchment region: Transformation for Resilient Landscapes and Communities Project.
Article
Full-text available
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the outcomes of a research project involving collaboration with an irrigation company seeking to improve outcomes from its triple bottom line (TBL) reporting process. Given the imminent basin‐wide crisis within which the organisation operates due to unsustainable over‐allocation of water f...
Article
Improvements in groundwater management require strategies to change human behaviour, yet there has been limited social research in the broad arena of groundwater management. This paper provides a critical review of the small but expanding literature on that topic to identify future directions for social researchers. Comprehensive search methods ide...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents an evaluation framework that aims to improve the outcomes of triple bottom line (TBL) reporting. Currently, most assessments of TBL reporting focus on report content. Our view is that effective evaluation of TBL reporting should go beyond reports as the outputs of a process and focus on what is being learned through the process,...
Article
Full-text available
The 'triple bottom line' (TBL) concept is increasingly being used by organisations to report on how they are responding to sustainability issues under the headings of environmental, social and economic performance. Through the development of sustainability-related objectives under these headings and matching each objective with an appropriate indic...

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