Project Management Committee

AUSTRALIA	P.R. CHINA
ACIAR Representative Dr Ian Willett Research Program Coordinator Land & Water Resources ACIAR GPO Box 1571 Canberra ACT 2601 Phone: 61-6-217 0500 Fax: 61-6-217 0501 email: willett@aciar.gov.au	CAS Representative An Jianji Deputy Director CAS Bureau of International Cooperation 52 Sanlihe Road Beijing 100864 PR China Phone: 86-10-68213344 Fax: 86-10-68511095
CSIRO Coordinator Dr David L.B. Jupp Science Leader CSIRO Earth Observation Centre GPO Box 3023 Canberra ACT 2601 Phone: 61-6-216 7203 Fax: 61-6-216 7222 Email: David.Jupp@cossa.csiro.au	CAS Coordinator Prof Liu Changming Director Shijiazhuang Institute of Agricultural Modernization 39 Huaizhong Road Shijiazhuang Hebei 050021 Phone: 86-311-6014521 Fax: 86-311-6015093 Email: cmliu@pku.edu.cn
Coordinator - Canberra Dr Joe Walker CSIRO Land and Water Canberra ACT 2601 Phone: 61-6-246 5725 Fax: 61-6-246 5856 Email: joe.walker@cbr.dwr.csiro.au	Coordinator - Shijiazhuang Yang Yonghui Secretary for International Cooperation Shijiazhuang Institute of Agricultural Modernization Phone: 86-311-5814521 Fax: 86-311-5815093 Email: mwm@ms.sjziam.ac.cn
Coordinator - Adelaide Dr Rob Fitzpatrick CSIRO Land and Water Adelaide SA Phone: 61-8-8303 8511 Fax: 61-8-8303 8550 Email: rob.fitzpatrick@adl.soils.csiro.au	Coordinator - Yangling Prof Li Rui Institute of Soil and Water Conservation 26 Xinong Road Yangling Shaanxi 712100 Phone: 86-0910-712412 Fax: 86-0910-712210 Email: lirui@ms.iswc.ac.cn

1.0 SUMMARY

2.0 PROJECT DESCRIPTION
2.1 Background
2.2 Research Objectives
2.3 Research Methodology

3.0 ECONOMIC EVALUATION
3.1 Economic Significance
3.2 Economic Impact of the Research

4.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
4.1 Water Balance Modelling
4.2 Soil Environment Impacts
4.3 Information Systems
4.4 Technology Transfer

5.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT & COORDINATION
5.1 Project Management Committee
5.2 LandCare Groups and Provincial Groups
5.3 Personnel Involved
5.4 Outputs Table for Project Evaluation

6.0 LITERATURE CITED

1.0 SUMMARY

In many parts of the world, improving agricultural water use efficiency will lead to increased agricultural productivity and sustainability. Soil degradation is often the primary limiting factor in the efficient use of the (often limited) water resource. Soil degradation and water resource depletion proceed at varying rates and occur at different scales. Thus, to assess water related limitations to agricultural production and the off-farm impacts of inefficient water use, we need effective tools such as predictive models and indicators of environmental sustainability for both farms and the catchments in which they operate.

This study will focus on four major regions in China and Australia with significant problems of soil and water degradation. A key aspect of the study is to accomplish the transfer of the project outcomes into operational use at a number of levels of application. These levels include use by farmer groups and agricultural managers. For example, in the study areas, data relevant to indicators of water use efficiency are currently being collected at a range of space and time scales. Some of these can be directly applied at the farm scale where production and income are of prime concern while others relate to the catchment or regional scale where the sustainability of the system becomes the measure of concern. Remotely sensed data are an important source of information being used in the study to provide spatial extrapolation and integration of the farm and regional scale data through the use of GIS and modelling technologies. This computer based syntheses will require some refinements of existing sustainability indicators for use at farm and regional scales. However, in this way, technology transfer can occur at both the regional policy and management (involving modelling, spectral analysis and spatial information systems) and operational (providing cost effective indicators delivered to the community through existing extension networks) levels in an integrated way.

In China, the study will be undertaken at sites in the North China Plain (NCP) and the Loess Plateau (LP) which are two major agricultural areas associated with the Yellow River. In the NCP, the principal problems are reduced agricultural output due to soil degradation and falling groundwater tables. The main causes are salinisation and inefficient water use. In the LP, the principal problems being investigated are lack of water availability for crops and soil erosion. These may require soil conservation measures at both farm and regional scales.

In Australia, the study will focus on two major rainfed land zones. The first is the dry sub-humid summer rainfall land zone which includes the Liverpool Plains (LPL) of the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) in New South Wales (NSW). The MDB sustains a high proportion of Australia's dryland and irrigated agricultural production. Extensive clearing of natural vegetation and intensive irrigation have greatly altered the water balance leading to a range of land degradation problems including waterlogging and salinity due to rising groundwater tables. The second Australian land zone is the temperate winter rainfall land zone in south eastern Australia. This zone includes the Mt Lofty Ranges of South Australia and Western Victoria and provides major catchments for regional water supply. Within this land zone, two catchment sites, one in the Mt Lofty Ranges (MLR) in South Australia and a second in the Dundas Tablelands (DT) in Victoria have been selected for more detailed study. Significant regional land degradation problems in this zone include salinisation, waterlogging and sodicity caused by rising saline groundwater.

Farm and regional scale assessments will be made using models to define a 'Water Use Efficiency Indicator' (WUEI). The WUEI is an integrating indicator of water-saving agriculture and estimates the success of farming practices undertaken to reduce the extent of soil resource depletion and degradation. The combination of site and farm scale indicators and regional assessment used in this project then enable locally specific causes of poor performance to be ascribed and acted on at the farm scale leading to both improved production and a reduction in a reduction in regional land degradation. That is, it provides a tool to assess and promote sustainability.

The skills of scientists from CSIRO (Australia) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will be combined through a four-year project. The task is to establish and validate local and regional measures of water use efficiency and land degradation and convey the findings to local farmers and farmer groups. The means for this promotion and communication are the regionally based technology-transfer linkages already established in both countries. In particular, the project will draw on the indicator methodology being established in Australia to provide simple measures of the effects of land degradation and changing water balance components on farm, catchment and regional production.

The integrating concept of 'water use efficiency' (see Reuter et al., 1996) will be advocated and further developed for irrigated and dryland agricultural systems to assess and rank productivity of dryland farming systems. This scalable measure includes land degradation as a factor which limits current or future agricultural production relative to available soil water. Where irrigation is an option, the models and indicator methodology will be extended to match irrigation technology and scheduling with crop water requirements. The objective is to maximise water use efficiency and minimise the environmental hazards associated with irrigation practices, such as overuse of groundwater resources.

Sustained high water use efficiency in either dryland or irrigated agricultural regions provides enhanced prospects for wealth generation and food security in each region. In addition, the condition of the land and water resource base can be enhanced through minimising the environmental risks associated with water balance changes.

The project outputs will be:

1. widely applicable computer models which have been locally calibrated to estimate and predict water and solute balances and water use by crops;
2. indicators to assess and predict soil degradation due to processes such as salinisation, waterlogging and sodicity at farm and catchment scales;
3. a GIS and remote sensing framework for efficiently integrating and up-scaling data measured on farms to regional measures;
4. guidelines and targets for optimising water use efficiency by crops and pastures; and
5. a technology-transfer program relevant to local needs and capabilities

Benefits will come through the proposed technology transfer process which will operate using existing networks. Guidelines and a generic GIS framework will enable high levels of water use efficiency to be achieved and monitored. Indicator technology will assist local farmer groups and advisors to identify signs of soil and water degradation and suggest appropriate steps to reverse it and to monitor the progress of the management decisions.

2.0 PROJECT DESCRIPTION

2.1 Background

Project Genesis

CAS and CSIRO, through the International Liaison Units of the two organisations, jointly sponsored a Water & Soil Symposium in Adelaide between November 22 and 25, 1994. A representative delegation of Chinese scientists met with Australian scientists to discuss problems of water and soil resources affecting both countries and the benefits of collaborating to resolve identified research problems of importance in both countries. The Workshop focussed on Salt Affected Soils in Landscapes, Soil Water Movement and Relations and Catchment Water, Sediment and Nutrient Budgets (Jupp and Fitzpatrick, 1994).

The Symposium identified a number of geographical areas and soil and water problems of special concern and interest to both countries which related particularly to agricultural production and sustainability. These included "Land and Water Care on the Loess Plateau" and "Integrated Water and Soil Management on the North China Plain". Because of the common underlying scientific threads involved, these project areas were then developed into an integrated proposal following a visit to China by an Australian scientific delegation in June/July 1995. This visit was also jointly sponsored by the International Liaison Units of CAS and CSIRO. The visit allowed the scientists to visit field stations in the LP and NCP and visit CAS Institutes in Yangling, Shaanxi (Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, or ISWC) and Shijiazhuang, Hebei (the Shijiazhuang Institute of Agricultural Modernisation, or SIAM). At the sites visited, the problems of water and soil resource depletion and degradation were of special concern to both scientists and regional agriculture managers. The project described here arose as a result of that visit and from the agreed project objectives and plan as developed by the partners.

The Issues in China

The agricultural land uses on the LP and NCP systems (see Figure 1 for locations) are very important to China's food production. Each region faces problems of land degradation, competition between agriculture and other land uses, scarce ground and surface water resources and deteriorating water supply and quality. The requirement to at least maintain agricultural production from these areas has lead to the critical need for "water saving" agricultural practices to be implemented. Sustainable solutions to these problems must occur at a range of scales, so that local and immediate needs at the farm scale are addressed as well as the broader regional scale problem of agricultural sustainability.

The NCP covers an area of 300,000 km², supports a population of over 300 million people, and produces 18% of the nation's food and 50% of the cotton (Huang Bingwei, 1989). Annual precipitation in the area is about 500 mm, 70% of which falls between July and September. The main soil type is a loam of aeolian origin which has been relocated by the Yellow River meanders and flooding over geological and historical times. Traditional agriculture is well developed in the area. However, due to limited and variable precipitation, agricultural productivity is low without irrigation. As a result of rapid regional development in the last two decades, the competition for water has become a critical problem which may restrict regional agricultural productivity in the future. There is no reliable surface water resource for irrigation, so groundwater has been used causing the regional groundwater table to drop significantly. By contrast, in regions of saline soil, these practices have also lead to waterlogging, salinity, and sodicity, which have caused some areas to be abandoned for agriculture. This presents a serious problem for sustainable agricultural development in the area and for China's food security.

