Tipping points

Understanding change and identifying tipping points of significant change is important to increase the resilience of the catchment and its social, economic and environmental services. A tipping point, or threshold, is a critical level of one or more variables. When crossed, it triggers abrupt change in the system that may not be reversible (Wayfinder 2021).

Some tipping points are well understood and can be used to track progress and guide management. While our understanding of others is still developing. It is a key outcome of the strategy to build our understanding of tipping points and how to apply them through partnerships and research projects with a range of organisations. This strategy outlines which tipping points are important to understand and monitor. In some circumstances tipping points have been exceeded and we need to establish targets to stabilise system function. As our understanding around each of the tipping improves during the implementation of the strategy, this section will be updated.

Planning with local communities over the last 6 years has identified critical attributes for the communities in each local area. More details are in the Local Area sections.

At the catchment-scale, major tipping points have been identified for each natural resource theme. Click on the tabs below for a more information.

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