In this paper, we describe how real option techniques and resilience thinking can be integrated to better understand and inform decision-making around environmental risks within complex systems. Resilience thinking offers a promising framework for framing environmental risks posed through the...

In the last decade, the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), Australia faced a severe drought which affected its agriculture production. Sustainable diversion limits as proposed in the Australian Government's basin plan together with climate change are expected to impact on future agriculture...

Ecological rehabilitation is subject to a variety of risks affecting the likely return on investment. We propose an options approach to allocating scarce conservation funds that explicitly allows for the irreversibility of investment and risks to investment payoffs. The approach captures...

There is a growing literature reporting the extent of transaction costs for environmental policies. However understanding why transaction costs occur and why they are small or large is also important for efficient policy selection and evaluation. Following an analysis of the organisational...

Auctions, or competitive tenders, can overcome information asymmetries to efficiently allocate limited funding for ecosystem services. Most auctions focus on ecosystem services on individual properties to maximise the total amount provided. However, for many services it is not just the total...

Water markets and associated allocation policy reforms have struggled to achieve their intended goals in many water-stressed rivers, in part due to the institutional friction imposed by transition and transaction costs. This paper elaborates a transaction costs analysis framework to examine the...