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Determining social values for protecting coastal assets, including coastal parks, beaches and foreshores, is important because of potential losses with climate change impacts. In a case study appli...

Mining is almost invariably contentious since it not only generates significant income, including tax revenues, but also simultaneously inflicts heavy costs on the inhabitants of the areas in which mining occurs. In terms of Australian state and territory legal regimes, mining royalties accrue to state governments and not to the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in which mining occurs, despite the fact that mining imposes heavy localised costs, especially on local public infrastructure. There is thus a disjunction between the spatial incidence of the benefits and costs of mining, sometimes termed the ‘resource-return mismatch’, especially since mining predominantly takes place in regional, rural and remote areas whereas the bulk of mining royalties are expended in metropolitan centres. Situating our empirical analysis in the institutional milieu of Queensland local government over the period 2011 to 2015, we examine the relationship between the number of mining assessments and per capita operating expenditure of local authorities at the level of LGAs. We find that mining imposes significant costs on local government and there is thus a mismatch between the costs and revenues associated with mining at the local level. We offer various possible remedial policy measures.

Mining operations are often controversial since they can impose significant external costs on the local municipalities and local inhabitants. Under current legislative arrangements in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, local governments are constrained from recouping costs directly from mines by means of increased property taxes on mines due to state-wide limitations on tax increases – known colloquially as the ‘rate-cap’. Moreover, mining royalties are paid directly to the NSW government and not to affected councils. In this paper, set against the background of mining activities in NSW, we estimate the magnitude of costs imposed by mining operations on rural and regional local authorities. We then offer alternative public policy solutions which would enable affected municipalities to recoup some or all of the cost burden placed on them by mining operations in their respective local government areas.

A key public policy issue in regional economic development is whether governments should act pro-actively with strategies to achieve local economic growth. Using an Australian region, this article presents projections that test a number of such scenarios to establish whether pro-active strategies of investment provide the greatest growth. When developing pro-active strategies for a given region, economic and community development planners typically target specific industries. Key industries can be identified on the basis of high relative employment growth rates and connectivity with other industries. The case region in this analysis, not unlike other regions in Australia and across the globe, has undergone significant restructuring in recent years with a shift in its economic base from agriculture to mining. In light of the shifting nature of the regional and national economies, this article provides a foundation for building planning perspectives for the future of a regional economy using economic and population projections and scenario analyses. These analyses help highlight industrial sectors that should be targeted in the region’s plans. Broader implications for regional economic development and planning generally are also drawn from the case experience. Developing projections for the growth of regional economies is no easy task. The complexities of inter-industry subsector interactions and the distinction between driving and adapting subsectors make formal modelling at the local level challenging and potentially prohibitive in terms of cost. These factors corroborate to make such bottom-up modelling beyond the capacity of most local organizations. By contrast, the approach used in this article is simple but requires care and intuition to bring these various factors together into a coherent set of projections. For the case region, optimal growth is possible provided that employment policy builds job specialization. This means directing strategies away from mining into agriculture and the trade and tourism related sectors, such as wine tourism. The economic base theory and scenario testing techniques used in this article demonstrate and deliver a useful contribution to the literature by exploring which industries contribute most to more diversified and sustainable growth. Through pre-emptive strategies, perennial growth of a regional economy can be achieved.

This article examines community perceptions and employment impacts to assess ex ante the post-mining viability of two settlements in remote north-east South Australia. The results reinforce grave concerns over their future viability following mine closure. However, government employees and traditional owners are more optimistic than other groups about community futures beyond mining. Devastatingly, employment impacts represent approximately 80 and 75% (225 & 1616) of jobs and 90 and 80% ($30 m & $164 m) of employment income in the two locations (Leigh Creek, Roxby Downs). These impacts reach beyond mining into other sectors, particularly Public Services and Trade and Accommodation respectively, and further limit economic diversity and opportunity. Building alternative futures in remote locations like these is problematic, though not impossible. Policy responses should reflect differences in perceptions, impact and case-specific contexts: settlements at the end of their life cycles like Leigh Creek...

