The Social and Institutional Research Program of Land & Water Australia has brought together a set of papers from leading researchers and analysts on natural resources property rights and responsibilities. The authors include Paul Martin, Miriam Verbeek, Poh-Ling Tan, John Marsden, Mike Young, Jim McColl, Megan Dyson, Robin Connor, Stephen Dovers, Tony Gleeson, Kirstie Piper, Jennifer McKay and Henning Bjornlund

This report is concerned with R&D requirements and priorities to ensure the refinement, development and integration of methods and frameworks to facilitate their use in water allocation and water reform. It presents two main strands of R&D. 1. R&D required to improve individual methods of environmental flow assessment, based on the recommendations of the reviews contained in LWRRDC Occasional Paper Number 27/98, Comparative Evaluation of Environmental Flow Assessment Techniques: Review of Methods (Arthington & Zalucki 1998a). 2. R&D required to improve existing holistic methodologies and the proposed best practice framework for environmental flow assessment.

Namcala

In agriculture we often hear reports of new wonder varieties that are about.to revolutionise agriculture, yet when these varieties are released, if indeed they are released, they seem to fall far short of the publicity that heralded them. A major technological break-through in variety development.is rare. Most improvements cane in rather small steps. In the next few years improvements will be in small but positive steps .It is my endeavour here to present you with an objective assessment of what you, the grower, can hope to expect from cotton varieties in the near future.

This subject is very relevant to the Australian Cotton Growing Industry as the most common complaint against our major seed variety, DPL 61, is that this growth has a lower breaking strength when it is produced in Australia particularly in comparison with DPL 61 grown in Arizona, one of our keenest competitors in the South East Asia markets. The main virtue however, it that this variety, in Australia, produces high grades consistently, even.in wet picking seasons, with the exception of the disastrous 1983 harvest when much gray cotton was produced.

Over the last quarter of a century, as problems in relying completely on pesticides for control of insects have become apparent, there has been renewed interest in the possibility of breeding cottons less susceptible to pests i.e. "host plant resistance". This paper describes some of the studies being undertaken at N.A.R.S. on this subject.

This handbook summarises the results of a four-year R&D project undertaken by staff at Victoria University and Monash University on the wetlands that fringe Lake Wellington in the Gippsland Lakes of south-eastern Victoria.

I will first mention some of the features distinguishing "Australian Conditions". Our industry has developed almost exclusively as a mechanised high-input industry with water and nitrogen being supplied liberally together with frequent insecticide applications to control insect pests. Thus it is similar to the American irrigated industry hut is dissimilar from less intensive forms of production practised in many less-developed countries. However it should also be realized that despite many similarities there are also important differences between Australian and U.S.A. growing conditions.