Critical Perspectives On Accounting: Kala Saravanamuthu, Cheryl Lehman

Critical Perspectives on Accounting 24 (2013) 410–437
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Critical Perspectives on Accounting

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cpa
Enhancing stakeholder interaction through environmental

risk accounts
Kala Saravanamuthu a,*, Cheryl Lehman b,1
a
Newcastle Business School, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Newcastle, Callaghan 2308, New South Wales, Australia
b
Department of Accounting, Taxation and Legal Studies in Business, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history: Accounting should mobilise growing awareness of environmental degradation into harm
Received 19 August 2011 mitigation strategies by representing humanity’s relational existence with nature.
Received in revised form 8 January 2013 Catchment-oriented accounting directs attention to the harm inflicted by unsustainable
Accepted 20 February 2013
practices by integrating measurements of the multiple causes of degradation into
Available online 6 March 2013
meaningful accounts. We propose a semi-qualitative risk matrix to enhance stakeholder
participation in the construction of these accounts: our matrix allows lay-stakeholders to
Keywords:
use their lived experiences to socialise expert measurements, and thus embark on a
Social
Sustainability journey of learning socially about sustainable living. An irrigation case-study is used to
Environmental evaluate the extent to which irrigators displayed the following social learning capacities
Social learning through their contribution to the construction of risk accounts on the impact of irrigation
Emancipatory on their catchment: awareness of each other’s competing-and-interdependent goals and
perspectives, shared problem identification, appreciation of the complex issues at hand,
Mots clés:
motivation to work collaboratively, trust and the creation of formal–informal relation-
Social
ships. Four of seven irrigators displayed many of these capacities as they contested
Développement durable
Environnemental unsustainable values embedded in conventional irrigation discourse, and articulated less
harmful priorities. The remaining irrigators took advantage of the analytical-deliberative
Keywords: spaces (provided by our matrix and accounts) to better appreciate the environmental
impact of irrigation.
Crown Copyright ß 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Palabras clave:
Social
Sostenibilidad
Ambiental
1. Introduction
Financial and management accounting traditionally value manufactured and financial capitals at the expense of natural
capital and ecosystems (Boston and Lempp, 2011; Saravanamuthu, 2004, 2008; Tinker, 1985). Monetisation of the language
of accounting thwarts efforts to contest the zero-sum presumption that justifies sacrificing the environment for economic
growth. The traditional skew towards the economic is at odds with the sustainability ethos, which is predicated on greater
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 4921 7226.

E-mail addresses: Kalathevi.Saravanamuthu@newcastle.edu.au (K. Saravanamuthu), Cheryl.R.Lehman@Hofstra.edu (C. Lehman).
1
Tel.: +1 516 463 6986.
1045-2354/$ – see front matter . Crown Copyright ß 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2013.02.002
K. Saravanamuthu, C. Lehman / Critical Perspectives on Accounting 24 (2013) 410–437 411
accountability for harm inflicted on nature (Cashman, 2011; Kennedy, 2011; von Schwedler, 2011). Accounting should
promote sustainability by representing the ‘‘intimate relationship between the organisation and the larger economic,
environmental and social systems within which it operates’’ (Global Reporting Initiative, 2002, p. 26; Gunderson et al., 1995;
McKernan and MacLullich, 2004). Consequently, the sustainability movement relies on scientific accounts of environmental
degradation to raise public awareness.
However the movement has not been able to mobilise reflexive reform, that is, radical deep-seated change in how society
perceives its impact on the resilience of the environment (Beck, 1995a). Why? Because lay-users are unable to ascertain how
science privileges certain values and assumptions over others (Ascui and Lovell, 2011). Its expert accounts of complex,
uncertain and conflict-ridden issues convey a (false) sense of objectivity, concreteness and political neutrality (Beck, 1993;
Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1992, 1993). By contrast, the very notion of environmental resilience is a social representation of
nature’s capacity to bounce back to a level of degradation that is acceptable to a community (Reed et al., 2006). The resulting
disconnect between real and perceived risk alienates lay-communities and hinders deep-seated structural change. Science
could rectify this situation by ‘‘. . .rob[bing] itself of its own scientific character’’ (Beck, 1995a, p. 105). It should open
‘‘. . .the door to public disputes, fears, and viewpoints and to shared decisions. Democracy sneaks in, not only in the
implementation but also in the uncertainty and conflict over the direction of research itself, before that research can
develop and stage-manage its own objective course of events’’ (Beck, 1995a, p. 105).