The economic structure of local government areas (LGAs) of the Northern Territory (NT) are mapped and analysed using economic base theory. Using a three-stage geospatial visualisation we find that: (i) Mining and agriculture are predominantly providing job concentration in a handful of remote LGAs. (ii) Employment growth is derived from public services, with private sector industries contributing almost equally in most LGAs. (iii) NT LGAs exhibit core-periphery characteristics including vulnerable peripheries, often alongside mature mining operations. (iv) However, mature mining is also found alongside diversified sub-cores, providing a model for more vulnerable LGAs.

This paper uses economic-base theory and input–output modelling to examine the structure of a regional rural economy in New South Wales, Australia, drawing important policy implications for economic planners. The most salient trend has been a shift in the area’s dependence from agriculture to mining over the recent decade. However, the level of diversity of the region’s industrial composition has altered very little. Mining is also contributing to significant net leakage of employment income from the region. Mining should therefore not necessarily be considered as the key future opportunity for economic development. Instead, a number of industry sectors, particularly those that foster innovation and technology, can be harnessed to drive future regional growth. In addition, a tourism marketing strategy promoting the region’s food, wine and other distinctive attributes should play an integral role in future development planning. These prescriptions are highly transferable to similar rural economies experiencing a shift to mining.

Many rural communities in Australia are looking to arrest population decline and secure their future viability. This article examines how resource companies contribute towards building sustainable community livelihoods through corporate social responsibility(CSR) programmes. The study uses structuration theory to explore how human agency combines with key structural processes to create CSR with long-term benefits. Data collection includes semistructured interviews with employees from 25 Australian resource companies and relevant stakeholders. The study identifies three main CSR approaches reflecting how companies support community livelihoods: minimalist-financial, shared-value, and corporate citizenship models. These approaches are shaped by company values and culture, effectiveness of CSR policies and human capacity. The study highlights the importance of resource companies developing links with local organisations to facilitate livelihood approaches. Overall, the capacity for rural communities to access long-term opportunities from resource development is highly variable, symptomatic of a broader lack of strategic direction for rural development. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Multiple capital or asset-based frameworks are a tool to help understand corporate contributions to sustainability. This study applied a six-capitals framework (financial, human, social, natural, built and cultural) to evaluate the local impacts and benefits of resource extraction within rural Australia. Data were captured from 25 resource companies located across three jurisdictions (two states and one territory). The study drew upon the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including incorporating critical perspectives from both companies and stakeholders regarding the capacity of CSR programs to build capitals. This furthered understanding of the linkages between company practice and sustainability, including the capability of high-level strategic CSR to build multiple capitals simultaneously. The study showed that building capitals required strategic, grass-roots and collaborative approaches to CSR either through company programs or resources being divested to external stakeholders. Critical to enabling the building of capitals were well designed and flexible policy instruments at the company, local, regional and broader jurisdictional scales. The study also highlighted the importance of building community and stakeholder social and cultural capitals to underpin CSR programs and linkages to meet local aspirations. Overall, to address regional sustainability concerns, the study emphasized the need to consider CSR at a wider institutional perspective rather than the individual company level. The Australian cases highlighted significant gaps in capacity and therefore limited ability to achieve a net gain in capitals. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Leakage of employment income is a pressing issue in the economic development of regional and remote communities. It can draw income away from regional economies but also inject new revenue from outside. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 census employment data by place of usual residence and place of work, we identify for all 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the Northern Territory (NT), workers commuting out of and into each LGA. Using summary graphs and geospatial visualizations we find that while there is substantial leakage out of most LGAs there are also gains from those leaving an LGA to work and then returning home with their income. Overall, for most LGAs and all remote LGAs there is net leakage. In contrast, Wagait, Palmerston, Litchfield and Alice Springs experience net gains from work commuting. Core-Periphery staples theory (Carson 2011) helps explain these net gaining LGAs, but cannot be used to consistently explain net leakage or net gain for population centers and nearby periphery LGAs. Darwin, including parts of Unincorporated NT, together act as a net leakage core to surrounding commuter LGAs such as Palmerston, Litchfield and Wagait. Katherine also acts as a net leakage core for surrounding peripheral LGAs despite receiving some offsetting employment income gains through mining. In addition to Katherine, Mining and the supporting Construction industry are also delivering net employment income gains to the core centers of Darwin, Palmerston, and Litchfield from periphery and typically remote LGAs. For remote mining commuters, these core centers offer preferred places to live. In contrast to Darwin and Katherine, Alice Springs acts as an employment income sink drawing on net employment gains from periphery remote LGAs. Our geospatial visualizations also help to identify the leakage vulnerability of remote LGAs dependent on mining like Central Desert and East Arnhem. Of all the remote LGAs, East Arnhem has the highest average net leakage of income across the most diversified distribution of industries, primarily derived from mining and its supporting construction and upstream manufacturing industries. Combined, these factors make East Arnhem particularly vulnerable to mining related downturns. Also, Alice Springs and Coomalie are highly vulnerable to commuting in Business Services and Public and Personal Services respectively. However, these vulnerabilities also cloak hidden flexibilities to deal with job losses during downturns. Undertaking our analysis for a number of census years could help decision makers build scenarios for future economic development and employment.