In the upper catchments of the Yellow River, the LP is well known for its history, landscape and severe soil erosion. History is a significant factor in the agriculture of the region. The town of Yangling (near Xi'an, Shaanxi, see Figure 1) is (according to legend) the site where Houji, the first official in charge of agriculture during the Yao and Shun monarchical period about 4,000 years ago in ancient China taught people how to grow the 5 grain crops. During the last few centuries, however, and particularly in the last 100 years, natural vegetation has been extensively cleared to increase agricultural production and feed the increasing population. As a result, 430,000 km² of the total area of 624,000 km² has experienced significant changes in the water balance components. These changes, together with severe soil erosion, are leading to reduced productivity at the farm scale and unsustainable production in the whole region. Despite this, the Loess Plateau represents one of China's major options for increased food production. The primary agricultural system in this area is dryland farming of maize and wheat which are vulnerable to changes in water balance and soil degradation. If yields are to increase, there must be significant improvements in water saving practices in agriculture (Shan Lun et al., 1991). In the higher producing southern Tablelands area, water is the limiting resource and in the north, soil erosion is a major factor limiting increases in agricultural production. At the regional scale, strategically located reafforestation may eventually reduce land degradation caused by erosion (Liu and Wu, 1993). The impacts of the land and water resource problems on agricultural production in these regions are intense and occur over scales that have yet to be realised in Australia.

The Issues in Australia

In Australia, there are many regions where problems for soil and water management and the sustainability of current agricultural practices pose challenges for Australian scientists. In particular, land and water degradation problems are evident in the major rainfed agricultural zones of Australia. The dry sub-humid summer rainfall land zone is well represented by the problems being investigated in the Liverpool Plains (LPL) area of the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) in New South Wales. The complete MDB covers 1.063 million km² of Southeast Australia (see Figure 2) and sustains a high proportion of Australia's dryland and irrigated agricultural production. Extensive clearing of natural vegetation and intensive irrigation have greatly altered the water balance of the MDB. Combined with the effects of land degradation within the MDB, the economic returns from agricultural industries have been severely reduced. Extensive research has been focused on the amelioration of the effects of these changes in the LPL, which, for this reason, is a significant site for study and measurement in this project (Figure 2).

The LPL covers an area of 11,728 km². The study area lies within a dry sub-humid climate and has an annual mean rainfall of 650 mm. Rainfall increases to 1100 mm due to the topographic effects of the Liverpool and Melville Ranges. It has a summer rainfall maximum due to summer storms. Agricultural development has occurred on the LPL since the 1950s, when mechanised agricultural equipment could plough the hard setting cracking clays. It has now been cleared of the native grasses and woodlands and has been used for intensive mixed agricultural production. This has caused significant changes in the regional hydrology. Portions of the catchments are underlain with a confined alluvial aquifer, with recharge coming from the surrounding mountains. The resulting potentiometric surface created from upward pressure of the deep, alluvial aquifer prevents surface water and associated salts from leaching below the root zone leading to increasing salinity. Altering vegetation type from natural grassland to cropping systems also introduces long fallows. Since the available soil moisture is usually extracted via crop transpiration, the black clays crack after the dryland crops have been harvested. Heavy rains in summer then have preferred pathways through which recharge creates a perched shallow water table.

Two main solutions in the LPL are being investigated. Firstly, reducing the depth of the potentiometric surface of the confined deeper aquifer will allow the water from the shallow aquifer to drain and take with it some accumulated salts. The second approach is to revegetate the recharge areas with trees or other perennial systems. It has also been recommended that improved irrigation practices and the use of perennial pastures would promote greater water use efficiency and minimise water recharge via soil cracks to the shallow aquifer.

The Mt Lofty Ranges (MLR, 5,000 km²) and Dundas Tablelands (DT, 3,630 km²) catchment sites occur in the temperate winter rainfall zone in south eastern Australia (see Figure 2). In this zone, (which includes the south west area of the MDB) changes in the water balance components have lead to severe changes in the physical and chemical characteristics of the soils which has resulted in a decrease of agricultural production. The duplex soils on which these soil and water degradation problems occur occupy 80% of the high to medium rainfall zones of southern Australia. The choice of two catchment sites in this zone is supported strongly by the combined local Landcare Groups (see Section 2.6) who require indicator technology to understand the soil-hydrologic processes and thereby plan remedial action on their farms and catchments. These catchment sites also provide examples of the problems encountered in the whole zone and therefore are excellent research and training sites.

The study areas chosen comprise some of Australia's prime agricultural (crops, meat, wool, dairy) and horticultural lands, and in addition, contain major catchment zones for regional water supply. Degradation of water and soil resources through salinity, sodicity, waterlogging and erosion within duplex soils pose serious threats to land use and to the quality of water harvested and stored in regional water bodies. The economic implications of these degradation problems here, and in similar areas, affects Australia's food and wool export industry as well as the future viability and perhaps survival of rural communities and their agricultural industries. In the face of such land and water degradation, new management options are being sought to achieve high water use efficiency on the duplex soils which occur within the study areas and represent a significant proportion of Australia's agricultural zones. In addition, the regional nature of the problems at these sites provides a sound basis for demonstrating the use of regional extrapolation and up-scaling in assessing the management options.

The R&D Approach & Plan

The area of research and application addressed by this project has particular importance in China where urban and industrial pressures are in strong competition with agriculture and future food security is threatened. At the same time land degradation is limiting the potential to balance the changes in land use with higher yields and more efficient water use. Information, assessment and regional monitoring are key factors in addressing and managing these problems. The project takes advantage of existing knowledge of soil and water dynamics and the skills of CSIRO and CAS scientists to link interpretative tools with the large existing data bases for the study sites in the two countries and provide measures of resource degradation and sustainability of production at local and regional scales. It is intended to add strategic new measurements of water balance, topography, and pedology. The soils information will provide both indicators of resource degradation and base data for modelling the water balance.

The project will combine computer based modelling and field measurements to provide calibrated tools and sensitive indicators for effective assessment and monitoring of resource use and agricultural productivity. The specific targets are water and soils problems which directly impact on agricultural productivity and sustainability at farm and regional scales. The tools will be established and validated at the study sites in China and Australia and made operational in both countries through the interactions with the Provincial agricultural managers in China and Landcare Groups in Australia who are contributing to the Project plan. Specific measures of water saving agriculture, irrigation effects and soil degradation at both site (farm) and regional scales will be established by using water balance components generated by the computer models in conjunction with measurements and models of the soil processes involved. An important objective is to develop existing indicators to be applicable at a scale and detail can be applied both by agricultural advisers and (where appropriate) farmers as well as by regional managers. In particular, the knowledge and experience with remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) being provided in this Project provide the means to integrate this knowledge and extend its scope to the broader scales appropriate for regional management. This allows measures of longer term sustainability to be mapped and monitored by those agricultural managers who have regional responsibilities and feed the "global thinking" back to "local action".

Data and information on land and water resources will be used in the project at three main spatial scales which are illustrated in Figure 3. The scales are:

Scale	Name	Examples
I	Site (or Point)	Soil moisture holding capacity, soil texture or soil pH in a field
II	Project Area	LANDSAT TM data covering 32,400 km2 with a resolution of 30m2 or meteorological data at stations
III	Regional	AVHRR data for 106 km2 with a resolution of 1 km2, GIS "Atlas" data or climate data

The data appropriate to the different spatial scales will be linked to allow 'up-scaling'. Up-scaling is the transformation of data and information attained at one scale to broader spatial scales. For example, the point data can be used for models of soil water balance (including drainage and runoff) and calibrated and validated at existing experimental sites in the project areas. The models will then also be used to estimate components of the water balance at the broader project area scale by using meteorological and other data (for example GIS maps such as soil type and DEM data) which are more widely available within each of the project areas. How this is done depends on the upscaling approach.

Three approaches will be applied in the Project to allow up-scaling of the data as exemplified by the following Table:

Approach	Name	Examples
(i)	Spatial Accounting	Extension of soils information at points by area weighted averaging or 'Land Systems' extrapolation.
(ii)	Spatial co-relationships	Mapping and estimating air temperature by relation to topography or use of met data, satellite derived E/Ep and Vegetation Index to spatially map water use.
(iii)	Regional Closure	Making regional yield statistics and up-scaled estimates consistent or erosion and sediment outflows from catchments consistent.

The most straightforward method (i) (Spatial Accounting) divides the land into geographic units based on environmental (e.g. meteorological, GIS and/or remotely sensed) information to produce a map. It is assumed that the point or field data are representative of and vary very little over the geographic unit in which they fall. Geographic area weighting is then used to obtain estimates at broader regional scales. Sometimes the regions may be management based rather than environmentally based.

The simple approach can be improved in (ii) (Spatial Co-relationships) by the addition of information about co-relationships between different data types. For example station air temperature is highly co-related to altitude, crop greenness is strongly co-related to reflectance obtained by remote sensing and E/Ep related to remotely determined crop temperature. These relationships may be used to extend the data from sites to the project area and region. One role of our modelling will be to establish and use such co-relationships which often involve a temporal component as well as spatial. The co-relationships allow the extension of data obtained from sites to larger areas, or regions where the relationships persist. These are more general than the previous regions which assumed the site data were fully representative.

More sophisticated techniques, (iii) (Regional Closure), which will be developed and tested in this project, are based on the use of regional information such as regional statistics (for example commodity yields), whole area measurements such as catchment water or sediment yield or climatology and large area remotely sensed measurements. The need for consistency between these data and the up-scaled data provide a 'closure' that can translate back into improved intermediate scale estimates.

To study and assess the water balance components and water saving strategies appropriate to the areas being addressed in China and Australia at the site, catchment and regional scales involved, CSIRO will utilise and further develop a biophysically based, daily time step model (called 'WAVES', or WAter Vegetation Energy and Solute modelling system, see Zhang Lu et al., 1996a, 1996b) which predicts the dynamic interactions of water and carbon within the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Models with this level of detail can identify important factors controlling movement of water in the system and allow the study of hydrological responses under various land management practices. Such outputs provide advanced measures of water use efficiency at farm and regional scales through the up-scaling described above. The derivation of indicators for assessment and monitoring of water use efficiency will be an important outcome of the project. Australia already has excellent performance in improving water use efficiencies of agriculture in the face of limited resources. Measures implemented in the past 15 years in some areas have increased water use efficiency from 30% to 80-90% through the adoption of improved management practices (Rovira 1992). Assessing and monitoring the local and regional performance of measures aimed to achieve similar results in China poses a serious challenge - but one that the Project is equipped to meet.

The Impetus for this Collaboration

Australia and China have many similar problems to tackle and manage. A combined approach to develop flexible and widely applicable indicators of water use efficiency and soil degradation at farm and regional scales is a fundamental aim of the work plan and an important outcome for the two countries. The tools developed in this project can help land managers balance the longer term needs of sustainable agriculture with current economic needs. As a result, the project has a strong emphasis on technology transfer to an identified and involved group of managers in the two countries.

The project will benefit both countries by better managing soil and water resources to:

• increase productivity through achieving higher efficiencies in water use which ultimately reduce losses due to waterlogging, salinity and erosion;
• reduce off-site costs associated with degraded water quality;
• improve the prospects of property and catchment planning by the strategic location of landscape structures such as tree plantings and interceptor drains to mitigate against the degrading soil processes.

The extremes of population pressure, the urgency of soil and water conservation measures and the environmental gradients in the focus areas selected in China provide unique examples which will challenge and strengthen the general applicability of the methods being developed. In particular, the CAS has conducted a number of long term field experiments in both the LP (e.g. Ansai, Fuxian and Changwu) and NCP (Luancheng and Nanpi). These experiments provide meteorological, water balance components, soil, and agricultural biomass data which complement the information sources and community linkages that exist in Australian sites selected in the LPL, MLR and DT catchments. The sites in both countries are all within regional catchments ranging between 10,000 to 1,000,000 ha in extent.

