USE OF CATCHMENT SPECIFIC SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INFORMATION IN MANAGING NATURAL RESOURCES

Catchment specific economic and social information assists catchment managementauthorities in natural resource planning and decision making. It gives a context to the naturalresource management (NRM) planning and decision making by providing an understanding ofthe economic and social characteristics in a region and tracks economic and social changesovertime. It also enables analysis of factors that influence a community’s competence inundertaking NRM activities. Catchment specific economic and social data is available fromthe Australian Bureau of Statistics but there are gaps in the availability of this data that mayhinder NRM planning and decision making. The aim of this paper is two fold: firstly, it providesa snapshot of the economic and social information of selected catchments in NSW andsecondly, it emphasises the need for further data availability that can facilitate NRM planningand decision making at a catchment level.