Hence, the American Ecological Society (Christensen et al., 1996; Rayner, 1992; also Bier et al., 2004; German Advisory
Council on Global Change (WBGU), 2000) recommends producing accounts that integrate the multiple-causes and
cumulative-consequences of environmental degradation despite uncertainty about how these elements are interconnected.
These accounts should
(i) reflect spatial and temporal dimensions of the eco-system;

(ii) identify and measure ecological processes vital for sustainable outcomes;
(iii) reinforce the complex and interconnected aspects of the relationship between elements of the ecosystem,
(iv) acknowledge humans as components of ecosystems, and
(v) employ a concept of accountability that engenders a responsible adaptive ethos which engages actively with
environmental needs.
Adaptive management emanates from an ongoing cycle of learning, experimentation and probing on what it means to be
sustainable (Ison et al., 2007). It draws on extended knowledge constructed by extended peers, which includes lay-people
who have endured the consequences of degradation (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993). Hence, point (v) opens the door for a
social science contribution that socialises scientific expertise into accounts that are meaningful to lay-stakeholders (Beck,
1993; Klinke and Renn, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to examine how accounting could mobilise competing
stakeholders to collectively learn about sustainability by deliberating critically about the assumptions employed in the
construction and integration of environmental indicators.
We propose an analytical-deliberative platform that firstly, changes the unit of accounting from the entity to the
catchment. Our platform enables stakeholders to critically scrutinise values embedded in patterns of politics and methods of
scientific inquiry (following Beck, 1993; Wallace et al., 1996) because the catchment is a
‘‘useful landscape unit for an integrated approach where a balancing between humans and nature can be carried out’’
(Falkenmark, 2004, p. 276).
Rogers et al. (1997) suggest using a global unit of accountability to extend the scope of responsibility beyond socio-
economic interests, but Falkenmark’s (2004; also Lankford and Hepworth, 2010) catchment-oriented accounting is a less
daunting start. It also satisfies Messner’s (2009) call for ‘‘situation-specific sensitivity’’ to the other. Catchment-based
accounting is more appropriate for Beck’s (1993, 2000) risk society, which is confronted by hazards that emanate from
decisions that privilege technology’s economic advantages and opportunities whilst normalising environmental
consequences as ‘‘the dark side of progress’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 50). For instance, economic growth over the last 150 years
has been driven primarily by technological advances that have generated cost-efficient energy from dense hydrocarbons,
and released excessive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere (Hendrie, 2010; Matten, 2004a, 2004b). People’s experience
of the dark side is a personal one even though these hazards can only be mitigated through collective action. Beck (1993)
argues that the resulting individualisation creates sub-political strata of self-confronted individuals: these individuals are
politically motivated to use risk discourse to interrogate unsustainable values embedded in societal structures and
discourse. Hanlon (2010) argues that politicisation is not new, but cautions that individuals’ competing meanings could tear
society apart.
We unpack this tension through the psychology of climate change: hazards may only be mitigated collectively, but people
experience hazards on a personal level. This contradiction triggers feelings of helplessness and causes people to become
psychologically distant from big-picture concerns (Mitchell, 2010; Reser, J. in Beck, 1993, pp. 74–75; Swim et al., 2010).
Burkett (2003) describes this loss of connectedness with the other as alienation. Section 4 explains how Gandhi’s (1993)
assertive ‘‘non-violent’’ (satyagrahic) discourse harnesses and mobilises self-confrontedness into collective learning about
truth. Therefore, catchment-based accountability should provide spaces for scientists, regulators, producers, consumers and
412 K. Saravanamuthu, C. Lehman / Critical Perspectives on Accounting 24 (2013) 410–437
state-authorities to cognitively bridge this psychological distance by deliberating discursively about its underlying values,
and learning to ‘‘live with change’’ (Dahl, 2007; Falkenmark, 2004, p. 278, following Gadrey and Jany-Catrice, 2003).
Secondly, our analytical-deliberative platform employs social (not rational) constructions of risk to integrate the
multiple-causes and cumulative-consequences of degradation into catchment-based accounts. We combine expertise with
lay-communities’ lived experiences to construct meaningful extended knowledge because this complex causality has
quantifiable and unquantifiable attributes that cannot be modelled or reduced to linear functions (Hak et al., 2007; Huxham,
2000; Ison et al., 2007; Sarang et al., 2008; Wynne, 1996).