Motivations for this project arise from the desire of both CSIRO and CAS to:

• increase knowledge of the processes controlling movement of water within the soil-plant-atmosphere system;
• understand the changes that occur in soils as a result of this;
• establish how management can use this understanding at different spatial and temporal scales; and
• ensure the application of the research benefits agriculture in the two countries through successful implementation.

Scientists in the two countries bring complementary skills to the project. The good working relationship between CSIRO and CAS will ensure progress towards its aims. Following the meetings and visits that lead to the development of this project, collaboration and exchanges have been established between CSIRO and CAS to progress a number of the Sub-Projects. A scientist from CAS Institute of Geography and SIAM (Ms Wang Huixiao) has visited CSIRO (October 1996 - March 1997) under the CSIRO/CAS Exchange Scheme to progress the water balance work. CSIRO scientists have also developed expertise in the use of remote sensing data to monitor regional moisture availability. This has been applied in the NCP in collaborative with scientists from CAS Institute of Remote Sensing Application (Jupp et al., 1997; Tian et al., 1997) under developmental funding from DIST in Australia and the SSTC in China. The CSIRO/CAS Exchange Scheme is also supporting a scientist from ISWC (Mr Yang Qinke) to visit CSIRO to research spatial inferencing and data integration. In addition, to initiate work on the Soil Environment Impacts Sub-Project, Mao Renzhao from SIAM will work in Adelaide for one year supported by CAS.

2.2 Research Objectives

Broad Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to improve water use efficiency and reduce related land degradation at the local and catchment scales, by developing practical guidelines and tools applicable at each scale and bringing the derived measures into operational use via technology transfer. This will involve development and evaluation of indicators for water use efficiency, waterlogging, salinisation and recharge at the catchment scale, and indicators to assist local farmer groups and advisers to identify signs of degradation and the adoption of practices to reverse it.

A primary research objective is to develop effective methods for estimating water balance components (including components in the presence of irrigation inputs) at local and regional scales. This includes the development of methods for assessing agricultural impacts on the soil environment and for monitoring and integrating regional knowledge using aspects of GIS and remote sensing technology. The complementary objective is to develop practical indicators of agricultural productivity and water use efficiency based on process modelling and spatial information. Finally, we will establish operational methods for benchmarking agricultural sustainability.

A primary principle of this work is that high quality local (farm scale) indicators are needed to scale into high quality regional summaries of the measures and that this up-scaling is improved by the use of regional measurements. The result is to provide information needed by agricultural advisers managing for current and sustainable agricultural production. This development involves addressing the different time and space scales between immediate impacts on present farm scale productivity to longer term sustainability of regions.

To make this technology bring about change in practice at the farm scale and improve sustainability at a regional scale involves working closely with the decision makers and opinion leaders at different levels of responsibility. In both China and Australia the primary forum for such communication occurs at the regional (often catchment) farm group level. In both cases, people from these groups have been brought into the project and provide key bridging to accomplish the Project aims.

Specific objectives:

1. Water Balance Modelling

Establish calibrated and validated water balance models for assessing levels of water use efficiency in dryland and irrigated systems.

Establish water partitioning between runoff, evaporation, transpiration and drainage for the landscapes being studied.

Establish models with improved ability to assess the relationships between soil water availability, soil properties, crop water use and crop yield in the agricultural systems of the study.

Evaluate scalable indicators of WUE (such as the locally calibrated WUEI) taking into account the effects of different crops, agricultural practices and climate variability on water balance and water conservation.

2. Soil Environment Impacts

Establish the soil processes involved in the major causes of land degradation in the study sites in China and Australia.

Establish satisfactory approaches for describing and predicting the pathways, mobility, loads and sources of salts and colloids (clays) in the study areas.

Establish candidate physical models for the feedbacks between soil salinity and hydraulic properties of soil profiles that can be used in water balance modelling and based on the base collected at the sites.

Develop soil degradation indicators to assist in catchment planning for achieving environmentally sustainable production.

3. Information Systems

Develop a generic water, soils, meteorological and hydrogeological GIS framework for the sites in both countries and use it as a base for data integration, upscaling and extrapolating to regions.

Establish appropriate methodologies for up-scaling, mapping and monitoring the water and soil indicators at regional scales.

Establish means to predict catchment-specific risks to sustainable and efficient water use due to land degradation through effective monitoring of the scalable indicators.

Integrate outputs from water balance modelling with remotely sensed data to monitor components of the regional water balance as well as potential yield.

4. Technology Transfer

Together with the partner regional groups, consult with farm leaders to establish the way the technical outputs can be related to current extension and farm practices. In particular, relate (or modify) the current indicator technology to the traditional practices of the target groups.

Encourage adoption of the indicator methodology with the partner regional groups and encourage regional agencies to adopt mapping and monitoring technology. Establish how to combine, for example, sustainable WUEI as measured and monitored regionally using GIS technology with the WUEI assessed at farm scale and its associated guidelines for improvement.

Develop extension and communication packages for the research findings calibrated to local conditions and undertake trials and communication activities. These should include manuals and locally tested and validated indicator kits which can operate at both farm and regional scales.

2.3 Research Methodology

The four Sub-Projects involve a period of survey and data collection in the field, it's integration, interpretation and preparation for processing. They involve solving technical problems, developing the outputs in forms able to be effectively used operationally as well as reporting. They interact to produce the final validated outcomes at farm and regional scale as illustrated by the oval (activity processors) in the following dependency diagram:

In this structure, three specific scientific Sub-Projects and one technology transfer Sub-Project have been identified. The Information Systems and Technology Transfer Sub-Projects are critical to this project.

Sub-Project 1: Water Balance Modelling

The water balance Sub-Project will establish and validate an operational water balance model using data collected at the main sites at Luancheng and Changwu in China and the Liverpool Plains, MLR and DT sites in Australia. It will include new components to better model crop yield and be used to develop water saving, recharge and waterlogging scenarios with the calibrated models. This will form a basis for the development of water utilisation indicators.

The first step will be to review related research in the Chinese and English literature on water-saving agriculture and regional water balance appropriate to the sites in both countries. It is important to capitalise on the attention that has been given this area in the two countries and learn from the different responses. This will be followed by collating the field data for water balance models (climate, soil hydraulic data, vegetation) for the calibration sites. The meteorological, soil hydraulic, and crop biophysical data will be assembled for calibrating and validating the water balance model(s).

The next step will be to modify the plant growth component of the WAVES model so that it can predict crop yield and develop field measurable indicators of crop water stress. In particular, we will apply or implement environmental models of the physical, chemical, and biological processes in the root zone that are sensitive to the effects of management. The chosen methods need to effectively model the dynamics of water movement and solute transport in soil-plant-atmosphere continuum in the target environments. Once this is in place, scenario modelling will be used to examine the effect of cropping practice, water saving strategies and (where relevant) irrigation management on productivity at the site scale. The study of extension to less well instrumented sites (such as weather stations) and the issue of up-scaling will be developed in conjunction with the Information Systems Sub-Project. However, it is likely this will entail some development of appropriate simplifications to the models.

It is essential from the earliest stage to develop interactions with local authorities and agricultural managers to obtain information on the current cropping and (where appropriate) irrigation practices. The next task will be to calibrate the water balance model in terms of soil moisture storage, crop water use and growth using data obtained from calibration field stations at Luancheng, Nanpi, Changwu and Ansai in the NCP and LP areas of China and the LPL, MLR and DT areas in Australia. This will provide better understanding of the relationship between soil moisture availability and crop growth and provide confidence for use of the model over the associated regions. In particular, locally calibrated benchmarks for crop performances will be established as local WUE indicators.

Sub-Project 2: Soil Environment Impacts

The Soil Environment Impacts Sub-Project will develop soil impact models and contribute information for the tools used in the Water Balance Sub-Project. The applications of this component will be different in the NCP and LP in that the former will focus on salinity and sodicity and the latter on the evaluation of existing indicators involving erosion and nutrients.

For the NCP, related research on salinity, sodicity and soil/water interactions will be reviewed as they relate to the focus catchments and regional areas in China and Australia. These problems include the farm scale problems of producing food efficiently and sustaining the viability and quality of the resource base.

Base data sets will be collected for the selected sites and detailed soil-water process studies will be conducted in representative focus catchments by compiling soil, geological and geomorphological maps after describing and sampling soil profiles down representative toposequences of the focus catchments. These will be analysed to provide the chemical, physical and mineralogical properties of key soil profiles and (through regional accounting) their up-scaling to the catchment scale of the Project.

The base data will be used to establish best choices of conceptual (qualitative) and physical (quantitative) models (e.g. LEACHM and SWIM v2) to predict the processes and fluxes of water and salts within landscapes. The most appropriate physical model to use with the strong base of data being collected will be assessed and selected in the first year of the project. In addition, we will decide which catchments are most suitable and representative for the modeling of salt fluxes. This will ensure that our data sets are comprehensive and fulfil the input requirements for the selected model.

Where instrumentation exists, groundwater levels and throughflow will be monitored. The hydrology and catchment water balance will also be modelled in order to trace pathways, sources and loads of solutes and iron moving through surface and sub-surface soil layers of different porosity and weathering characteristics. Water balance modelling will also be used to understand and quantify solute transport at both focus catchment and regional scales and to establish consistent indicators scaling between farm and region. The indicators will involve interaction with end users and evaluation by all parties using the CSIRO indicator ranking method.

In the LP, the first step is also to review both the base for the existing indicators as they apply to the region and how they relate to the measurements that have been developed in China. The reviews and discussions with the users of the technology will lead to a set of tests using existing data for Morphological Indicators (e.g. Soil organic matter, aggregation, crusting, anti-erodability, shearing stress, infiltration rate) and Biological Indicators (e.g. crop productivity, plant root density, soil microbiology, soil nutrients and chemistry). This will impact directly on Sub-Project 4 where the established set will be validated.

Sub-Project 3: Information Systems

The Information Systems Sub-Project will collate the results and present maps and modelling outcomes developed in the other two Sub-Projects on a consistent geographic base and undertake scaling from site to region. It will, in parallel with the Technology Transfer Sub-Project, establish communications with the users of the research outcomes. This Sub-Project will also integrate and present the regional results in space and time dimensions.

GIS and data integration systems for the LP, NCP, LPL, MLR and DT Catchment study areas, which build on the extensive work already done in both countries will be extended to support the new research as well as the management outcomes. This will integrate field, map, meteorological, hydrogeological and remotely sensed data, have a modelling capability and provide information for the decision support tools. Steps needed to complete the activity are:

First, related research on assessment, monitoring and scaling of regional water balance components and land degradation indicators using GIS and remotely sensed data will be reviewed. Then the remotely sensed data (e.g. TM and AVHRR images) and GIS themes (hydrogeology, meteorology, climatic averages, land use) not already in place will be collected for the study areas. A significant task at this stage will be to assess integrity of the data and establish the Data Quality Protocol which allows the reliability of separate and integrated data sets to be measured. These are needed for effective base data integration and geometric navigation. In China, data from the Chinese Meteorological Network and the Chinese Hydrogeological Survey are already well integrated and managed and available for this purpose.

