Scenario planning is an approach to strategic planning. It acknowledges the uncertainties and ambiguities of the future and seeks to identify ways to strengthen the strategic position of an organisation in that uncertain environment. Van der Heijden (1996) identifies that good strategic planning should be based on four common-sense elements: understanding of the aims and purpose of the entity; an assessment of the organisation's characteristics, including its

This document was developed by the Irrigation Futures project team as a contribution to Goulburn-Murray Water's irrigation reconfiguration processes. It has been included as a chapter in the Shepparton Regional Atlas as a part of Goulburn-Murray Water's Strategic View of Assets and Service Needs. This document summarises the scenarios and their implications for irrigation infrastructure planning.

Despite the widespread promotion and adoption of precision agriculture in dry-land cropping systems, the concept of irrigation being part of precision agricultural systems is still getting off the ground, both in Australia and internationally. There is currently no cohesive framework available to guide research, development or adoption of precision irrigation and its associated support technologies. This project is reviewing irrigation research, existing technologies and the use of precision

The Goulburn Broken Catchment is known as the food bowl of Australia. It covers 2.4 million hectares and has a population of around 200,000 people (Department of Sustainability and Environment 2005). Irrigated agriculture is a major business engine in the Goulburn Broken region, producing more than $1.2 billion at the farm gate in 2001-2002 from about 280,000 hectares of irrigated agricultural land. Investment in on-farm and processing infrastructure is about A$100 million per annum (Michael Young and

During 2004, over 120 members of the regional community participated in Irrigation Futures Forums, a program of four workshops exploring the future for irrigation in the region. These workshops laid the foundations for the output from the project.

The Harvey Water Irrigation Area (HWIA) is Western Australia's prime irrigated dairying area supplying Perth and the south west with more than 40 per cent of its milk. Irrigated agriculture commenced in Harvey with the establishment of a weir in 1916. Since that time, pastures have been watered through surface irrigation of paddocks which over time have been leveled and divided into irrigation bays. When this project was envisaged in 2001, there were no centre

URS Australia was commissioned by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) to prepare a handbook of technologies that are available to provide flexibility in irrigation delivery systems to deal with the varying irrigation demands which may occur in the future. The project follows on from a process of scenario planning which was used by the Department to develop a vision for the future of irrigated agriculture in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment of

Over the years growers in the Lower Murray-Darling irrigation districts have consistently reported salinity damage to horticultural crops despite the moderate irrigation water salinity. There is also anecdotal information that after leaching the salini

This project was established to determine the key drivers, barriers and knowledge gaps to the use of recycled water in Australian horticulture, and address these barriers through targeted research, development and extension activities.

The project is examining issues of water use efficiency (WUE) in the South West Irrigation Area (hereafter called the Harvey Irrigation Area). A significant WUE issue is whether water savings, improved pasture yields and farm productivity can be achieved through sprinkler (centre pivot) irrigation of dairy pasture in comparison with traditional surface bay irrigation (often called flood irrigation). This project is a case study conducted on