Thirdly, our platform facilitates social learning, which is a non-coercive approach to accountability that mobilises
competing interests to collaborate to mitigate shared problems (Gandhi, 1993). Social learning is the knowing that emanates
from the process of identifying/framing problems, and constructing mitigation strategies in complex, uncertain and conflict-
prone circumstances (Bandura, 1977; Blackmore, 2007; O‘Donoghue et al., 2007; Steyaert and Jiggins, 2007). We hope to
enable stakeholders to display (and by implication, acquire) the following capacities for social learning: awareness of each
other’s competing-and-interdependent goals and perspectives, identification of shared problems, appreciation of the
complex issues at hand, motivation to work collaboratively, trust and the creation of formal and informal relationships (Pahl-
Wostl and Hare, 2004). Eco-management literature advocates integrating (critical) social learning into the process of
identifying, monitoring and evaluating sustainability indicators because only a critical approach could culminate in
constructive meanings and shared values (Pahl-Wostl, 2002a, 2002b; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008; Reed et al., 2006). Uncritical
learning could perpetuate the unsustainable status quo (Blackmore, 2007; Sabatier et al., 2005).
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 reviews the environmental accounting literature and notes the
growing prominence of risk discourse. Section 3 uses Beck’s (1993) risk society thesis to explain how risk discourse has
transformed over time. Section 4 examines how the Gandhian perspective is employed to construct integrated risk accounts
for risk society. Section 5 proposes an analytical-deliberative platform to enhance stakeholder participation and learning in
the construction of these accounts. The case-study in Section 6 evaluates the extent to which stakeholders displayed social
learning capacities by participating in the construction of this platform and risk accounts.
2. Review: accounting for the environment
We evaluate developments in the accounting literature in the context of Beck (1997, 1998) theorisation of a society that
does not trust state and expert systems to protect it from technological excesses. Critical accountants call for an
emancipatory socio-environmental framework that provides meaningful context-relevant accounts (Burchell et al., 1980;
MacKenzie, 2007; Saravanamuthu, 2004; Spence, 2009; Tinker et al., 1991; Tinker, 1985; Unerman and Bennett, 2004). Gray
(2002) advocates an imaginative framework that grants visibility to human suffering and environmental degradation, which
have been subsumed by presumptions of agency unproblematically privileging economic interests (also McKernan and
MacLullich, 2004; Roberts, 1991; Shearer, 2002; Young, 2006).
These developments reinforce two aspects of total accountability (Stewart, 1984), namely, the provision of accounts, and
critical scrutiny of the values embedded in its information. Although critical scrutiny of competing meanings of responsibilities
to the other is an inherently contestable and political exercise, these competing perspectives could become opportunities for
constructive learning (Ascui and Lovell, 2011). The potential for learning is complicated when social interaction is
hegemonically influenced by the threat of punishment/sanction for non-compliance with values embedded in accounts. We
explore this potential for learning later through Gandhian discourse and the Australian case-study on water management.
We now evaluate environmental accounting against the total accountability criteria. Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) and Triple-Bottom-Line accounts are regressive to the extent that these approaches privilege economic aspects of
development by not acknowledging the tension between the competing notions of economic and environmental
sustainability (Buhr, 1998; Lamberton, 2005; Langhelle, 1999; O‘Dwyer, 2003; Owen et al., 2000; Roberts, 2003; Spence,
2009). They camouflage business-as-usual practices and play down the rate of environmental degradation (Hopwood, 2009).
Porter (2010a, 2010b) argues that CSR accountability traps management into a segmented mindset because CSR is isolated
from economic decisions, but O‘Dwyer (2002; cf. O‘Donovan, 1999) asserts that management dismiss CSR disclosure fearing
it would increase public scepticism of managerial motives.
The Sustainability Assessment Model (Bebbington et al., 2007), a dialogical vehicle of accountability, claims to account for
the other even though it uses ‘‘a type of FCA [Full cost accounting]’’ (p. 225) to assign monetary values to economic,
environmental, resource and social capitals. Herbohn (2005) contests Bebbington and Gray (2001) premise that
monetisation of socio-environmental externalities would contribute positively to the sustainability debate by revealing that
FCA cannot support adaptive management strategies because it does not reflect the needs of a resilient ecosystem.