Next, a generic GIS framework will be established which can be used for each of the focus areas (including the 38 N parallel of the NCP and the existing multi-scale GIS base at Yangling in China for the LP) to assist with the mapping and integration of information accessed by on-ground and remote sensing techniques. This framework will be based on a common, generic data model for the areas and applications addressed in both China and Australia and adhere (where possible) to data standards such as the Australian Spatial Data Transfer Standard which is currently being drafted.

To apply the up-scaling methods described in Section 2.1, the spatial strata used for mapping water and soils indicators using the remotely sensed data and target strategic sites will be identified in order to carry out the spatial processing needed for the Water Balance and Soil Environment Impact Sub-Projects. Crop stress and potential yield will be mapped at different scales and some of the site soils data aggregated to the same scales by spatial accounting. Then validated models from the Water Balance and Soil Environment Impacts Sub-Projects which extend the data from the focus catchment experimental sites to regional scales using remotely sensed data combined with GIS processing of data will be applied.

Finally, the GIS modelling techniques (e.g. using digital elevation models and derived indicators) and remote sensing information will be applied to the soil and hydrological data to extend the local soil and water models to predict water use and soil degradation at the regional scale through the base of standardised indicators. A validation phase will then be undertaken. It is important also for this activity to produce graphics that users can understand quickly and unambiguously.

Sub-Project 4: Technology Transfer

The Technology Transfer Sub-Project will initially involve working closely with the identified partner agencies to discuss the indicator technology with the relevant groups in China and Australia. Establishing the priority issues that require assessment at the sites in the two countries and the 'core' indicators that address them and are acceptable within the framework of the traditional practices is a fundamental step of the Project. This step must be made rigorously to provide a focus for the scientific developments. At the farm scale, technology transfer mechanisms and networks already exist to undertake this definition and later to promote the adoption of improved management practices through the Provincial Governments in China and local LandCare Groups in Australia. The primary contacts for the sites selected in China (Ma Zhanyuan, Hebei Province; Zhang Zhixiang, Ansai County, Shaanxi and Liu Wenlong, Changwu County, Shaanxi) are officers of the Chinese technology transfer network which has offices from Provincial level to Village level. They have been included among the project staff to facilitate this process and to help develop training courses at the experimental stations. In Australia, close liaison is being maintained with the LandCare Groups in the preparation and execution of the Project through the local LandCare Group and Combined LandCare Group representatives (see Section 2.6).

The initial step is to jointly review and develop practical and easily applied local and regional measures of water balance components, water use efficiency and soil degradation as effective indicators that can be applied to farm and regional scales and address concerns of the regional managers. In the soil degradation work, for example, scientists from that Sub-Project will work with end users to define inexpensive indicators which reliably predict risk of waterlogging, salinisation and sodification and evaluate existing indicators of erosion. These indicators must be simple to use and capable of reliable interpretation. The selected indicators need to be validated and trialed with the target agricultural advisers and farming groups in both countries to ensure that recommended water and soil attributes (or their surrogates) are acceptable and relevant. This provides the tools for better farm management and property planning leading to higher and more sustainable production.

Farm-scale actions may translate to regionally unsustainable outcomes. Hence, in parallel with the development of effective farm scale indicators, the development of tools that the regional managers can use to assess the results of current practice are also being developed in this Project. These will allow regional managers to communicate necessary changes back to the farm scale and provide motivation for change. Accomplishing this will depend partly on good technology development and partly on effective technology transfer to regional agencies. In both countries, agencies which can provide this base exist and have been included in the development of the Project.

In line with the indicator methodology (Walker and Reuter, 1966), interaction with end users from the outset is essential. User acceptance and ease of use are key factors. It is intended to hold an indicators workshop in China to establish the local rankings and acceptance of proposed measures at an early stage of the project. The operational success of the program in both countries will be reviewed with the involvement of the target groups of end users at the different scales of application.

Field Sites

The project will proceed within the structure and timeframe outlined in Section 1.14 at specific sites in the two countries using the skills of staff and research infrastructure located at the two laboratories in Australia and the two in China with interactions generally as follows:

Sub-Project	Australian Lab(s)	Australian Site(s)	Chinese Lab(s)	Chinese Site(s)
1. Water Balance Modelling	Canberra	Liverpool Plains	SIAM & ISWC	Luancheng & Changwu
2. Soil Environment Impacts	Adelaide	Mt Lofty Range Catchment(s)	SIAM & ISWC	Nanpi & Ansai
3. Information Systems	Canberra & Adelaide	Liverpool Plains, DT & Mt Lofty Range Catchment(s)	ISWC & SIAM	Yangling & Shijiazhuang
4. Technology Transfer	Both	All	All	All

(In this Table the underlining denotes primary focus site or station where two are indicated.)

3.0 ECONOMIC EVALUATION

3.1 Economic Significance

China Study Areas

China has only about 7% of the world's arable land but feeds 22% of its population. At present, Chinese agricultural output exceeds the FAO's recommended daily nutritional requirement of 1900 kcal/capita/day. However, in the future, crop land constraints may force China to be a significant importer of grain - especially in poor seasons. Reaching an acceptable and sustainable level of food production and increasing farm incomes are key elements in the current (Ninth) Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000).

In China, the NCP is the alluvial plain of the Huanghe (Yellow River), Huaihe and Haihe Rivers and includes most of five provinces (Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu) and two autonomous cities (Beijing and Tianjin). The NCP covers an area of about 350,000 km² with an area of arable land of 178,000 km². It is a major agricultural region in China which produces about 18% and 50% of China's total grain and cotton crops respectively and its output of various economic crops such as soybean, peanut and tobacco makes up about 25% of China's total production. Wheat is a major crop and about 50% (50 million tons) of China's total output of wheat is from the NCP. For this project, the economic area primarily being considered is the northern sub-region (sometimes called the "Greater Beijing regional market") covering the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong. It has a population of more than 100 million people and a GDP exceeding $A25 billion.

The LP area of the Yellow River Basin includes 5 provinces (Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu. Ningxia and Nei Menggu) and 289 counties. The total area of the associated region is 624,000 km² with the Plateau and Hills area making up 430,000 km². Of this, about 272,000 km² suffers serious soil erosion. With deep soils, the area is an important agricultural one having 5.1 million ha of farmland - 75% of which is on sloping land. Crop yields (primarily wheat and maize) are variable averaging 2.10 t/ha. The distribution of yields is:

 

Yield Class	Percentage
>2.25 t/ha	35.7%
1.50-2.25 t/ha	40.8%
<1.50 t/ha	24.5%

The higher yields are in the (drought prone) Tableland area in the south of the region and the lower yields are in the (erosion prone) hills & gully areas. The LP supports 80 million people, 30 million of whom live in the soil erosion area. Farm incomes are currently low at 500-800 yuan per person per year. The region is the subject of intensive research due to the need to feed its existing population, which includes the increasing mining and industrial populations, plus its potential to increase agricultural output to meet China's future food needs and ensure food security. The LP can potentially generate greater output through increased agricultural efficiency. Studies have indicated the potential for an increase by 50% in the higher producing Tablelands area near Changwu and 100% in the poorer hilly-gully area near Ansai through improved management. One option is to increase orchard crops which are already well established in the LP. Economically, the LP is linked with the "Gold Triangle" regional market consisting of Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi and with the central provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and Jiangxi. These Central Provinces all combined, like Greater Beijing, form a regional market with a population of more than 100 million people and a GDP exceeding $A25 billion (information from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canada, December 1996).

An indication of the total and relative agricultural significance of the study areas can be obtained from the China Agricultural Yearbook 1995 (Anon., 1996).

Table 3.1.1 Comparison of Chinese Agricultural Regions

Commodity	Measure	Hebei	Shaanxi & Gansu	Sichuan	China
Sown Areas	Area (1,000 ha)	8,649.31	8,515.54	12,636.07	148,147.00
MCI (%)1	%	132.57	123.53	203.34	156.00
Cereal Crops	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	5,595.80	5,402.00	7,321.80	87,537.40
	Output (10,000 tons)	2,263.30	1,425.20	3,325.30	39,389.40
	Per ha yield (kg)	4,044	2,659	4,541	4,499
Rice	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	117.80	164.00	2,980.80	30,171.50
	Output (10,000 tons)	88.30	75.30	1,931.70	17,593.20
	Per ha yield (kg)	7,495	4,452	6,480	5,831
Wheat	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	2,455.50	2,983.30	2,309.50	28,980.70
	Output (10,000 tons)	921.70	719.00	704.30	9,929.90
	Per ha yield (kg)	3,753	2,402	3,049	3,426
Maize	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	2,103.70	1,338.10	1,710.60	21,152.30
	Output (10,000 tons)	1,065.30	394.20	572.60	9,927.70
	Per ha yield (kg)	5,063	2,965	3,347	4,693
Millet	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	409.60	179.60	-	1,672.00
	Output (10,000 tons)	102.60	29.40	-	369.70
	Per ha yield (kg)	2,445	1,634	-	2,211
Cotton	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	685.29	99.92	130.61	5,528.03
	Output (tons)	389,971	59,731	67,102	4,340,980
	Per ha yield (kg)	569	721	513	785
Orchards	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	941.85	854.23	287.45	7,263.50
	Output (tons)	3,565,009	2,862,938	1,868,381	34,997,065
Vegetables	Sown Area (1,000 ha)	431.32	282.41	826.07	10,042.12
	Output (tons)	20,178,760	7,237,957	-	187,790,918
	Per ha yield (kg)	46,783	26,915	-	18,700
Meat	Output (ton)	2,462,234	1,303,020	5,690,267	44,993,009
Net Income	Yuan/Capita	1,107.25	764.29	946.33	1,220.98

¹ Multiple Cropping Index

As a summary we have used Hebei Province (in the NCP) and the sum of Shaanxi and Gansu (which contains a large proportion of the LP) with Sichuan as a reference. These units have about equal cultivated area to provide comparisons of productivity. It is clear that major commodities in our study areas of China are Wheat, Cotton, Maize, Orchard (particularly apples) and (in the NCP) Vegetable crops. Hebei alone produces about 10% of China's production in each of these commodities. Relative to the rest of China, Hebei and the NCP produce high yields in all cases and the LP relatively low yields and is relatively poorer. However, all of these agricultural areas listed have average incomes below China's average.

Wheat and Orchards (especially apples) are major commodities in the other provinces of the NCP. Shandong and Henan between them account for about 40% of China's wheat production. The NCP can be represented basically as the sum of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan and Shandong. If this is done, the following Table 3.1.2 shows the approximate proportion of production of the major commodities identified due to this very large unit:

Table 3.1.2 Annual production by the NCP provinces

Commodity	Measure	NCP	China	Percent
Wheat	Output (10,000 tons)	4,804.40	9,929.90	48.3
Maize	Output (10,000 tons)	3,391.00	9,927.70	34.1
Cotton	Output (tons)	1,590,388	4,340,980	36.6
Orchard	Output (tons)	11,843,824	34,997,065	33.8
Vegetable	Output (tons)	86,256,539	187,790,918	45.9
Meat	Output (tons)	10,343,005	44,993,009	22.9

Thus, the NCP produces approximately half of China's wheat and vegetables and a third each of China's maize, cotton and fruit. Despite its size and the fact that maize is largely grown as a feed crop, the NCP only accounts for 23% of meat production. By comparison, the wheat production of Australia is about 1,600 (units of 10,000 tons) in a good year.

