There are thousands of potential projects across this complex region that, if funded and implemented, can contribute to achieving the Regional Catchment Strategy’s vision and targets across the 15 Themes and 9 Local Areas. However, an initial process has been undertaken with stakeholders of the region to identify some of the project proposals they consider to be of local, regional, state or national importance. These have been included in the Prospectus.
The project proposals in the Prospectus are diverse, ranging across topics, geographic areas and industry sectors, and are at various scales. They draw on stakeholder’s knowledge of the location and condition of natural resources, threats to those natural resources and their organisational prioritisation processes as well as factors such as timeliness, funding environments, community sentiment, capacity for implementation, likelihood of success, value for money and risks.
The Prospectus is a starting point from which further project development and prioritisation can occur when a new funding opportunity emerges (with its particular funding criteria). When appropriate (such as for major funding opportunities that will benefit from a regional, coordinated, collaborative approach), the following process is proposed to be used. It draws on systems such as INFFER and Strategic Management Prospects that have been used in large project assessment processes.
- Assess the funding opportunity including the criteria for funding, priority actions/objectives, scope of works, potential scale of funding opportunity, etc.
- Scan the Regional Catchment Strategy Prospectus for ideas/concepts/proposals that are relevant to the funding opportunity.
- Engage a range of relevant stakeholders to further consider the funding opportunity and the project concepts that may be applicable. Work with the stakeholders to identify and agree on a short list of projects to be developed and included in applications. If the scope, scale, and nature of the funding opportunity warrants/requires detailed project assessment and prioritisation, then the following steps (or similar) could be implemented:
- Identify the assets/sites to be protected and assess the significance of the asset/site at an international, national, state, regional or local scale.
- Spatially identify the key assets or sites to be protected.
- Assign the assets an Asset type i.e., River, Wetland, Significant species, Native vegetation/habitat, Soils or Agricultural Land, Marine/Coasts, Cultural assets.
- Describe the condition of the asset i.e., declining, steady or improving
- Using an expert and key stakeholder elicitation process, identify and assign a value of the significance of the asset i.e., Very High, High, Moderate, Low or Very Low.
- Identify the tractable threats to each asset/site
- List all the threats that are known to impact on the current or future condition of the asset/site.
- Identify the threats that are tractable, that is, the threat could be reduced to the extent that it would have a measurable effect on the asset.
- Describe the underlying cause of the threats and the impact on the asset.
- Specify and assess the actions required to address the tractable threats
- Identify the effective treatment methods and actions
- Identify the indicative costs required to address the tractable threats (up-front and on-going costs).
- Identify any time-lags until the benefit is realised in years.
- Assess the effectiveness of the proposed actions in reducing overall damage to the asset.
- Assess the risk of technical failure of the proposed actions or works.
- Assess the technical feasibility or risk of technical failure of the proposed actions or works.
- Assess the likelihood of adoption of the proposed actions or works.
- Assess the socio-political risks associated with the proposed actions or works.
- Determine a Benefit-Cost Ratio score
- Using systems such as INFFER or Strategic Management Prospects, identify a Cost-Benefit Ratio score of the proposed actions
