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Abstract
Policy instruments designed to increase environmental flows in the Murray–Darling
Basin are compared using TERM-H2O, a detailed, dynamic regional CGE model.
Voluntary and fully compensated buybacks are much less costly than infrastructure
upgrades as a means of obtaining a target volume of environmental water, even during
drought, when highly secure water created by infrastructure upgrades is more
valuable. As an instrument of regional economic management, infrastructure
upgrades are inferior to public spending on health, education and other services in
the Basin. For each job created from upgrades, the money spent on services could
create between three and four jobs in the Basin.