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Farm dam safety in Australia is being flouted and sustainability of catchments compromised because of the potential and severe consequences of dam failure. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore policy issues associated with safety of farm dam water storage through a comparison of developments in two Australian states against an analysis of international benchmarks and to provide an exemplar of best practice.

A strategic review and content analysis is firstly undertaken to establish international dam safety policy benchmarks ranging from minimum to best practice as well as selection guidelines for varying circumstances, and to identify an exemplar best practice model. Longitudinal study over a 12‐year period then provides the basis for case analysis in order to reinforce the established minimum level benchmark and to demonstrate the application of the benchmarked model policy selection guidelines.

Research results show that in Australia, South Australia is lagging international benchmarks for on‐farm dam safety management in a number of ways whilst a second state, Tasmania, provides leadership in this respect. The paper adds to the existing international benchmarking literature by identifying updated international best practice in private/farm dam safety assurance policy whilst establishing and providing longitudinal case study reinforcement for an acceptable minimum level benchmark in this area. The updated policy guidelines presented can be used to determine appropriate dam safety policy for any jurisdiction.

The paper provides an original contribution of analysis, establishment and case study validation of international benchmarks and guidelines on developing appropriate dam safety management and assurance policy for varying jurisdictional circumstances. In addition, it provides an updated exemplar of how policy benchmarks can go towards addressing cumulative threats of smaller dams in catchments not previously addressed.

This paper aims to provide a view on the implications of large‐scale increases in demand for biomass production on water storage behaviours. In climates of high variability in rainfall, the pressures on farmers to build up on‐farm surface water supplies to the detriment of communities and businesses downstream is already present. Therefore, the added water storage pressures that arise from future demands for biomass need to be investigated.

This viewpoint presents a review of the issues surrounding the forecast for demand for agriculturally produced biomass and the increased demands on surface water storage created. The paper then presents the problem of unfair and unsafe water storage in agriculture through a review of the surrounding literature and policy in place in Australia.

The paper finds that if predicted skyrocketing future demand for biomass production for energy eventuates, then surface water on‐farm storages would be placed at increased risk as farmers experience pressure to store more water than they are entitled to. Increased demands from biomass production could mean that surrounding communities suffer increased threat from unfair water sharing in times of drought, and unsafe water storage in times of flood.

Policy should be developed rapidly to address the current unsustainable water storage management practices of farmers and sustainable biomass production. Water management behaviour certification should be introduced immediately to counter the risk of over storage in light of the demands of the future.

The paper provides an overview of the issues surrounding unfair and unsafe on farm water storage in dams in climate extremes placed in the context of a new and emerging demand on farmers to produce in an unsustainable manner.

There are increasing demands on professional accountants in practice to generate water accounts for clients using knowledge from other disciplines within and outside their firms. Whilst many professional service firms have a broad range of in-house and consulting expertise, professional groups within and between these organisations may not be generating and sharing the knowledge required for successful water accounting. The purpose of this paper is to explore how additional disciplinary skills for water volumetric measurement, understanding of licensing and allocations can effectively and efficiently be shared between the disciplines required to be involved.

Two cross-sectional semi-structured surveys developed using a social network lens were disseminated to Australian accountants operating in professional services firms, and the results were descriptively analysed.

The authors find that, whilst accounting and engineering are acknowledged as core disciplines for water accounting, there is a need for more standardised measures and frameworks across diverse scales to fit in with current reporting practices and meet stakeholder needs. These need to be nested in a water accounting regulatory model that includes the accountancy professional bodies as a platform for knowledge generation and sharing.

The paper provides evidence of perceived barriers to and pathways for interdisciplinary knowledge networks for a new type of accounting. It demonstrates how regulatory frameworks can potentially assist rather than impede accountants in their contribution to solving of complex corporate sustainability problems.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what represents “balanced” policy. Drought conditions create pressures on farmers to store excessive water unfairly, creating unsafe structures in flood, which creates a dual-extreme risk with potentially catastrophic social consequences downstream. “Balanced” policy for socially responsible water storage management that accounts for farmers’ responses to regulations is a key to minimising this risk.

This study investigated the problem through application of Oliver’s (1991) strategic response typology to a survey of 202 agribusiness managers in four different institutional environments.

Evidence of diverse policy in Australia and results of 202 farmers surveyed suggest that “unbalanced” policy that does not infringe on farmer decision-making power will engender lower resistance, but in a “best balance” environment, stronger resistance is evident.

The study demonstrates a need to consider more reflexive regulatory mixes for socially responsible water-storage behaviour by agribusiness.

This paper explores the role of accountants as part of the necessary infrastructure in rural community development providing specialised knowledge and skills to business owners who may lack the expertise required to ensure successful business operations.

Perceptions of seven rural development officers from separate Rural Development Boards and two local governments in South Australia are canvassed through a set of interviews.

Findings challenge the notion that use of modern communication technology, which allows for accountants and their accountancy practices to be located anywhere in the world, is sufficient to fulfil their role in rural communities. Instead, a critical dual role for accountants is identified which includes a community development function.

The research is limited by the geographic area from which the participants were selected. While this controlled for any possible jurisdictional differences between states in Australia, the participants targeted comprise only a relatively small group.

The paper identifies an important role for accountants in rural communities hitherto unidentified. Accountant contributions to rural development and the sustainability of rural communities is highlighted.

Agriculture is under pressure to produce more food under increasingly variable climate conditions. Consequently, producers need management innovations that lead to improved physical and financial productivity. Currently, farm accounting technologies lack the sophistication to allow producers to analyse productivity of water. Furthermore water-related agricultural technology (“agtech”) systems do not readily link to accounting innovations. This study aims to establish a conceptual and practical framework for linking temporal, biophysical and management decision-making to accounting by develop a soil moisture and climate monitoring tool.

