System Thinking for Water Management in Australia

This article discusses the importance of system thinking in water management in Australia. It highlights the problems faced and how to address them using system thinking. The article also includes a root definition report using CATWOE and references to relevant studies.

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System thinking
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Introduction
Availability of safe, clean and sufficient quantities of water for drinking in addition to
quality hygiene enhances environmental reliability, alleviates poverty and plays a big role
towards the achievement of the United Nations’ all-encompassing objectives of eradication of
poverty, better health, better education plus the gender equality promotion and empowering the
woman and the girl child (Schmidt, 2014). Profits comprise better health, improved security for
food, a widening of commercial openings, and an upsurge in educational and productive periods.
Vast resources are needed for accessing safe water for drinking as well as improved sanitation
(Bain et al., 2012). Apart from the big resources needed, a subject of distress worrying the policy
makers and directors at the water sectors in Australia remains the manner in which the resources
available will best be employed in order to realize the highest result.
Systems thinking
Most of the problems of water in Australia result from three main concerns, frequently in
mixture: very bad scheduling, lack of prudence and negligence. These problems are linked and
may not be fixed by individual act, instead they necessitate communal action. As the different
aspects of the water supply can behave counter-innately, responding in unpredicted manner, it’s
crucial to have the knowledge on how these components work in combination of the entire
structure. It is important to inspect the larger system together with the distinct parts triggering
the glitches in the system ((Wang, 2013).
A mindset in systems thinking strives to pinpoint and apprehend the manifold of issues
involved when trying to resolve an anomaly, and how the components integrate. This tactic
discourages solving the problem linearly -- where one sees a problem, rushes to an accustomed

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or obvious resolution, and expects the anomaly to be fixed without considering the response on
the original anomaly -- and in its place, the person rouses rational in terms of the all-inclusive
network of issues which contribute to the problem impending. When this network of issues is
well understood, player may comprehend in which ways their actions, decision in additions to
resource distributions impact various sectors of the scheme (Marcela, 2013).
For instance, if the Pump Ltd. Water Company in Australia has installed a water point
and sets a tariff for in order to have access to water, however, since this obliges the consumers to
pay some fee, they continue drawing water at liberty from pitiable sources. If the management
try to resolve the problem by removing the tariff, the usage of the water will definitely increase.
Nevertheless, by increasing water usage, a new anomaly of wear and tear of the water pumps
will arise and ultimately the water supply will collapse. There will be no resources to repair the
water pumps since the tariffs were scraped off, consumers will have no choice but reverting back
to drawing from pitiable sources. By tariff removal, the problem is recreated as the managers try
to resolve the anomaly, as a result of an acute feedback error.
A superior possibility may be to analyze the system deeply in order to address the reasons
the consumers are not enthusiastic in paying the water tariff. If intervention is brought at this
point, probably by raising alertness concerning the necessity of safe and clean water and the need
to pay for the same, it would translate the users paying the tariffs, water usage and resources
would upsurge, and money would be available for repairs in case the pump breaks down. If the
management takes this further, and persist with systems thinking through querying the issues
they depend on or integrate, it will be appreciated paying the tariffs, which gives money for
repairs is just a minor portion for repair procedure. The extra complications surrounding repair
require to be justified, including locally obtaining of the repair materials, the superiority of the

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repair materials, access to competent mechanics, and the management whose actions, verdicts,
and allocation of resources impact all these factors (Bain et al., 2012).
Performance evaluation
The Pump Ltd encountered two major issues. The performance evaluation in the
subdivision of water concentrated on analysis of outputs and inputs, individually, without
measuring the connection between outputs and inputs and they didn’t validate if impact and
outcome aims had been achieved. Even though they put a lot of efforts in order to evaluate the
subdivision performance at the regional level, the mechanisms applied were unconnected and did
not give a correct image of general performance (Kayaga, 2008).
Funds accountability put into the sanitation and water subdivision was an issue for
various groups of shareholders. Though, it was just a small number of the shareholders who
made their apprehensions categorical. Some stakeholders were chiefly keen to institute the
connection between funding and supply of clean and safe water. Persistent issues concerning
accountability within the subdivision, articulated by various shareholders in various forums,
ended in the appointing a technical review of the projects which had been funded by the donors
in the upcountry sanitation and water subdivision, whose outcomes showed insufficient levels of
monetary liability and inadequacies within the monitoring structures and functions (Kayaga,
2008).
Deliberations on subdivision performance turned out to be a core topic of debate at
different plan making meetings within the sanitation and water subdivision. Consequently, the
stakeholders suggested that perfection on performance evaluation ought to be a crucial part for
the upcoming financial year. An exploration project which was funded by Australian government

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was then appointed so as to enable a course of developing an improved, dedicated, well-adjusted
and cohesive performance evaluation context in the Pump Ltd. Water Company. The
investigators began the task by examining the situation of the anomaly by reviewing the
published and grey subdivision policy official papers, crucial informant dialogues, discussions
on focus groups and elucidations. Fig. 2 depicts rich picture showing the key shareholders, their
interdependencies and the issues as observed by the researcher when the research was started
(Overton et al., 2014).
The main shareholders recognized by the researcher are displayed by rich picture (Fig.
1.). The fig. 1 is briefly described particularly the undertakings of all the key shareholders. The
incentive for issues portrayed by exterior shareholders displayed by the rich picture may be
categorized into three general classes: (a) integrity accountability, i.e. efficiency and honesty
through which funds are allocated and used, (b) performance accountability, specifically if the
projected results, effect and efficiency have been achieved, and (c) education accountability, viz.
the employees in the Pump Ltd. who may be attracted to take modules on the way the
subdivision had fared in developing expertise and the effective utilization of the improved
resources. Furthermore, politicians and legislators were anxious concerning acceptance by the
electorates and the global community. Other members of the private segment were disturbed
concerning if they could have an impartial stake of the nationwide water funding, may be by
attracting some contracts for service provision for the county governments. In contrast, the
internal shareholders were largely concerned with the ways in which the entire subject of
performance evaluation impacted on the continuity of hire within the division regimes (Pahl-
Wostl et al., 2011).