In this project, the Province of Hebei is the primary regional unit of the NCP that will be studied and framed within the Greater Beijing regional market. In the case of the LP, the province of Shaanxi will be regarded as the primary regional unit which is framed within the "Gold Triangle" regional market.

Australian Study Areas

In the dry sub-humid summer rainfall land zone, the Liverpool Plains (LPL) is a significant agricultural region of the MDB in the State of NSW. Agriculture and Mining providethe basis for income in the region with wheat, cotton and livestock (mainly cattle) as the main agricultural commodities produced. Productivity from the two major Shires in the LPL (Gunnedah and Quirindi Shires) is summarised in Table 3.1.3

Table 3.1.3 Production value of different enterprises of the agricultural sector in the Gunnedah and Quirindi Shires between 1977/78 and 1992/93.

	1977/78	1982/83	1991/92	1992/93
Total value of all farm products ($m)	42.553	68.168	159.479	157.251
Proportion of income relying on land use*(%)	95	86	94	95
Total value of cereals and hay ($m)	26.584	18.057	54.303	59.733
Cereals and hay in proportion of total land use based income (%)	66	31	36	40
Wheat in proportion to non-cereal crops (%)	71	49	39	52
Total non-cereal crops ($m)	2.276	5.874	28.138	23.573
Non-cereal crops in proportion of total land use based income (%)	6	10	19	16
Cotton in proportion to non-cereal crops (%)	0	1	63	66
Total livestock ($m)	13.693	44.237	77.038	74.375
Livestock in proportion to total value of agricultural production (%)	32	65	48	47
Cattle in proportion to total livestock (%)	63	69	76	80

* excludes income generated from intensive animal production

(Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 1994)

In the temperate winter rainfall land zone in south eastern Australia, the MLR (500,000 ha) in South Australia and DT in Western Victoria (363,000 ha) are major catchments for regional water supply and significant agricultural regions producing wheat, vegetables, meat, milk and wool. Agriculture provides most of the income for these two regions. In Table 3.1.4, agricultural economic data are provided for the Mt Pleasant and southern Barossa districts which represent about 15% (or 80,000 ha) of the MLR region and provide a comprehensive picture of agricultural activity (Northern Hills Soil Conservation District, 1995). The DT (363,000 ha) represents 14% of the Glenelg Salinity Region (Glenelg Salinity Forum, 1993) for which agricultural economic data is presented in Table 2.2.4.

Table 3.1.4 Production value of different enterprises of the agricultural sector in the Mount Lofty Ranges and Western Districts of Victoria

	Mount Lofty Ranges (1992-93)	Western Districts of Victoria (1992-93)
Total value of all farm products ($m)	258.4	678.3
Total value of cereals, hay and pasture seed ($m)	6.3	60.7
Total non-cereal crops including horticulture ($m)	138.4	13.3
Total livestock (meat) ($m)	122.4	180.9
Livestock products (wool, dairying etc) ($m)	(Aggregated)	424.4

From these Tables, it can be seen that the Australian study areas represent ones producing similar commodities as well as having complementary water and soils problems to those in China. The volume and value of the commodity production in the China study sites is very much higher than these, but within Australia the areas chosen are significant agricultural areas for Australia's domestic and export production.

3.2 Economic Impact of the Research

Section 3.1 outlined the very large volume of agricultural production associated with the focus areas in Australia and China and their importance for food security and the economy of the two countries. Regional monitoring and changes in management practices at the local scale through the feedback of the indicators can create very great benefits through whole-region marginal improvement. Table 3.2.1 shows some preliminary estimates of the potential benefits from the adoption of technologies to be developed in this project. The estimates are based on the production levels of the most important crops in the target areas. While the technologies may be more widely applicable in China, the estimates are based only on the areas where the project is based. Given the observed slowness in adoption by farmers of environment-related technologies, we assume a ceiling adoption of 33 percent in Australia, and of 25 percent in China. The estimates in Table 3.2.1 are based on the assumption that this project will lead to increases in yields of the selected commodities which, assuming total costs of production do not change, will in turn lead to reductions in the unit costs (cost per ton) of producing the commodities. The expected impacts of this project on reductions in the unit costs of production of each commodity are likely to be favourable but their magnitudes are not known, and would be extremely difficult to estimate at this time. For the purposes of this preliminary economic assessment we have assumed a very conservative value on only 0.05% of the farmgate price.

The research evaluation model of Lubulwa and McMeniman (1996) was used to estimate research benefits. The analysis uses a 30 year time horizon and a discount rate of 8 percent based on a recommendation by the Australian Government Department of Finance. The preliminary estimates suggest that this project could lead to benefits over the thirty year time horizon of about $A11.54 millions, which is several times the total research costs of about $A2.58 millions. The analysis takes into account the contributions by the commissioned organisation, China and ACIAR to the project's budget. The internal rate of return on these funds is estimated to be about 35 percent.

These estimates crucially depend on there being some adoption of the technologies. If the technologies are not adopted there will be zero economic benefits from the project. If the adoption is low, say 5 percent, then the estimated benefits are about $A2.21m, which barely exceeds the discounted research costs. The corresponding internal rate of return is then just over 8 percent. On the other hand, if the technologies are adopted more widely than assumed in Table 3.2.1 the estimated benefits will be much larger.

Table 3.2.1. Preliminary estimates of the potential economic benefits from Project LWR1/95/07 based on very conservative assumptions on the reductions in the costs of production.

Variable considered in the estimation	North China Plain	Australia	Total
Quantity produced ('000 tons)
Wheat	48040	14405	na
Maize	33910	na	na
Cotton	1590	459	na
Farm gate Price $A/ton
Wheat	$224 (a)	$232 (c)	na
Maize	$164 (b)	na	na
Cotton	$100(d)	$285 (c)	na
Estimate of cost saving $A/ton
Wheat	$0.11	$0.12	na
Maize	$0.08	na	na
Cotton	$0.05	$0.18	na
Ceiling adoption	25%	33%	na
Research costs (undiscounted) $A, millions	na	na	$2.58
Research costs, (discounted at 8% pa over 30 years) $Am	na	na	$1.57
BASE CASE
Research benefits, (discounted at 8% pa over 30 years) $Am	na	na	$11.54
Estimated rate of return	na	na	35%
LOW ADOPTION ( 5% ceiling)
Research benefits, (discounted at 8% pa over 30 years) $Am	na	na	$2.21
Estimated rate of return	na	na	8.25%

a) ABARE (1996, Table 231 -Summary of world statistics for wheat)
b) CIMMYT (1992)
c) ABARE (1996)
d) Professor Yang Yuai (Pers comm ) based on data extracted from the Statistical Year Book of China, 1994 (1$A= 6.67 Yuan)

Source: Economic Evaluation Unit, ACIAR, May 1997

These estimates are based entirely on reductions in the costs of production and take no account of other economic benefits arising from soil and water conservation.

In the NCP, water quality, sustainable water and soil conservation, drought, waterlogging, and salinity have immediate and long term consequences for agricultural productivity and land degradation. The problems can occur at the farm level where the problem may be survival and quality of life, and at the regional level in terms of sustainability once improved conditions have been achieved. It has been estimated that the current productivity in the NCP could be significantly improved if crops were not limited by water availability and land degradation, such as salinity and sodicity (Huang Bingwei, 1989). The focus of the Project on water-saving agriculture, which seeks to increase agricultural water use efficiency, provides a means to achieve improvements in productivity and sustainability. An alternative, engineering based solution through a large water transfer project (South-to-North Water Transfer Project) has been planned by the Chinese government. The designed channel is over 1000 km long and expected to deliver 1510⁹ m³ of water to the region annually. However, this is obviously a very costly option and its environmental impacts are uncertain and will need careful monitoring in terms of its impacts of agriculture and land degradation.

In the LP economic benefits will also accrue if the project leads to reductions in soil erosion arising from reduced sedimentation in water storages as well as by reductions in losses of nutrients in surface soil from the cropped areas.

In Australia, the population pressures are smaller but the effects of tree clearing over the last 200 years have altered the water balance and increased soil degradation. Increasing salinity and sodicity as well as re-distribution of soils by erosion have all combined to challenge the sustainability of the agricultural systems, especially in periods of low moisture availability. Duplex soils on which waterlogging, salinity and sodicity problems occur, occupy 80% of the high to medium rainfall zones of southern Australia. These areas comprise some of Australia's prime agricultural (crops, meat, wool, dairy) and horticultural lands, and in addition, are major catchment zones for regional water supply. The mobilisation and deposition of iron, sulphur and clay within duplex soil pose serious threats of land degradation and to the quality of water harvested and stored in regional water bodies.

The economic implications of these degradation problems therefore affects the future viability and perhaps survival of rural communities, their agricultural industries and the condition of regional supplies of surface water. This project will benefit all industries by better monitoring and managing local soil and water resources to:

• increase productivity through achieving higher efficiencies in water use and decreased losses due to waterlogging, salinity and erosion;
• reduce off-site costs associated with water pollution;
• improve the prospects of property and catchment planning by the strategic location of tree plantings, interceptor drains and fencing to mitigate against the degrading soil processes.

The methods of assessing regional impacts that are being developed in this project are needed in the face of the size and diversity of the areas affected. In both Australia and China, the impacts of land degradation occur immediately on the farming population and on the people of the towns and cities that depend on the farm for food. These impacts are also limiting future sustainability of farming in the two countries. In all cases, the need is to manage water allocations, and/or efficient use as well as soil conservation within a larger system that is responding at a different time scale from the seasonal one and to feed the assessment back to where management decisions aimed at improving output are implemented.

The pressures being addressed in this project are of a similar type to those existing in many areas of the world. Agricultural activities in catchments, sub-catchments, and river basins must be pursued within an integrated catchment framework if both shorter term needs of people, and longer term questions of sustainability, are to be addressed effectively. This project will provide tools which can be widely used to help minimise current problems and help in selection of management strategies which will increase current production as well as minimise soil and water degradation and its effects on agriculture in the longer term. Even a marginal improvement at the scales involved leads to very high return for the research investment.

4.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

High efficiency in crop yields means achieving maximum yields within the constraints imposed by the environment including availability of water and the health of the soil resource. Sustainability means being able to achieve this potential into the future by the system maintaining its functions with losses being replaced either naturally or by application of materials such as fertilisers, lime or gypsum. In some cases, of course, the sustainable maximum may be less than the short term maximum potential yield.