This article describes the regulatory framework and assessment process of urban wastewater reuse in two distinct regions of Australia, the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania and the Hunter region of New South Wales. Relative similarities are evident between human population, water availability and recent necessity for reuse feasibility assessments. In the Hunter, assessments informed a state government led catchment-scale water security strategy. In Launceston, the need for assessments stems from a condition of the environmental permits for individual facilities. Salient institutional, social, economic and political barriers mire the assessment process for, and success of, wastewater reuse. Distinct legal, policy and procedural differences exist between the two cases. Future reuse guidelines should identify the different drivers for wastewater reuse and avoid studies that meet administratively predetermined selection.

Tracking and mapping the employment impacts from mine closure forms an important element in planning for the economic transformation of remote communities and delivering enduring value from mining. This paper presents the results from two case studies of the employment impacts from mine closure: 1) the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory and 2) the Leigh Creek coal mine in South Australia. The impacts for both locations are significant and link to a number of supporting industries, particularly construction, but also more broadly across other sectors of the economy. The spatial impacts are principally felt locally, but are also distributed more broadly at regional, state and national scales because of modern-day work commuting practices. Loss of jobs and associated income to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are also significant. Developing policy options to prepare for managing imminent mine closures in remote locations requires careful analysis of the structure of the local economy, within the context of a globalised world, in order to help identify sustainable transformation opportunities for these remote communities.