The paper adopts an exploratory mixed-methods approach to understand supply of and demand for water accounting and water-related agtech; and bundling these innovations with farm accounting to generate a stable tool with the ability to improve agricultural practices over time. Three phases of data collection are the focus here: first, a desk-based review of water accounting and water technology – including benchmarking of key design characteristics of these methods and key actor interviews to verify and identify trends, allowing for conceptual model development; second, a producer survey to test demand for the “bundled” conceptual model; third and finally, a participant-based case study in potato-farming that links the data from direct monitoring and remote sensing to farm accounts.

Design characteristics of water accounting and agtech innovations are bundled into an overall irrigation decision-making conceptual model based on in-depth review of available innovations and verification by key actors. Producer surveys suggest enough demand to pursue practical bundling of these innovations undertaken by developing an integrated accounting, soil moisture and climate monitoring tool on-farm. Productivity trends over two seasons of case study data demonstrate the pivotal role of accounting in leading to better technical irrigation decisions and improving water productivity.

The model can assist practitioners to gauge strengths and weaknesses of contemporary water accounting fads and fashions and potential for innovation bundling for improved water productivity. The practical tool demonstrates how on-farm irrigation decision-making can be supported by linking farm accounting systems and smart technology

This study aims to explore the need for improved data sources and models for COVID-19 and climate-related risk scenario analysis in primary production. The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting global markets for agricultural produce, making short-term forecasting highly uncertain. Meanwhile climate-related risk continues for agricultural businesses. Farmers and their accountants need to plan and make estimates about the potential effect of COVID-19 and ongoing climate risks to their natural and financial capital and so they need accounting-integrated biophysical and socio-economic data streams.

This research note reviews the current state of scenario-based planning for COVID-19 and other risks for Australian businesses generally, in addition to planning for farming businesses more specifically. Discussion of the authors’ current research in integrating accounting and farming data for water-related risk caused by climate and other challenges is presented as an analogous case.

Review and analogous case comparison demonstrate the need for farm data to be integrated more efficiently and effectively with accounting data for accurate scenario planning for COVID-19 and other risks, including those posed by climate.

While not strangers to the need for scenario analysis, given exposure to ever-increasing natural resource and climate variability, this research note highlights how primary producers and their accountants require increased accounting-integrated farm data and systems to make judgements, assumptions and estimates about the potential effect of COVID-19 and ongoing climate risks to their business.

The sustainability of the agricultural sector is of great relevance to all of us and so the development of tools and resources that can assist food producers in times of ongoing climate pressures and new crises, such as COVID-19, is important. Better understanding of such risks can help farm businesses develop effective strategies which minimise the potential loss of agricultural value resulting in improved flows of greater capital value for society.

Through application to the analogous case of water-related risk and decision-making, the research note demonstrates that linking of biophysical and accounting data streams will be essential for evidence-backed numbers included in scenario plans with enough legitimacy to be interrogated inside and outside of the business. The “best estimate of the directors” is no longer enough in challenging socio-economic and biophysical times ahead for primary producers.

Hot and humid climates (HHCs) are potential environmental hazards that directly affect construction workers' health and safety (HS) and negatively impact workers' productivity. Extensive research efforts have addressed the effects of HHCs. However, these efforts have been inconsistent in their approach for selecting factors influencing workers in such conditions. There are also increasing concerns about the drop-off in research interest to follow through intrusive and non-real-time measurements. This review aims to identify the major research gaps in measurements applied in previous research with careful attention paid to the factors that influence the intrusiveness and selection of the applied data collection methods.

This research integrates a manual subjective discussion with a thematic analysis of Leximancer software and an elaborating chronological, geographical and methodological review that yielded 701 articles and 76 peer-reviewed most related articles.

The literature included the physiological parameters as influencing factors and useful indicators for HHC effects and identified site activity intensity as the most influencing work-related factor. In total, three main gaps were identified: (1) the role of substantial individual and work-related factors; (2) managerial interventions and the application of the right time against the right symptoms, sample size and measurement intervals and (3) applied methods of data collection; particularly, the intrusiveness of the utilised sensors.

The focus of researchers and practitioners should be in applying nonintrusive, innovative and real-time methods that can provide crew-level measurements. In particular, methods that can represent the actual effects of allocated tasks are aligned with real-time weather measurements, so proactive HHC-related preventions can be enforced on time.

This review contributes to the field of construction workers' safety in HHCs and enables researchers and practitioners to identify the most influential individual and work-related factors in HHCs. This review also proposes a framework for future research with suggestions to cover the highlighted research gaps and contributes to a critical research area in the construction industry.

Around the world, prison complexes have always been fundamentally taxing environments. The strained atmosphere within these prisons often contributes to the deterioration of mental health, mostly those who may already be psychologically vulnerable. This paper aims to understand whether there exists a relationship between the built environment of prisons, particularly the central prisons of India and its effects on the mental health of inmates.

By means of literature reviews, the study parameters were found to be connectivity to nature, lighting, acoustics, colour, air quality and thermal comfort. The data collected through interviews and email correspondences with identified experts were analysed thematically using a deductive approach to derive a set of practical recommendations, which could be implemented in Indian prisons.

The built environment of prisons impacts the prison population by further contributing to depressive symptoms. The effects of the built space persist regardless of social factors. A well-designed environment is healthy for its occupants and would yield positive changes. However, it is not the sole contributor to depression; social interactions, prison management, societal acceptance and meaningful activities are equally relevant factors. The sole focus of this paper is the relationship between the built environment and the mental health of inmates.

There is a paucity of research into the intersection between prison architecture and the mental health of inmates in the Indian subcontinent. This paper that addresses the gap may have significant consequences on how criminal reform is perceived, and also encourage further research in this field.