For a given crop type in an environment of available light, temperature, rainfall and soil fertility it would seem that there is a sustainable maximum yield against which actual performance can be measured. Using a reference performance the basis for the Water Use Efficiency Indicator (WUEI) being used as a primary tool in this project. Strictly, water use efficiency (WUE) is the ratio of photosynthesis to respiration and can be measured at the leaf scale. However, in practice, the index of most practical interest is the ratio of yield to transpiration which can be defined and estimated for a field or even a cropping region.

Underpinning water use as a primary indicator is work due to de Wit (1958), Slatyer (1967) and others (such as Hanks, 1974; Passioura, 1976) suggesting that over reasonable operating ranges, yield is related to transpiration (or crop water use) as:

where Y is the yield, T is cumulative transpiration and L is root length. The subscript m denotes maximum or potential for yield, transpiration and root length respectively within the current environmental limitations. The ratio of Y to T is the crop WUE.

In practice, the yield and rainfall can be monitored. However, the relationship between yield and rainfall is not only related to WUE but to the regional water balance and crop water uptake. If the rainfall is denoted P and the plant available water in the root zone as A, then:

That is, the relationship between yield and rainfall depends on water uptake (T/A) and the water balance (A/P) as well as WUE. In order to focus on crop behaviour and take account of the nonlinear behaviour of the ratio of T to A, the WUEI is generally defined in terms of the relationship between Y and A, which is estimated as a regional water balance component, and expressed as a ratio to the yield (Y_m) corresponding to maximum WUE and crop water uptake efficiency for given A (see Reuter et al., 1996).

If the maximum sustainable (or potential) yield (Y_m) can be established for a given seasonal environment of plant available light, heat, plant available water and nutrients then any reduction in the ratio of Y to Y_m will be due to degraded soil structural or chemical factors, less water than expected being available in the root zone, poor root water uptake, crop disease and functioning, competition from weeds or other factors that demand management attention. The impact of these ideas and the implications they have for improving the WUEI and thereby yield and environmental health through changes in management can be traced through the four Sub-Projects of this project:

4.1 Water Balance Modelling

Chinese Perspective

For maximum sustainable yields from dryland and irrigated agriculture, it has been recognised in China that it is essential to optimise crop water use efficiency (Huang Bingwei, 1989; Hu Chaobing and Qiu Shan, 1991, Shan Lun et al., 1991; Wang Shin Yuan et al., 1993). Due to limited rainfall in the areas of China being studied, rainwater conservation (including temporary storage) or irrigation from rivers or groundwater is vitally necessary to improve crop yields. This has led to the development of strategies for water saving agriculture (Li Wushan et al., 1995), irrigation scheduling and the development of methods to monitor moisture status and water balance components. These tools also help minimise the costs and possible environmental impacts associated with each strategy. An ongoing project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China is investigating the water management problems involved in dryland agriculture in the NCP and the means to overcome them (Liu Changming and Yu, 1996). Mulch, for example, has been shown to reduce soil evaporation, and hence increase water availability to crops, by 10% (Zhang Xiying et al. 1994).

You Maozheng and Wang Huixiao (1992) have investigated WUE of wheat in the NCP at leaf and crop scales. They defined WUE for field crops as the ratio of yield to total evapotranspiration (ET) and have shown that for irrigated crops, maximum WUE may occur at yields below potential yield. Although these conclusions should be examined for the effect of including soil evaporation in the definition of WUE it is likely that their conclusion stands in that at high levels of irrigation there is a need to balance social, economic and crop efficiency factors to define sustainable maximum yields and associated water requirements.

A similar conclusion was reached by Shan Lun et al. (1992) for the dryland agriculture of the Loess Plateau. There, the opportunity to save and use rainwater for limited irrigation was investigated. They also concluded as well that soil fertility was a primary limiting factor: additional fertiliser significantly increased WUE. Economically and environmentally sustainable yields taking into account water saving practices and use of fertiliser now need to be defined for the region.

Separation of the effects of root uptake, transpiration, soil evaporation and plant available soil water is needed to understand how WUE changes under field conditions. Traditional estimates of total field evapotranspiration (Liu et al., 1991) need to be extended to do this successfully. Lu Zhenmin (1989) studied the mechanisms relating crop water availability and stomatal resistance using data obtained from Yucheng Research Station in the NCP. Similar data are available for Luancheng. Shao Mingan et al. (1988) developed and used a dynamic model of soil water availability to plants for dryland agricultural areas of the LP region. Kang Shaozhong et al. (1993) proposed and developed an extended model to simulate the dynamics of water movement in Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Continuum (SPAC). This model has been used widely by scientists in China. (eg Li Yushan et al. (1990)).

Extension of WUE concepts to irrigated crops in the presence of scarce water resources and salinity was examined by Wang et al. (1992). They developed a linear production function (which did not include soil evaporation) relating grain yield and irrigation amount which was linear for low applications and reached a maximum at high levels. The WUE value was used as a tool to optimise irrigation scheduling. You Wenrui (1992) also discussed the close relationship between water saving agriculture and the control of soil salinity which will be further developed below.

Australian perspective

In dryland farming regions, seasonal rainfall usually dominates commodity production. In Australia, on-farm productivity is now being ranked objectively using a 'water use efficiency' indicator, which is defined as the % of potential yield for the given water resource (see Reuter et al., 1996). This approach was initially pioneered for southern Australian dryland cereal zones by French and Schultz (1984a,b) is an integrating benchmark for monitoring trends in seasonal productivity and for setting targets for farming practices. Crop and regional differences are taken into account by the production function (usually assumed to be linear for dryland farming) relating crop available water (or effective rainfall) to potential yield and a user-friendly computer program, PYCAL, has been developed to cope with regional variations. Effects of soil degradation, farming practices, crop health and changing water balance components are integrated into the percent achievement of the potential yield. The definition of the WUEI as a ratio of actual to potential or even achievable yield has been a significant step in technology transfer as will be discussed below under Technology Transfer.

In higher rainfall areas and areas where rainfall is supplemented by irrigation either from rainwater storage or from rivers and groundwater, the components of the water balance, including the crop available water, are more complex and need to be accurately assessed for both measurement of the WUEI and for developing guidelines for improving it. Standard water accounting methods such as those described in Doorenbos and Pruitt (1984) or (in China) Liu Changming et al. (1991) can provide an effective base for measurement of WUEI but need to be developed further to understand the relative contributions of the different system components and especially the plant water use component. Scientists at CSIRO have developed a process-based model (WAVES) to predict the dynamic interactions within such systems. This model has been successfully tested and applied at different sites in Australia, Europe and the USA for estimating soil moisture, evapotranspiration, plant growth, and recharge (Dawes and Hatton, 1993; Hatton and Dawes, 1993; Dawes et al., 1996; Zhang et al., 1996a; 1996b). WAVES is a mature model and physical, chemical and biological processes that are important for crop development are currently included. This project will also provide a stimulus for adding current leading edge research advances as well as a framework for testing their practical benefit.

Process-based models of the SPAC or WAVES type provide useful tools for understanding the relationship between soil water availability and crop yield at local scales provided they are calibrated and their parameters can be established by measurement or estimated. While many land surface parameterisation schemes exist (see Shao et al., 1994 for a review of major examples) it is especially important in this Project to use one that has a well defined vegetation component and which can assimilate the data being collected without making excessive data demands. A well calibrated water balance model that includes water uptake and transpiration by plants allows scenarios for water saving and irrigation, where appropriate, to be developed. Results from these scenarios then form the basis for guidelines for defining potential yield, optimising water use efficiency and improving irrigation practices. When data needs become very heavy at regional scales much more extensive collections of weather simulators and other tools could be harnessed for this work (McCown et al., 1996). However, the aim in this specific Project is on available data and indicators based on them. Topographic effects will also be important to include in the models when they are significant in the landscape. Topographic effects are included in the TOPOG-IRM model (Dawes and Hatton, 1993; Hatton and Dawes, 1993; Dawes et al., 1996) and topographic indices based on DTMs have a wide range of applications in water balance modelling in catchments as well as in scaling (Beven and Kirkby, 1979; O'Loughlin, 1981, 1986; Burt and Butcher, 1986; Barling et al., 1994 and Zhang and Montgomery, 1994).

Scaling issues are addressed in more detail in the Information Systems Sub-Project discussion. However, regional and large scale hydrologic models provide the link between the scale of the work proposed here and the General Circulation Model (GCM) scale. It is at this level that regional aggregates of the hydrologic balance need to 'close' and tools that are available to address this have been discussed in Kalma and Nunez (1990) or in Brutsaert (1988).

4.2 Soil Environment Impacts

A primary cause of yields declining or not reaching potential or achievable levels is soil structural and chemical degradation. The proposed Soil Environment Impacts Sub-Project will be focussed in two areas. One addresses soil related aspects of water-logging, salinity and sodicity which dominate areas of the NCP. The other addresses the evaluation of current soil and water Indicator technology in the erosion prone LP.

Chinese Perspective

An important issue in developing efficient irrigation water use practices is to understand the processes and factors controlling movement of water and solutes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system and to provide the benefits of water use efficiency on farms in the presence of regional soil salinisation (Liu, 1991, Shalhevet, 1992). Soil salinity and waterlogging have been recognised in China (e.g. Zhao Qiguo, 1989) as significant hazards for agricultural land management. You Wenrui (1992) described how water saving agriculture may be used effectively to prevent and control the processes of soil salinisation. In particular, he emphasised that protecting the quality of the primary water resource quality and reducing stream salinity are keys to managing the problem in the future. Yang Jinsong (1994) described how rational utilisation of water resources on the NCP had improved the situation from one where 4 million ha of land were affected in the early 60's to one where 1.5 million ha were affected at the present time.

Ren Hongzun (1992) listed the major environmental problems associated with irrigation on the NCP as:

• Soil salinisation;
• Surface subsidence due to groundwater depression;
• Sea water intrusion; and
• Sediment transport and deposition.

In this case, the current sediment problems arise from the use of Huanghe water. The extensive loss of soil in the Loess Plateau into the Huanghe creates problems for agriculture at the site of soil loss and downstream where the river water is used for irrigation. As a second part to this Sub-Project, the indicators approach will be evaluated at the source of this sediment load in the northern LP (or Hill and Gully region). The indicators are to be based on previous work by the Chinese scientists and the framework developed in Australia (Walker and Reuter, 1996) will be applied. For the conditions under which the existing indicators are to be tested in the LP, Tang Keli (1986) proposed that phosphorus can be taken as an indicator for soil loss and soil degradation at source. Liu Guobin (1996) proposed a model wherein an evaluation of soil anti-scourability by soil morphological properties and effective root surface area can be used as an indicator of soil structure decline. Zheng Fenli (1996) studied the influence of soil erosion intensity and types on nutrient loss (including soil organic matter nitrogen, phosphorus, soil humus acid) and developed a model for soil erosion and degradation based on these measurements. These inputs which will be integrated with the WUE studies for the southern LP as part of the Information Systems Sub-Project.

Australian Perspective

In high rainfall (>550mm) southern Australian landscapes, CSIRO scientists have established that the mobilisation and accumulation of salts (including sodium, chloride and sulphate), iron and clay in duplex soils is causing problems for agriculture (see Chartres et al., 1992; Fitzpatrick et al., 1992.; Naidu et al., 1995) due to:

• waterlogging;
• formation of saline, sodic and saline acid sulphate soils;
• soil structural decline and erosion; and
• poor quality catchment water from run off and throughflow transport.