A key aspiration for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the resource sector is to leave behind a lasting and positive legacy for local and regional communities, which is referred to here as Enduring Community Value (ECV). This paper examines the capacity of resource companies to create ECV for local communities within three jurisdictions in Australia drawing on perspectives from resource company employees and key stakeholders including individuals and groups in local communities. The capacity to implement ECV was tracked through the planning, governance, implementation and evaluation phases of CSR for companies of different sizes, stage of mining life-cycle and degree of remoteness of mining operations. ECV was found to be a critical value of CSR for resource company employees and stakeholders, providing a common ground for engagement and cooperation. Company employees, also saw ECV as a necessary tool to help navigate the complexities of CSR within a local community context. Personal moral and ethical values of resource employees and stakeholders, including motivations to improve local community outcomes and to achieve sustainability drove the adoption of ECV. This was supported to varying degrees by resource companies’ culture and goals, organisational values of stakeholder organisations, regulatory and legislative frameworks, guidelines and standards. Through the application of Giddens’ structuration theory it was identified that there was a high reliance on human agency to drive outcomes, with a lack of consistent institutional structures and relevant processes being in place. This meant that planning for ECV often occurred late in the mine life-cycle, reducing the potential benefits. Further institutional support, such as through robust planning tools, guidelines and standards and resourced stakeholder forums where lessons, experiences and assessments are shared, could help drive outcomes more clearly toward ECV. The implications of models for CSR and sustainable development perspectives are also presented. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Mine lifecycle planning is critical to developing enduring value from mining for remote communities. The history of mining is replete with examples of communities being unsustainable post mine closure. The concept of enduring value involves ensuring that a sustainable community will remain following the closure of an associated mine. Since 2003, awareness has increased amongst the International and Australian peak mining bodies for the need to plan for enduring community value. This increased awareness has developed alongside the requirement for mining companies to operate in a socially responsible manner by maintaining a social license to operate. This paper thematically reviews the literature relevant to mine life cycle planning, enduring value, the socio-economic impacts of mining, and mine closure. Conditions required for a community to gain enduring value from mining include: ‘normalisation’ rather than being a ‘closed’ town; the existence of government support and funding; and realised economic diversification opportunities. It is imperative that these conditions are given due consideration 1) in the initial stages of mine and town planning and 2) throughout the life of the mine through ongoing monitoring and community engagement. However, we acknowledge the shortcomings in assuming planning is a panacea and suggest areas for further testing.

A new data access system, H1DS, has been developed and deployed for the H-1 Heliac at the Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility. The data system provides access to fusion data via a RESTful web service. With the URL acting as the API to the data system, H1DS provides a scalable and extensible framework which is intuitive to new users, and allows access from any internet connected device. The H1DS framework, originally designed to work with MDSplus, has a modular design which can be extended to provide access to alternative data storage systems.

Wendelstein 7-X, a superconducting optimized stellarator built in Greifswald/Germany, started its first plasmas with the last closed flux surface (LCFS) defined by 5 uncooled graphite limiters in December 2015. At the end of the 10 weeks long experimental campaign (OP1.1) more than 20 independent diagnostic systems were in operation, allowing detailed studies of many interesting plasma phenomena. For example, fast neutral gas manometers supported by video cameras (including one fast-frame camera with frame rates of tens of kHz) as well as visible cameras with different interference filters, with field of views covering all ten half-modules of the stellarator, discovered a MARFE-like radiation zone on the inboard side of machine module 4. This structure is presumably triggered by an inadvertent plasma-wall interaction in module 4 resulting in a high impurity influx that terminates some discharges by radiation cooling. The main plasma parameters achieved in OP1.1 exceeded predicted values in discharges of a length reaching 6 s. Although OP1.1 is characterized by short pulses, many of the diagnostics are already designed for quasi-steady state operation of 30 min discharges heated at 10 MW of ECRH. An overview of diagnostic performance for OP1.1 is given, including some highlights from the physics campaigns.

Climate change is anticipated to have a significant impact on coastal infrastructure, including navigational aids and ports. This paper presents the results of a vulnerability assessment of ports in Australia to climate change. Results reveal variable vulnerability in ports in the short and long term in relation to their exposure to climate change. However, this is offset by inherent adaptive capacity both in current climate change initiatives driven by ports, and in the self-confidence of the industry to be able to adapt. We conclude with a reflection on the implications of these results for future ports analyses.

Beaches and foreshores worldwide offer a broad range of goods and services to coastal communities and economies. One service, beach recreation, provides considerable benefits to most Australians. This paper represents the first Australian attempt to value a recreational visit to surf beaches within the local urban setting of Mooloolaba beach, Sunshine Coast, Queensland using a truncated negative binomial individual travel cost model. Income, on-site and off-site travel expenditure and time, party size, and employment status helped to explain visits. The consumer surplus estimates provided in this paper are within the bounds of the international literature. The passive-use values of beaches are higher than those of national parks or forests. Assessing beach non-use values is an area for future research.

