The NDSP was established in 1993 with the support of the Murray Darling Basin Commission, Land & Water Australia and the State Government of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. $40 million was invested into new knowledge and understanding, technology and informative products that should help Australia's with dry land salinity. The program was split between two phases, with the first starting in 1993 and ending in 1998. The focus of the first phrase was on the causes of soil salinity, the mapping of salinity affected areas in Australia and analyzing the economical impacts. Examples of the maps that were produced in the first phrase are figure 1 which show the areas that are suffering from dryland salinity and figure 2 which was a projection into 2050. The second phrase involved commercial partners and the development of research projects that was divided into 7 main groups aimed to increase the understanding of salinity and the development of practical and sustainable solutions. The seven groups and the achievements that were achieved in the 10 year period in the respective groups are:
- Audit and Monitoring- The funding allowed completion of the national salinity audit which was last released in 1990. In the key findings, the audit discovered that the estimates for salinity in the 1990 national salinity audit for 2009 is similar to estimates conducted in 2009 showing that the rate of salinization in Australia's soils hasn't slowed down. However the audit has reduced the estimates for salinity in the future as the audit claims that the lack of analytical tools and information used in 1990 did not account for systems that could reach equilibrium at higher levels of salt. Furthermore the audit concludes that salinity is a major natural resource management issue in New South Wales but unlikely to exponentially get worse in the future as technology has allowed treatments to reduce salinity levels rather than slowly down the salinization which was the previous rationale.
- Policy and Operating Environment- The NDSP was also very important in the political area. It provided a snapshot of the salinity costs in Australia in 2009 and this information came from the Costs of Dryland Salinity project. The project found that salinity costs $304 million per year in just the Murray-Darling Basin, this includes the agricultural yield losses, infrastructure damage and the costs that was associated with the management of the saline water. This project has raised awareness of the impacts of salinity on the economy however there was no future cost projections.
- Industry Solutions- The program found that the use of deep drainage for salinity will work however long-term problems will occur such as the disposal of the very saline water. The dumping of the water into waterways does not solve the problem. Because of this, the development of a simple groundwater monitoring system for farmers was started to allow farmers to manage and react accordingly to the rain with a cheap gadget. The program also built the skills and capacity of farmers to manage salinity through a research action plan (RAP).
- Productive Use of Saline Resources- This group mainly focused on the identification of productive uses and treatments for saline lands such as harvesting the salt after the evaporation of the saline water. This website was dedicated to the OPUS project (Options for Productive Use of Salinity) and this website was accessed 2664 times from December to February 2003 which showed the high interests expressed in the problem and its solutions.
- Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation- The main focus for this topic is the relationship between land use changes and the rising water table. It also involved the examination of the environmental impacts of salinity either terrestrial or aquatic. Emphasis was placed on the indicators of salinity in an area and the thresholds which salinity might cause irreversible damage. Our knowledge of the environmental impacts because of salinity has vastly increased due to this project.
- Infrastructure Management- This theme focused on the potential costs of damage to salinity affected infrastructure and examined other engineering options to protect assets from damage. The numbers that was produced in this study estimated that the costs of damage to infrastructure would outnumber the cost of the agricultural yield losses. It is estimated that over the next 20 years infrastructure damage would be approximately 70% of total salinity costs while yield losses would make up around 30%.
- Regional and Community Initiatives- The sole project in this group is the 'TOOLS' project. The project involved officers, consultants and growers in the Murray Darling Basin and beyond attending workshops. It aimed to build a regional network of experts in salinity and about 850 people attended the 36 regional workshops. Those who attended received fact sheets and talks about how to manage salinization and the management of salinity.
There was evidence of increased awareness as a television documentary that was aired on ABC during prime time called 'Silent Flood' in 2001 was watched by 864,000 people. This was 12-13 percent of people who own a TV in Australia. Furthermore, the website that houses the project (http://www.ndsp.gov.au/) received approximately 4500 views per month in 2003. These statistics show that the public awareness has grown however it is difficult to say whether there is increased knowledge of this issue. As figure 3 shows, there is a big difference between the proportion of farms aware of salinity in 1999 and 2002. Furthermore in 1999 the statistics refer to farmers experiencing significant problems while in 2002 the lands are only showing signs of soil salinity. This show that report released from the projects in the NDSP may have worked in raising awareness of the problem to farmers and allowing them to diagnose the problem. Figure 4 also shows that the majority of the 136 stakeholders that were surveyed say that they were more equipped to manage salinity due to the program.
However on the political side of things, the reports and statistics released have not affected the high levels of politics especially public policies however the results persuaded governments and industry groups to recognize the problem of salinity. This led to the creation of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) which continued the work of the NDSP and improving upon it.
The NDSP was a revolutionary step towards the understanding of dryland salinity in Australia and achieved remarkable milestones such as improving the education of farmers and raising awareness of the issue. All these projects succeeded with just $40 million in funding which is highly efficient compared to current projects. Because of this, the criteria 'Were the programs that were introduced to combat soil salinity in Australia effective either through education or direct application of treatments. If not, what could have been done to improve the result.' was met as the programs that were introduced in the NDSP combated soil salinity in Australia through education, raising awareness and some projects involving direct application of treatment. However there are some suggestions that may be taken into account next time a program similar to NDSP is initiated.
While the NDSP was designed to be a program that increased the knowledge and understanding of the impacts of dryland salinity in Australia, the NDSP also educated farmers upon this problem and many farmers were more aware of the problem as figure 3 showed but while their understanding may have increased it is highly doubtful that they applied the information that they have learnt. This is because the application of treatments is very expensive thus many farmers do not think it is worth the trade. The fact sheets that were handed out during the community session should have included more statistics on the exponentially increasing costs as the treatment of salinity is postponed. This might have persuaded the farmers to do something rather than learn but not act. Furthermore, the NDSP revealed that most farmers lacked the education and financial powers to change land use change. While the program provided education to some farmers, no financial support was provided to farmers. This might have reduced adoption rates for the methods that were taught. The implementation of small payments to allow farmers to be able afford the extra financial costs to change their farming methods to more sustainable methods, or the building of salinity rehabilitation programs.
The NDSP was a revolutionary step towards the understanding of dryland salinity in Australia and achieved remarkable milestones such as improving the education of farmers and raising awareness of the issue. All these projects succeeded with just $40 million in funding which is highly efficient compared to current projects. Because of this, the criteria 'Were the programs that were introduced to combat soil salinity in Australia effective either through education or direct application of treatments. If not, what could have been done to improve the result.' was met as the programs that were introduced in the NDSP combated soil salinity in Australia through education, raising awareness and some projects involving direct application of treatment. However there are some suggestions that may be taken into account next time a program similar to NDSP is initiated.
While the NDSP was designed to be a program that increased the knowledge and understanding of the impacts of dryland salinity in Australia, the NDSP also educated farmers upon this problem and many farmers were more aware of the problem as figure 3 showed but while their understanding may have increased it is highly doubtful that they applied the information that they have learnt. This is because the application of treatments is very expensive thus many farmers do not think it is worth the trade. The fact sheets that were handed out during the community session should have included more statistics on the exponentially increasing costs as the treatment of salinity is postponed. This might have persuaded the farmers to do something rather than learn but not act. Furthermore, the NDSP revealed that most farmers lacked the education and financial powers to change land use change. While the program provided education to some farmers, no financial support was provided to farmers. This might have reduced adoption rates for the methods that were taught. The implementation of small payments to allow farmers to be able afford the extra financial costs to change their farming methods to more sustainable methods, or the building of salinity rehabilitation programs.