Stream salinisation was observed many years ago in Western Australia (Bleazby, 1917) and its relationship with tree clearing was established (Wood, 1924) soon after. Fitzpatrick et al. (1994, 1995, 1996) recently investigated the occurrence and properties of degraded landscapes in South Australia. Rising saline-sulphate ground waters associated with tree clearing since European settlement has also been the main cause of the landscape degradation (Cox, and McFarlane, 1990, McFarlane and Cox, 1992; Cox et al., 1994, 1996). Recent reports indicate similar degradation problems occur in the States of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. They concluded that a primary task in was to identify potentially affected areas to be identified in order that the degradation problems can be minimised by sustainable land and water management.

Soil processes and profile development are important factors that need to be assessed by a range of sensitive soil structural and chemical indicators. For example, recent investigations have found that accumulation and oxidisation of iron and sulphur in seasonally rising ground and perched surface water is causing impermeable soil layers to form in water discharge areas (Gardner and Hindhaugh 1994; Fitzpatrick et al., 1996). During the wet winter months, discharge areas creep up the slopes causing pristine duplex soils to be transformed into soggy saline and often sulphidic soils. In summer, unsightly eroded 'iron ochre scalds' develop from the oxidation of sulphur and iron to form sulphuric acid and various iron oxides. These cause soil pores to clog, especially in combination with sodic and finely dispersed clay particles (Fitzpatrick et al., 1992; 1994, 1996).

In response to this, the approach described in the chapters in the Walker and Reuter (1996) publication dealing with soil structure and chemistry (Chapters 6, 7 & 8)will form the basis on which this project will develop appropriate local indicators of the soil degradation associated with the water use and water utilisation in the salt-affected areas of the NCP and the erosion prone hill areas of the LP. It is clearly necessary to resolve the causes of poor WUEI and identify the specific soil problems and when they occur in the landscape.

4.3 Information Systems

The groups involved in this project from China and Australia already have wide experience in using satellite and aircraft-based remote sensing and GIS data to map and monitor water balance components and erosion at a regional scale. The regional GIS and Image Processing technology which is planned for the information framework in this project has been developed in Australia and China collaboratively in past years. For example, Li Rui et al. (1986, 1989a, 1994) and Harrison et al. (1992) describe how combinations of data at different scales (Aerial photos-in 1987, 1990 and 1995, digital landuse and landcover maps at 1;250,000, serial maps in more than 11 small catchments at 1:5,000-1:10,000 scale, see Song Guiqin et al., 1994) and image processing of airborne and satellite acquired remotely sensed data can be used in regional stratification and assessment of the LP. Li Rui et al. (1989b, 1990) describe how such information can be incorporated into decision support systems and regional information systems and their integration has been described by Li Rui et al. (1994) and Tang Keli et al. (1994) at meetings held in Australia and Beijing.

For field and remote measurement of crop water use, Jackson et al. (1977, 1981) and Idso et al. (1981) proposed crop water stress indicators based on energy and canopy surface temperature and showed that they provide effective tools for quantifying crop water status and stress. Essentially, they related cumulative daily Crop Water Stress Index defined as:

where E_p is the potential daily evapotranspiration and E is the actual daily evapotranspiration to yield reduction from potential or maximum yield. Crop temperature is a key variable in measuring CWSI and can be remotely sensed.

Following this field based work, there has been a great deal of development of regional remote sensing based estimates of evapotranspiration using vegetation greenness and temperature as the primary observations (eg Seguin et al., 1982; Lagouarde, 1991). By integrating the data with water balance models (see Choudhury, 1989), such measurements can be used to provide information for irrigation-scheduling schemes. Zhang Lu et al. (1995) developed a method for estimating moisture availability through regional energy balance and evapotranspiration by combining meteorological data with AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) images from the NOAA series of satellites. This approach has the potential to map moisture availability rates at both the local (Jupp and Kalma, 1989; Kalma and Jupp, 1990) and regional (Smith et al., 1995; McVicar et al., 1996d; Jupp et al., 1997 and Tian et al., 1997) scales. It has also been used to monitor drought in the NCP (Tian, 1993; Tian et al., 1997 and its reference list) and to validate components of regional water balance models. The success of such approaches depends on the use of effective up-scaling of meteorological data through methods such as established Objective Analysis (Gandin, 1965) or interpolation by more recent spatial co-variates (Hutchinson, 1989, 1995).

During the Project it will be possible to evaluate the benefits to the water balance modelling of information derived from microwave remote sensing data. These data have been tested from airborne platforms (Lin et al., 1994) and are now available from the Canadian RADARSAT. There is evidence that radars can sense surface soil moisture and (thereby) help scale the water balance data in many situations (Pulz et al., 1990; Ladson and Moore, 1992; Giacomelli et al., 1994; Dubois et al., 1994) often with the help of correlated topographic indices.

Crop greenness (or green leaf area) at anthesis has been established as an indicator of final cereal yield provided water stress does not rise to damaging levels between anthesis and ripening nor late rain damage the crop. The potential to absorb Photosynthetic Available Radiation (PAR) between anthesis and grain fill is the base for this observation which has been established in the field and from a range of remote sensing platforms. Smith et al. (1995) described how this relationship can be used to predict regional scale wheat yield from NOAA-AVHRR satellite data in Western Australia and determine relationships with wool yields and incidence of wind erosion (Smith 1994). Such methods can be potentially combined with the WUEI approach to establish regional WUEI problems which develop early in a season. Even at the Global Biospheric scale, the relationships between absorbed PAR as measured by satellite and Net Primary Productivity (NPP, see Goward and Dye and Landsberg et al. in Gholz et al., 1996) provide an enclosing and consistent level of information for our work.

In this Sub-Project, (as described in Section 2.1) a primary need is to account for the scaling between data and models over the regions being studied based on data from smaller scale measurements made at sites (Woodcock et al., 1997). Such concepts and methods of up-scaling are needed to establish effective regional scales where different levels of disaggregation in water balance accounting may be made (Liu Changming and Liu Suxia, 1993). In order to relate actual farm level measurements to the large area information that is relevant at the NOAA AVHRR scale or to the regions defined by spatial analysis for the GIS data, it is necessary also to have a methodology to scale the data to match the wide area data. Of special use with remotely sensed data are methods based on co-relationships. These may be between topographic indices derived from DTM data (Moore et al., 1992) and hydrological data or between parameters needed for the regional models and remotely sensed data. McVicar et al. (1996a) developed such relationships between in situ leaf area index (LAI) measurements based on field survey and NOAA AVHRR data by using Landsat TM as an intermediary. The field data were first matched with image data from the higher resolution LANDSAT TM (Thematic Mapper) series for four dates close to the measurements. These relationships were then used to scale the TM to AVHRR data as described in McVicar et al. (1996b). In this way, a decade of AVHRR data was scaled to estimates of LAI. Splines were fitted to these data so that the LAI was estimated for any day within the 10 year period (McVicar et al. 1996c) over the region. Similar scaling of site measurements of other vegetation parameters to regional estimates has been undertaken by Brook (1996).

Both Soil Environment Impacts data and indicators of Water Balance can be scaled to achieve regionalisation using Spatial Accounting. In this approach, which has been described in some detail in Section 2.1, regions of similar type are identified using remotely sensed and GIS data. Information at farm scale within one of these regions is aggregated to represent the region. This stratified, hierarchical scaling is not dissimilar from Land Systems mapping based on aerial photography and used for resource mapping in Australia (Galloway et al., 1974). However, aggregated data are often insufficient to characterise a region and hence the project will look to other up-scaling tools, such as the co-relationships mentioned above and those described in Hutchinson (1989, 1995) with special attention to the role of topographic indices as tools for upscaling (Hutchinson, 1993). We will also look to measures defined at the broadest scale of data - such a NOAA AVHRR to consistently define some of the measures (such as WUEI) at the regional scale.

4.4 Technology Transfer

In recent years, indicators (defined here as measurable attributes of the environment that can be monitored via field observation, field sampling, remote sensing, or compilation of existing data) have become a familiar topic in the international literature. They have been used to assess environmental changes, monitor trends in performance and to evaluate the state of particular environments at scales ranging from plots to nations (State of the Environment in Australia 1996; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program - Ecological indicators Hunsaker and Carpenter 1990; National Environmental Outlook RIVM 1992; Indicators of Sustainable Agriculture SCARM 1993; Ecosystem health - Rapport 1995). Here we propose to use an indicator approach as one of the tools for technology transfer. It is important to briefly outline how our approach differs from apparently similar approaches and why it is likely to be successful. A detailed description of the approach is given in "Indicators of catchment health" Walker and Reuter 1996). In the overview chapter, Walker et al. (1996) describe a generic approach to indicators that is developed in a number of specific cases for farm productivity, product quality, soil health, water quality and landscape integrity. In Chapter 2, Walker and Reuter discuss how to develop a key indicator set. This is done by ranking potential measurements and assessments against a set of eleven criteria and selecting a sufficient set from among the top ranking.

The criteria used are:

1. Ease of capture
2. Total cost per hectare
3. Existence of a standard method for estimation
4. Interpretation criteria available
5. Significant at the catchment scale
6. Low error associated with the measurement
7. Known response to land management or disturbances
8. Stable over the period of measurement
9. Trend indicators are mappable
10. Generic or diagnostic
11. Context data can be expected to be available

Two main types of indicator are envisaged in this project : condition indicators, which define the state of the system relative to desirable states or thresholds, and trend indicators which measure how the system is changing. They aim to provide actionable information for people directly involved in farm production and land management. Point or paddock scale information needs to be considered in the context of catchments and their total use. Successful adoption of indicators can be measured when a critical mass of land managers in a catchment change their practices so that there is an improvement in the indicators for land and water conditions at the paddock and catchment scales.

To be successful with an indicator approach, several rules need to be observed. First, the target groups must see benefits in measuring indicators. Second, the target group must be involved in deciding which indicators are useful to them and collect the data (local issues are important). Third, the indicators must be unequivocal and easy to interpret. It follows that indicators will only act to change farm practices if an effective interaction is set up between the target groups and the groups providing the indicators and the technology.

In this project we believe that an especially useful indicator that passed the criteria has been the successful WUEI described in Reuter et al. (1996). The framing of the definition and the practical application of it has been adopted widely by innovative farmer groups in Australia as an integrating benchmark for ranking productivity and setting targets for farm performance. Yield monitoring programs employing the WUEI concept now exist in all Australian grain-producing states with various names such as MEYCHECK (Victoria), GRAIN GAIN (South Australia), CROP CHECK (Western Australia), CROP GAIN (Tasmania), TOP CROP (New South Wales) and TOP CROP (Queensland). The different systems reflect the need for the indicator to take account of regional differences and environmental differences but that task has been well explored in Australia. Its stems from the combination of simplicity in packaging with sensitivity to problems that can subsequently be successfully resolved. This combination is a model for the Technology Transfer that is planned to come from the Project.