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Root Definition report using CATWOE
So far, we have seen the transformation the Pump ltd needs to put in place for the
intervention, basically it is about developing a finely dedicated, sensible and cohesive
performance measurement context for the water sector (Diana, 2017). Constructing on this
parameter, the investigators came up with this root delineation: “An organization possessed by
the water and sanitation subdivision, operated by subdivision specialists and answerable to the
regional government, that makes more efficient and standardizes the current performance
evaluation schemes and delivers statistics to the managers who are decision makers in order to
empower them to make valid judgements of economic investing and the subdivision’s general
contribution to eradication of poverty and guarantee impartial resource allocations amongst sub-
divisions and regional government facilities” (Pollard Du Toit, 2011).
By use of the CATWOE (“customers, actors, transformation, worldview, owners, environment”)
mnemonic, the aforementioned root delineation was decompressed as follows:
With a consensus on root delineation, the investigators briefly disconnected from the
anomaly and concentrated on delivering solutions to three main queries which included:
 What to be done? Modify the prevailing performance evaluation schemes (transformation
procedure);
 How is it to be done? A segment of sub-schemes which means specific activities, which,
if they are interconnected, effect the transformation course;
 Why should it be done? Empower managers who are decision makers within the
subdivision to create valid judgements for economic ventures and the subdivision’s

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general contribution to eradication of poverty, and guarantee impartial resource
allocations of the wider organization.
The CATWOE
 Customers: policy makers and managers in the subdivision and the Pump Ltd. planning
section
 Actors: the professionals in the sanitation and water subdivision
 Transformation: fragmented unproductive performance evaluation schemes in the
sanitation and water subdivision converted into an efficient, synchronized and effective
performance evaluation structure.
 Worldview: Efficient performance evaluation of the activities in program within the
sanitation and water subdivision will improve accountability for efficiency and integrity.
 Owners: The Sanitation and Water Subdivision and the employees of the Pump Ltd.
 Environmental Constraints: appropriate support workforce and bargain the transformation
procedure, obtain the essential skills and remain approachable to organizational
management.

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Figure 1: Rich picture displaying key stakeholders in the water and hygiene subdivision, their
interdependencies along with the main concerns
Conclusion
Companies ought to pinpoint the anomalies that affect their operations in advance so that
they do not become main issues. Employing a system thinking stands out as vital because by
applying different tools for instance rich pictures to examine, concede and outline the main
issues which make the corporation to lack control measures of its stocks in order to meet the
demands of its custerms. employing other tools for example decision matrix, conceptual theory,

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practical modelling, function analysis, framework diagram, affinity illustration and graphs may
as well help directors at Pump Ltd. Company to concentrate on the key issues occuring within
the company that bring failure in the business and thus translate into loss and poor services
(Marcela, 2013). Issues such as what contributes to the poor services to the community, poor
stocking of the required materials for repair of the pumps and other paraphaneria, the employees
responsible for getting the repair materials etc.
Pump Ltd. may appaly system thinking through its processes in order understand how
different aspects interact. For example, employing this method may help the administration to
recognize how poor inventory affects the shareholders and company performance (Wang, 2013).
System thinking too helps reeem time and charges allied to some anomalies in a company and
thus it’s important for the company to integrate it in the processes (Diana, 2017).

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References
Bain, R. E., Gundry, S. W., Wright, J. A., Yang, H., Pedley, S., & Bartram, J. K. (2012).
Accounting for water quality in monitoring access to safe drinking-water as part of the
Millennium Development Goals: lessons from five countries. Bulletin of the World
Health Organization, 90, 228-235.
Diana, F. (2017). Reorganizing Algebraic Thinking: An Introduction to Dynamic System
Modeling. The Mathematics Enthusiast, 14(3), 34-45
Kayaga, S. (2008). Soft systems methodology for performance measurement in the Uganda
water sector. Water Policy, 10(3), 273-284.
Marcela, G. (2013). The Lack of Critical Thinking in the Romanian Educational System: A
Simple Communication Problem? International Journal of Communication Research,
3(4), 56-67
Overton, I. C., Smith, D. M., Dalton, J., Barchiesi, S., Acreman, M. C., Stromberg, J. C., &
Kirby, J. M. (2014). Implementing environmental flows in integrated water resources
management and the ecosystem approach. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59(3-4), 860-
877.
Pahl-Wostl, C., Jeffrey, P., Isendahl, N., & Brugnach, M. (2011). Maturing the new water
management paradigm: progressing from aspiration to practice. Water resources
management, 25(3), 837-856.
Pollard, S., & Du Toit, D. (2011). Towards adaptive integrated water resources management in
southern Africa: the role of self-organization and multi-scale feedbacks for learning and

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responsiveness in the Letaba and Crocodile catchments. Water Resources Management,
25(15), 4019-4035.
Schmidt, W. P. (2014). The elusive effect of water and sanitation on the global burden of
disease. Tropical medicine & international health, 19(5), 522-527.
Wang, J. (2013). Explanation of Integral Thinking from the Contemporary Perspective of
System. Canadian Social Science, 9(3), 89-99