Information Technology and Decision Support Tools for Stakeholder-Driven River Basin Salinity Management

Innovative strategies for effective basin-scale salinity management have been developed in the Hunter River Basin of Australia and more recently in the San Joaquin River Basin of California. In both instances web-based stakeholder information dissemination has been a key to achieving a high level of stakeholder involvement and the formulation of effective decision support salinity management tools. A common element to implementation of salinity management strategies in both river basins has been the concept of river assimilative capacity for controlling export salt loading and the potential for trading of the right to discharge salt load to the river the Hunter River in Australia and the San Joaquin River in California. Both rivers provide basin drainage and the means of exporting salt to the ocean. The paper compares and contrasts the use of monitoring, modeling and information dissemination in the two basins to achieve environmental compliance and sustain irrigated agriculture in an equitable and socially and politically acceptable manner.