Attention will also be focussed on the development of practical soil morphological (Fitzpatrick 1996a,b) and soil chemical (Merry 1996) indicators which are relevant to the project. More recent work has aimed to develop an approach to establish catchment and regional occurrences and likely significance of mobilised iron, sulphur and clay deposits in causing watertables to rise seasonally and induce soils to become severely waterlogged and impermeable. Soil and water process information and remotely sensed data (see Fitzpatrick et al., 1996b) are being integrated and used to develop user-friendly, indicator kits which are generic and capable of being extended from the study catchments to regional scales.

In both China and Australia, GIS and remote sensing technology are still seen as specialist areas requiring expensive software and hardware and trained operators. However, at the regional planning and management scale where regional agricultural sustainability and off-farm impacts are of prime concern there is both a need and a capacity to use such tools. What is needed is for the products of the technology to be increasingly accepted in the operations of local agricultural managers and for the consequences for farm practice to flow to its point of application. This is occurring as education of the regional officers increases, as computer technology becomes common and prices fall and as GIS and image processing become easier to use. These changes were flagged in Jupp et al. (1988) and are bearing fruit in a way that will allow this project to transfer regional assessments of sustainability and performance to the point of application - to the farm scale.

5.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT & COORDINATION

5.1 Project Management Committee

This project is a three way collaboration between ACIAR, CSIRO and CAS. To establish coordination there will be a Project Management Committee with members of each country and ACIAR. Suggested composition is:

Australia

Ian Willett, David Jupp, Joe Walker, Rob Fitzpatrick.

China:

An Jianji, Liu Changming, Yang Yonghui, Li Rui.

The Committee will nominate a Chairman who will also provide the primary point of contact between the partners and overall management.

The project activities are being carried out at a variety of sites in Australia and China and by groups in different geographic locations. Hence, within CSIRO and CAS there will be small groups of scientific advisers, including the primary contacts and members of the Project Management Committee who will provide responsibility for scientific direction and coordination between the different laboratories. Milestones and Sub-Project interactions will be decided by the groups at the request of the managers and Sub-Project Leaders. The structure is illustrated in the following diagram:

5.2 LandCare Groups and Provincial Groups

Landcare Groups in Australia and Provincial Groups of the Chinese Technology Transfer Network are key elements in the Technology Transfer phase of the Project. Coordination and interaction is maintained by close contact with the following Groups and representatives. In the Dundas Tablelands, 16 Landcare Groups representing 230 farms have combined to form a Combined Dundas Tablelands Land Management Group. This Group strongly supports the proposal.

In Australia:

Liverpool Plains (LPL): Liverpool Plains Landcare Group Ms Shiela Donaldson Karinya, Gunnedah, NSW 2380. Tel: 067 43 7235	Mt. Lofty Ranges (MLR): North Rhyne Landcare Group Mr Graham Keynes Box 15, Mocculta, South Australia, 5353 Tel: 085 639 082 Fax: 085 648 312
Dundas Table Lands (DL): Balmoral Landcare Group Mr Chris Hindhaugh Englefield Farm, Balmoral, Victoria, 3407 Tel: 055 701322 Fax: 055 701423

In China:

Hebei Province (NCP):

Bureau of Agriculture of Hebei Province Mr Ma Zhanyuan Deputy Director	Luancheng Experimental Station Mr Liu Xiaojing Director
Nanpi Experimental Station Mrs Li Huiying Director

Loess Plateau (LP):

Changwu Experimental Station Mr Liu Wenlong Director

Ansai Experimental Station Mr Zhang Zhixiang Director

The data and logistical needs of the three geographically diverse Australian sites are high but the Project plan has assumed a significant amount of the data are available and will not need to be collected specifically for this Project. There will be a specific review of progress in relation to this assumption at the end of the first full year (which will be 14 months after the start of the Project - see Section 2.11) in Australia. The review will assess the success of completion of the field site related tasks outlined on the Project Flow Chart (Section 1.14). If problems are ascribable to the assumption of reduced data needs, the scope of field activities may need to modified and possibly the number of Australian sites may need to be reduced.

5.3 Personnel Involved

The project will involve an advisory group of senior scientists in China and Australia as well as a small group of scientists who will carry out the targeted research and delivery. There will be some short term visits by scientists acting as specialist consultants to the project and some visits by the management for review and assessment.

In the Table below each individual's responsibilities and activities in the project are determined by their involvement in the sub-projects as indicated. Scientists involved in international project collaboration and sub-project management and co-ordination are also listed.

Personnel	Speciality	Sub-Project	Affiliation
AUSTRALIA
David Jupp1	Information Systems/ RS	3, 4	CSIRO EOC
CANBERRA LABORATORY
Joe Walker1	Catchment Management	1, 4	CSIRO L&W
Glen Walker1	Groundwater	1, 4	CSIRO L&W
Warrick Dawes	Modelling/ GIS	1	CSIRO L&W
Lu Zhang	Water Balance	1, 4	CSIRO L&W
Tim McVicar	RS/GIS	3, 4	CSIRO L&W
Peter Dyce	GIS	3	CSIRO L&W
ADELAIDE LABORATORY
Doug Reuter1	Soil fertility WUE	1, 2	CSIRO L&W
Rob Fitzpatrick1	Mineralogy	2, 4	CSIRO L&W
Richard Merry	Soil Chemistry	2	CSIRO L&W
Leone Spouncer	Soil Chemistry	2	CSIRO L&W
Phil Davies	RS/GIS	3, 4	CSIRO L&W
Jim Cox	Soil hydrology	2	CSIRO L&W

Personnel	Speciality	Sub-Project	Agency
CHINA
Liu Changming1	Hydrology	1, 4	CAS SIAM
SHIJIAZHUANG IAM
Yang Yonghui1	Resource Use	2, 4	CAS SIAM
Liu Mengyu	Water Resource Utilisation	2, 4	CAS SIAM
Zhang Xiying	Water Balance	1, 4	CAS SIAM
Mao Renzhao	Pedology	2, 4	CAS SIAM
Li Huiying	Soil Chemistry	2	CAS SIAM
Zhang Guanglu	GIS	3, 4	CAS SIAM
Wang Huixiao	Hydrology	1	CAS (Igeog)
Ma Zhanyuan	Ag Technology Extension	4	Hebei Province
YANGLING ISWC
Shao Mingan	Soil Physics	1	CAS ISWC
Kang Shaozhong	Ag Water Management	1	CAS ISWC
Huang Mingbin	Agro Met	1	CAS ISWC
Zheng Fenli	Soil Degradation	2	CAS ISWC
Tang Keli1	Soil Erosion & degradation	2	CAS ISWC
Liu Guobin	Soil Erodability	2	CAS ISWC
Li Rui1	RS Applications	3, 4	CAS ISWC
Yang Qinke	Geography	3	CAS ISWC
Zhang Xiaoping	GIS	3	CAS ISWC
Liu Wenzhao	Soil Physics	4	CAS ISWC
Hao Mingde	Soil Physics	4	CAS ISWC
Zhang Zhixiang	Agriculture	4	Ansai County
Liu Wenlong	Agriculture	4	Changwu County

(¹ Management and advice)

5.4 Outputs Table for Project Evaluation

The Outputs Table lists the expected scientific outputs of the Project and the Potential Applications for the Outputs. This Table is used to guide the progress of the Project and to provide a base for evaluation of its outcomes.

SUB-PROJECT	SCIENTIFIC OUTPUTS	POTENTIAL APPLICATION
Water Balance Modelling	Validated water balance models suitable for dryland and irrigated agriculture. Delineation of water partitioning, runoff, soil moisture & recharge in the Chinese & Australian landscapes. A framework to predict crop performance from different management options to achieve high water use efficiency. Indicators to evaluate the impact of water availability on crop yield.	Development of guidelines and tools for achieving high levels of water use efficiency in dryland and irrigated systems. Evaluation of indicators for water use efficiency, waterlogging, salinisation & recharge.
Soil Environment Assessment	Specification of the main processes which lead to degraded landscapes in the regions investigated. Estimates for the hydrologic properties of soil profiles at the study sites. Ability to recognise and predict the developing occurrence of waterlogged and saline soils within catchment landscapes. Scalable indicators for benchmarking and monitoring trends in soil and landscape condition.	Use of indicator technology to assist local farmer groups and advisers to identify signs of degradation and in the adoption of appropriate steps to reverse it.
Information Systems	A generic GIS based framework to integrate water, soils and remotely sensed data. Validated methodology for mapping indicators of soil and water degradation indicators at a regional scale. Ability to predict the impact of land use on efficient water use at farm and regional scales. Integration of outputs from water balance models (using site data) with remotely sensed data to monitor components of the regional water balance.	Monitoring trends in agricultural regions for water use efficiency via crop yield and low efficiency induced by changes in water balance components, waterlogging, soil degradation and regional impacts of management practices.
Technology Transfer	A demonstrated consultative process in transferring research findings to the target audience (farm leaders and planning authorities). Extension packages developed to be used by existing extension networks. Bilateral exchange visits to undertake research and integrate information generic to both countries. Transfer of skills between scientists.	Adoption of indicator technology using tools such as manuals and locally validated indicator kits to help farm and regional planning. Promotion of sustainable farming practices in the regions which encourage adoption of high water use efficiency in crops and pastures.

6.0 LITERATURE CITED

ABARE (1996), Australian Commodity Statistics, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Canberra.

Anon. (1996). China Agricultural Yearbook, 1995. China Agriculture Press, Beijing.

Australia State of the Environment (1996). CSIRO Publishing, 150 Oxford Street, Collingwood 3066, Australia.

Barling R.D., Moore I.D. and Grayson R.B. (1994). A quasi-dynamic wetness index for characterising the spatial distribution of zones of surface saturation and soil water content. Water Resources Research. 30, (4) 1029-1044.

Beven K.J. and Kirkby M.J. (1979). A physically-based variable contributing area model of basin hydrology. Hydrological Sciences Bulletin. 24, 43-69.

Bleazby, R. (1917). Railway water supplies in western Australia: difficulties caused by salt in the soil. J. Inst. Civ. Eng., 203, 394-400.

Brook K. D. (and colleagues) (1996) Development of a National Drought Alert Strategic Information System. Final Report in QPI20 to Land and Water Resources Research Development Corporation. 6 volumes.

Brutsaert, W. (1988). The parameterization of regional evaporation - some directions and startegies. J. Hydrology, 102, 409-426.

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APPENDIX 1 - Acronyms and Abbreviations

The following is a listing of abbreviations for the study sites:

NCP North China Plain, Yellow River Basin, China

LP Loess Plateau, Yellow River Basin, China

MDB Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

LPL Liverpool Plains (regional catchment of the MDB in NSW)

MLR Mt Lofty Ranges (Mt Lofty Range Catchments in South Australia)

DT Dundas Tableland in Victoria

In addition, the following institute abbreviations have been commonly be used:

CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia)

CSIRO L&W CSIRO Land and Water

CAS Chinese Academy of Sciences (China)

SIAM Shijiazhuang Institute for Agricultural Modernisation (Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China)

ISWC Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (Yangling, Shaanxi, China)