This report builds on the first four stages of the study, Exploring the Relationship Between Community Resilience & Irrigated Agriculture in the MDB,1 to address the following research questions:

• Has the relationship between community resilience and irrigated agriculture changed over time, and if so what have those changes been?

• What are the trends and likely drivers of such change?

• What are the implications for communities (at different scales) of the ongoing influence of those trends and drivers?

• Does historical data support the conclusions reached in Report 4?

In order to answer these questions, we have examined these changes at different scales, including the national, Basin and local levels through quantitative and qualitative methods.

These include:

• An analysis of nationwide trends in agriculture and irrigated agriculture for the period 1966 – 2006;

• A cross sectional statistical analysis of the relationship between agricultural employment and land use across SLAs in the MDB for 1996, 2001 and 2006;

• A cross sectional statistical analysis of the relationship between selected indicators of community wellbeing and resilience with other important exogenous variables and employment mix across SLAs in the MDB for 1996, 2001 and 2006;

• An analysis of basin wide trends in agriculture and irrigated agriculture for the period 1996 – 2006;

• A detailed analysis of changes in eight case study communities relating to changing land use, changing employment and employment mix and selected indicators of community wellbeing and resilience for the period 1996-2006; and

• A comparison of the historical impacts of changing water availability with those impacts predicted in Report 4.