Return on Investment

For five years Land & Water Australia has been developing a comprehensive approach to estimating the Return on Investment (ROI) from its research and development (R&D) portfolio.

The key driving question has been 'What impact has Land & Water Australia's research had on achieving the sustainable use and management of Australia's natural resources?'

To date, 33 innovations and programs (incorporating 630 projects) have been analysed. These cover around 25 per cent of Land & Water Australia's appropriation since 1990 and a higher proportion of completed projects.

The ROI results shown below are highly conservative, both in terms of the assumptions made and the range of benefits covered. This also relates to the large proportion of environmental and knowledge benefits, that are difficult to evaluate and in being conservative in the analysis are likely to be underestimated.

To account effectively and fairly for returns to the nation from publicly-funded research and development, Land & Water Australia has sought to:

• Understand the impact of its total Research and Development investment since 1990
• Identify environmental and social as well as economic returns
• Estimate returns conservatively
• Use consistent, independent benefit-cost analysis
• Understand how past innovations have performed
• Communicate the impact of innovations flowing from Research and Development
• Ensure its evaluation methods and analyses are fully transparent
• Allow for continuous improvement and regular updating of the Return on Investment analysis 

The Case Studies

Download »    All the case studies (pdf - 16270KB) or download each one below.

 01_Australian River Assessment System (pdf - 361KB)
 02_Australian Grassland and Rangeland Assessment by Spatial Simulation (pdf - 412KB)
 03 Benchmaking irrigation water providers (pdf - 341KB)
 04 Best management practice in the Australian cotton industry (pdf - 797KB)
 05 Catchment management support system (pdf - 423KB)
 06 Central Highlands regional resource use planning process (pdf - 342KB)
 07 Climate forecasting using Indian Ocean information (pdf - 458KB)
 08 Climate Variability in Agriculture Program (pdf - 747KB)
 09 Controlled traffic farming (pdf - 670KB)
 10 ECOGRAZE - sustainable grazing management for Northern Australia (pdf - 373KB)
 11 Ecological basis for river habitat and in-stream flow management (pdf - 489KB)
 12 Ecological risk assessment (pdf - 526KB)
 13 Effulent guidelines (pdf - 567KB)
 14 Groundwater dependent ecosystems and thier significance to Australia (pdf - 362KB)
 15 Groundwater flow systems classification (pdf - 403KB)
 16 Joint Venture Agroforestry Program (pdf - 373KB)
 17 Land, Water & Wool Program (pdf - 662KB)
 18 Managing Climate Variability Program (pdf - 668KB)
 19 Managing riparian lands - National Riparian Lands Research and Development Program (pdf - 592KB)
 20 Native Vegetation Research & Development Program (pdf - 759KB)
 21 National Dryland Salinity Program (pdf - 427KB)
 22 National Eutrophication Management Program (pdf - 596KB)
 23 National Program for Irrigation Research & Development (pdf - 878KB)
 24 National Rivers Consortium (pdf - 579KB)
 25 National River Contaminants Program (pdf - 527KB)
 26 Options for the productive use of saline lands (pdf - 335KB)
 27 Pesticide Impact Rating Index (pdf - 469KB)
 28 River styles  (pdf - 445KB)
 29 Sustainable Grazing Systems including PROGRAZE (pdf - 320KB)
 30 Use of incentive payments to conserve remnant vegetation (pdf - 378KB)
 31 Water-use efficiency in irrigation (pdf - 469KB)
 32 Waterway protection guidelines (pdf - 455KB)
 33 Wetland management guidelines (pdf - 542KB)