Water Economics and Politics Seminar Series
/ Climate change and water resources management

Identifying bargaining power in Murray-Darling Basin temporary water markets

Speaker: Prof. Sarah Wheeler | Flinders University, Australia

Moderator: Prof. Djiby Thiam | Director: WPE – Water and Production Economics, University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

Time: 10:00 South African Standard Time (SAST) | GMT +2

Topic: In Australia, water rights have been separated from land, allowing non-farmers to enter the water market, which has led to concerns about limited information transparency and the influence of non-farmers on market dynamics. This study uses two unique databases and hedonic methods to investigate how differences in seller and buyer characteristics influence bargaining power in the two biggest temporary water market trading states: New South Wales and Victoria. Results suggest that bargaining power can be primarily attributed to seller-buyer variation in rainfall, temperature, groundwater salinity, and allocation percentages, reflecting underlying demand and supply dynamics. Notably, financial investors in New South Wales seem to demonstrate significant (yet still relatively small) bargaining power than other owners, likely due to superior access to market information and greater trading flexibility. While current water market prices reflect water scarcity, findings suggest that enhancing transparency and market liquidity could reduce trader asymmetries and improve efficiency.

Register to attend

UCT-UCR Seminar Series - Sarah Wheeler

About the speaker: Sarah is a Matthew Flinders Professor of Water Economics and leads the Water, Environment and Food economics policy group in the College of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University, South Australia, Australia. Sarah is a past President and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES), as well as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She was an ARC Future Fellow (2014–2018) and has over 150 peer-reviewed outputs in the research areas of irrigated farming, climate change, Murray-Darling Basin, organic farming, water markets, water scarcity, mental health and food waste. More: Sarah Wheeler profile on Flinders.

Seminar format:

  • Live online session on Microsoft Teams
  • Duration: 1 hour
  • Live presentation with Q&A session

Who should attend: This series is open to students and faculty from academic institutions across South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, policymakers, engineering and technical professionals, advocacy groups, NGO staff, and anyone with a keen interest in water economics and policy.

The UCT-UCR Seminar Series

This seminar is part of the UCT-UCR Seminar Series: Water Economics and Politics, a collaboration between the University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of California, Riverside (UCR). Subscribe to our mailing list to receive updates on upcoming sessions.

About the series Subscribe