A new method for imaging high frequency plasma fluctuations is described. A phase locked loop and field programmable gate array are used to generate gating triggers for an intensified CCD camera. A reference signal from another diagnostic such as a magnetic probe ensures that the triggers are synchronous with the fluctuation being imaged. The synchronous imaging technique allows effective frame rates exceeding millions per second, good signal to noise through the accumulation of multiple exposures per frame, and produces high resolution images without generating excessive quantities of data. The technique can be used to image modes in the MHz range opening up the possibility of spectrally filtered high resolution imaging of MHD instabilities that produce sufficient light fluctuations. Some examples of projection images of plasma fluctuations on the H-1NF heliac obtained using this approach are presented here.

The role of the rotational transform (i) profile on fluctuations and transport is investigated in the H-1 Heliac by means of dynamic (i.e. changing during a shot) and static (fixed during a shot) scans of rotational transform through a range of values where the electron density drops markedly and which correspond to having the point of i(min) located near r/a = 0.75 in a region of magnetic well (such that the surface averaged magnetic field strength increases with radius). The gap is near the i = 4 3 resonance, but as the resonance is not in the plasma for more than half the gap it is not clear that this is relevant. Although this drop is clearly driven by the variation of helical current, under particular circumstances, similar density changes occur spontaneously. Plasma currents are measured throughout the scan and are found to slightly affect the rotational transform profile, and reverse about the configuration of minimum confinement, while induced currents through a toroidal loop voltage in the dynamical scans are not found to be significant. The confinement and fluctuation properties are studied by means of 2D movable Langmuir probes. Large near edge-localised dithering quasi-coherent fluctuations at similar to 6 kHz develop in a strong density gradient region with low magnetic shear as i is scanned up to a point where the density collapses in the outer region. This dithering corresponds to an m = 3 mode comprising of standing and propagating components. The net and fluctuation-induced transport components are measured near the plasma edge in a similar discharge, and it is found that fluctuation-induced transport driven by these low frequency coherent modes dominates the particle balance during the low density phase but is only a small component of the net flux when the density is higher.

A three-view, 40 beam far-infrared (λ = 433 μm) scanning interferometer has recently been installed and operated on the H1 heliac. The optical system is described and first plasma results are presented.

We describe a digital interface for processing signals produced by a scanning multichannel far‐infrared interferometer/polarimeter for plasma density measurements. The interface samples the interferometer signals in quadrature before digital filtering, demodulation and downloading to a transputer array for real‐time tomographic inversion and display.

A simple, cost‐effective image‐intensifying fluorescent probe designed for mapping the magnetic surfaces in the heliac sheila is described. It consists of a phosphor‐coated metal plate which is enclosed in a grounded U‐channel that provides electrostatic shielding. An adjustable accelerating voltage is applied to the metal plate to greatly increase the cathodoluminescence produced by the directed electron beam from an electron gun, and the visible electron‐beam image is recorded by a CCD camera. The gain in the image brightness allows significant reduction of the electron‐beam energy to minimize the deviation of the measured drift surfaces from the true magnetic surfaces, and to improve resolution for detailed studies of surfaces in the newer stellarator experiments. This technique is particularly suited to electron energies below the phosphor activation threshold, when external image intensifying systems are likely to be very inefficient. Up to 36 toroidal rotations have been observed, limited mainly by ...

Plasma formation by microwave absorption at fundamental and second harmonic electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) has been achieved in the SHEILA flexible heliac (R0 approximately=0.19 m, Bm

Electron beam wire tomography in the H-1NF heliac enables high resolution mapping of vacuum flux surfaces with minimal disruption of the plasma operations schedule. Recent experimental results have proven this technique to be a highly accurate and high resolution method for mapping vacuum magnetic islands. Islands of width as small as delta approximately 8 mm have been measured, providing estimates of the internal rotational transform of the island. Point-to-point comparison of the mapping results with computer tracing, in conjunction with an image warping technique, enables systematic exploration of magnetic islands and surfaces of interest. Recent development of a fast mapping technique significantly reduced the mapping time and made this technique suitable for mapping at higher magnetic fields. This article presents recent experimental results and associated techniques.

