Core Project 4: Sustainable Desert Settlements

DKCRC is working with small remote desert communities, such as Pukatja (Ernabella, SA), to understand how they work and adapt towards their sustainable future.

In Australia’s deserts there are 365 settlements of less than 200 people. An area of 3.5 million km2—almost half of Australia’s land mass—is home to less than 200,000 people. Sustainable Desert Settlements has been underway since 2006 and is working to improve the knowledge people need to make more informed decisions about their settlement’s future. Sustainable desert settlements are ones that meet the diverse needs of current and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. Residents of sustainable desert settlements monitor their external and internal drivers and resource constraints and can appropriately adapt to these factors when they need to manage challenging times or take advantage of new opportunities.

The Sustainable Desert Settlements project is based on DKCRC research that has led to understanding resource flows in remote Aboriginal settlements¹, service infrastructure maintenance^{2 3}, governance⁴ and regional profiles and pportunities^{5 6}.

Outcomes

• Better-informed settlement governance that ensures the social, cultural and economic well-being of residents into the future.
• Governments with decision-support tools, new strategies, and bestpractice models for supporting vital desert settlements.
• Residents of desert settlements using new frameworks and tools for discussing and acting on aspirations.
• Residents of desert settlements understanding what makes a remote settlement sustainable and the social, economic, policy and technology interventions that have the best chance of meeting community needs.

Project Components

DKCRC is working with small remote desert communities, such as Pukatja (Ernabella, SA), to understand how they work and adapt towards their sustainable future.

Sustainable Desert Settlements has three components:

• An Integrated understanding of how desert settlements work. This project develops the science and art of desert settlement typology, and communicates research outcomes through fact sheets, websites, books and case studies.
• Understanding human community systems and institutions, works on developing individual, group, family and community awareness of the social systems that affect people’s ability to live sustainably. These systems may include cultural systems (kinship, ritual and language), governance and economic systems, institutions, and future aspirations.
• Understanding physical settlement systems, develops knowledge about the flow of resources, and how that flow can impact on people’s ability to live sustainably. These resources may be flows and networks (water, roads, air strips, garbage and ICT), domestic shelters and spaces (from housing to leisure facilities), community ‘shells’ and spaces (schools, hospitals and health centres), and natural contexts and resources (waterways, vegetation, climate and biodiversity).

Project leader and participants

Kurt Seemann is a project leader in the DKCRC. He manages a national team
of researchers who work on projects aimed at building sustainable desert settlements for people to live in now and in the future.

The project’s participants are:

• Alice Springs, NT
• Alice Springs / Tangentyere
• Council (town camps), NT
• Anmatjere (Ti Tree), NT
• Anmatjere Community
• Government Council
• Australian National University
• Birdsville and Bedourie, Qld
• Charles Darwin University
• Curtin University of Technology
• Flinders University
• Griffith University
• James Cook University
• Leonora, WA
• Nipapahna community, SA
• Southern Cross University
• University of South Australia

The deliverables for this project are:

• scenarios of feasible futures with whole-of-life consideration
• graphical and empirical data layers of settlement characteristics
• tools for settlement managers to diagnose settlement vitality
• knowledge to inform settlement/community plans and government policy, including implementation approaches. This knowledge may include: appropriate assets, access to services, reliable infrastructure, livelihood activity, formal and informal governance arrangements, access to markets that can add value to goods and services, environmental sustainability
• strategies that support vital and viable settlements under different conditions
• a template to assist settlements develop and monitor settlement plans.
  

The project will encompass remote settlements of differing size, remoteness, and social and cultural characteristics, and conduct comparative analyses of these. It will consider settlements from very remote and small to larger service centres such as Kalgoorlie and Alice Springs. These case studies will link with the case study areas for Core projects 5 and 6 of the Desert Knowledge CRC.

Click here for Core Project 4 Intranet site.  

 

<sub>Notes
1 Moran, M et al. 2007. The transformation of assets for sustainable livelihoods in a remote
Aboriginal settlement. DKCRC Research Report 28, Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs.
2. Anda, M & Dallas, S. 2008. Technical services in desert settlements: the role of Aboriginal resource agencies. A scoping study. DKCRC Research Report 13, Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs.
3. Grey-Gardner, R. 2008. Remote community water management. DKCRC Research Report 27, Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs.
4. Sanders, W & Holcombe, S. 2008. Sustainable governance for small desert settlements:
learning from the multi-settlement regionalism of Anmatjere Community Government Council.
The Rangeland Journal 30 (1): 137–47.
5. Maru, YM & La Flamme, M. 2008. Institutions for allocating water resources in desert towns:
The Alice Springs water resource strategy. DKCRC Research Report 32, Desert Knowledge CRC,
Alice Springs.
6. Herr, A et al. 2007. Regional profile of the Lake Eyre Basin catchments. Desert Knowledge CRC, Alice Springs.</sub>