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Socio-Economic Profiling of Tropical Rivers April 2009

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Socio-Economic Profiling of Tropical Rivers April 2009 Socio-economic profiling of tropical rivers Prepared by Silva Larson & Kostas Alexandridis April 2009 Disclaimer TRaCK has published the information contained in this publication to assist public knowledge and discussion and to help improve the sustainable management of Australia’s tropical rivers and coasts. Where technical information has been prepared by or contributed by authors external to TRaCK, readers should contact the author(s), and conduct their own enquiries, before making use of that information. No person should act on the contents of this publication whether as to matters of fact or opinion or other content, without first obtaining specific independent professional advice which confirms the information contained within this publication. Copyright Copyright of this publication, and all the information it contains, belongs to the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, with its brand name being Land & Water Australia (LWA). LWA grants permission for the general use of any or all of this information provided due acknowledgement is given to its source TRaCK brings together leading tropical river researchers and managers from Charles Darwin University, Griffith University, University of Western Australia, CSIRO, James Cook University, Australian National University, Geoscience Australia, Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, Australian Institute of Marine Science, North Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance and the Governments of Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. TRaCK receives major funding for its research through the Australian Government's Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities initiative; the Australian Government's Raising National Water Standards Program; Land and Water Australia and the Queensland Government's Smart State Innovation Fund. Larson, S. and Alexandridis, K. (2009) Socio-economic profiling of tropical rivers. Land & Water Australia, Canberra. For further information about this publication: Silva Larson, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems [email protected] or to find out more about TRaCK visit : http://www.track.gov.au/ Product ID: PN30095 email [email protected] Print ISBN: 978-1-921544-99-6 phone: 08 8946 7444 Printed by: Land&Water Australia Table of Contents Acknowledgments Summary of the report 1 Introduction............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Structure of the report .................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Background.................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge: People and the economy of the northern rivers ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1.4 Overview of the water-related institutional arrangements in the north ........................ 3 2 Conceptual framework and methods .................................................................. 5 2.1 Development of a framework....................................................................................... 5 2.2 Data collection and analysis methods ......................................................................... 7 3 Socio-economic characteristics of catchments across north ........................ 10 3.1 Demographic Characteristics..................................................................................... 12 3.1.1 People and Settlements ........................................................................................ 12 3.1.2 Settlement Patterns and Mobility........................................................................... 16 3.2 Economic Parameters................................................................................................ 17 3.2.1 Employment........................................................................................................... 17 3.2.2 Service Oriented Businesses ................................................................................ 19 3.2.3 Mining .................................................................................................................... 19 3.2.4 Land use ................................................................................................................ 21 3.3 Infrastructure and Services ........................................................................................ 22 3.3.1 Remoteness Index................................................................................................. 22 3.3.2 Infrastructure and Services.................................................................................... 24 3.3.3 Housing Infrastructure ........................................................................................... 26 3.4 Individual Wellbeing ................................................................................................... 28 3.4.1 Families and households....................................................................................... 28 3.4.2 Educational Status................................................................................................. 30 3.4.3 Religion.................................................................................................................. 30 3.4.4 Languages spoken at home .................................................................................. 30 3.4.5 Crime profiles......................................................................................................... 32 3.5 Institutional Arrangements ......................................................................................... 33 3.5.1 Government Representation ................................................................................. 34 3.5.2 Community Organisations ..................................................................................... 34 3.5.3 Social Cohesion..................................................................................................... 36 3.6 Environment and Culture ........................................................................................... 37 3.6.1 Water as a resource .............................................................................................. 37 3.6.2 Soil Quality............................................................................................................. 37 3.6.3 Environmental Risks.............................................................................................. 37 3.6.4 Protected land areas of ecological importance ..................................................... 38 3.6.5 Register sites of cultural importance ..................................................................... 40 3.6.6 Native Title............................................................................................................. 42 3.7 In summary ................................................................................................................ 42 4 Cross-catchments comparison of socio-economic data................................. 43 4.1 Socio-economic profiles of catchments in the north .................................................. 43 4.1.1 People.................................................................................................................... 43 4.1.2 Employment sectors .............................................................................................. 44 4.1.3 Land use ................................................................................................................ 45 4.2 Similarities and differences between the catchments................................................ 45 5 Discussion ........................................................................................................... 51 5.1 Data gaps in the north................................................................................................ 51 5.2 Values, perceptions and natural resources management in the north ...................... 54 5.3 Power-law distribution and its relevance to the north ................................................ 55 6 References ........................................................................................................... 57 Appendix 1: Socio-economic characteristics of catchments across north Appendix 2: Socio-economic characteristics of each individual catchment across north Appendix 3: Hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward method) and two-dimensional scaling of the catchments across north, based on their socio-economic characteristics List of Tables Table 1. A comparison of domains of interest in social impact assessment literature......... 6 Table 2. Socio-economic characteristics of catchments across the north included in catchment profiling ................................................................................................. 8 Table 3. Overview of TraCK catchments described in this report ...................................... 10 Table 4. Estimated percentages of Aboriginal population and median age in selected catchments of the TR region ............................................................................... 16 Table 5. Median weekly income per person, lowest and highest five catchments............. 19 Table 6. TR region catchments with no school .................................................................
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