A tomographic visible Doppler spectroscopy system has been used to generate images of ion spectral-line brightness for low-field radio-frequency (RF) heated argon discharges in the H-1NF heliac. Unconstrained tomographic reconstructions for a number of different plasma regimes are presented.

High precision mapping of the vacuum flux surfaces of the H-1NF heliac is carried out using electron-beam multi-wire tomography for various magnetic configurations and field strengths. The extreme accuracy of this technique has been exploited to understand the nature of error fields and to determine the best-fit empirical values for the H-1NF coil parameters, by point-by-point matching experimental surface data with computer modelling results. This has helped in developing a highly accurate computer model for H-1NF magnetic configurations.

Multianode photomultiplier tube (PMT) arrays are finding application as convenient high-speed light sensitive devices for plasma imaging. This paper describes the development of a USB-based "plug-n-play" 16-channel PMT camera with 16 bits simultaneous acquisition of 16 signal channels at rates up to 2 MSs per channel. The preamplifiers and digital hardware are packaged in a compact housing which incorporates magnetic shielding, on-board generation of the high-voltage PMT bias, an optical filter mount and slits, and F-mount lens adaptor. Triggering, timing, and acquisition are handled by four field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) under instruction from a master FPGA controlled by a computer with a LABVIEW interface. We present technical design details and specifications and illustrate performance with high-speed images obtained on the H-1 heliac at the ANU.

Tomography of a plasma enables the distribution of electron density to be visualized. We report on the design of two tomographic interferometer systems used to measure plasma electron density distributions in a high-current pulsed cathodic vacuum arc. The method is shown to be capable of microsecond time resolution. The spatial resolution of the quasioptical interferometer operating at 2 mm wavelength is 20 mm and the spatial resolution of the waveguide-based interferometer operating at 8 mm wavelength is 50 mm. In both cases the resolution achieved depends on the launching and receiving geometries. We developed criteria for assessing the tomogram for artifacts arising from limited sampling. First results of the spatial and temporal history of plasma in a high-current vacuum arc guided by a curved magnetic filter are presented and indicate poloidal field fluctuations reminiscent of magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in pinches. The applicability of the tomographic interferometry method to optimize plasma t...

We describe a digital interface for processing signals produced by a scanning multichannel far‐infrared interferometer/polarimeter for plasma density measurements. The interface samples the interferometer signals in quadrature before digital filtering, demodulation and downloading to a transputer array for real‐time tomographic inversion and display.

The effect of varying the magnetic field configuration by adding an l = 1 helical winding to the standard heliac has been studied experimentally. Equilibrium plasma configurations in the range 0.7 ≤ t(0) ≤ 1.86 have been obtained. Analyses of the plasma pressure profiles measured by Langmuir probes in this range show good agreement between the plasma isobars and the computed vacuum magnetic surfaces; for configurations with a rotational transform t(0) close to unity it is necessary to take known error fields into account. When low-order rational surfaces are present, a deterioration of the plasma confinement is clearly observed. Magnetic islands, resulting from the resonance between the low-order rational surface ι = 3/2 and the m = 2, n = 3 vacuum field harmonics inherent in the geometry, are identified with features observed in both the plasma pressure and the floating potential profiles.

A new, high-precision rotating wire grid apparatus for vacuum magnetic surface mapping of current-free toroidal plasma confinement geometries is described. This full-scaled version of the prototype apparatus1 developed on the SHEILA heliac has been tested and permanently installed on the H-1 heliac. Data of high quality are obtained with low electron energy (