Consequently, McKernan and MacLullich (2004) argue that the language of accounting should go beyond the constraints
imposed on it by its neoclassical economic values. Rankin et al. (2011) reveal that managers wanting to formulate
sustainable strategies require information about financial and ecological risks. Consequently, the discourse between
institutional investors and investee-companies is dominated by risk, risk management and crisis avoidance (Solomon et al.,
2011). Risk is the new organising concept (Miller et al., 2008): the International Standards Organization’s ISO 31000
advocates using the risk discourse to scrutinise all organisational arrangements (Standards Australia, 2009). Beck attributes
the emergence of risk accounts to increased societal awareness of impending environmental hazards. Next we examine how
risk discourse has transformed before evaluating emergent risk accounts.
Table 1
Transformation of risk discourse.
Beck’s (1993) two eras of modernity Fischhoff’s (1995) seven stages of development in risk communication
between preparers and users.
First era of modernity 1. ‘‘All we have to do is get the numbers right’’

2. ‘‘All we have to do is to tell them the numbers’’
3. ‘‘All we have to do is explain what we mean by the numbers’’
4. ‘‘All we have to do is to show them that they’ve accepted similar risks before’’
5. ‘‘All we have to do is to show them that is it’s a good deal for them’’
6. ‘‘All we have to do is to treat them nice’’
Second era of modernity: risk society 7. ‘‘All we have to do is make them partners’’
8. All of the above
3. Beck’s transformation of risk discourse
Beck (1993) explains the emergence of non-rational risk discourse by dividing modernity into two eras. In the first era,
nation-states and industry had generated economic prosperity but failed to keep society ‘‘safe’’ from the uncertainties and
risks that were ‘‘manufactured’’ by the excesses of its enabling technologies. These manufactured uncertainties and risks
cannot be managed through conventional notions of entity-based accountability:
‘‘. . .with the origin of industrial risks in decision-making, the problem of social accountability and responsibility
irrevocably arises, even in those areas where the prevailing rule of science and law permit accountability only in
exceptional cases. People, firms, state agencies and politicians are responsible for industrial risks. As we sociologists
say, the social roots of risks block the ‘externalizability’ of the problem of accountability’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 50; also Beck,
1995d).
Hence, society in the second era is a self-confronted risk society: although it increasingly employs risk discourse to engage
with growing awareness of what it does not know about manufactured risks, Beck (2008) uses the term ‘‘unawareness’’ to
highlight this society’s ignorance about its impact on the other. Next we use Fischhoff’s (1995) colloquial expressions to
examine unawareness and risk accounts: colloquial expressions used to shed light on Beck’s two eras of modernity are listed
in Table 1.
3.1. Beck’s first era of modernity
Beck’s first era represents the technocratic phase as its risk discourse is constructed on utility theory. The technocratic
ethos is colloquially referred to as ‘‘getting the numbers right’’ (Fischhoff’s items 1–2: Table 1) because utility theory
assumes that decision-makers select the best alternative from probability distributions and payoff matrices (cf. Slovic et al.,
2009).
However, rational risk calculus is confined to well-defined and direct consequences of technological risk only (e.g.
Brehmer and Allard, 1991; Otway, 1992): it reinforces linear notions of causality. It cannot foster adaptive management as it
does not engage with degradation’s multiple-causes and cumulative-consequences (Fischhoff, 1995; Rayner, 1992), or yet-
to-be-discovered ecological interrelationships (Christensen et al., 1996; Holling, 1996). Its safety thresholds fabricate a sense
of security by perpetuating the myth that technological hazards may be contained within an entity’s narrow boundaries of
accountability. This false dichotomy between real and perceived risk alienates people from nature’s rhythm of life, reduces
the urgency for reform, and normalises unsafe levels of environmental degradation as a necessary consequence of progress
that has to be increased in tandem with technological risks (Beck, 1995c; Wynne, 1996). The resulting alienation and
disconnected accountability is theorised as ‘‘organised irresponsibility’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 32):
‘‘By persisting with outmoded quantitative methods of risk analysis, scientific and technical experts have effectively
reached a plateau of paralysis. The social outcome of this is that pressing public questions about safety, regulation and
responsibility for environmental risk remain unanswered by state institutions. Concomitantly, the incessant
appearance of manufactured risk illuminates the inefficacy of the traditional logic of identifying isolated sources.
Environmental risks are invariably multi as opposed to monocausal. . .’’ (Mythen, 2004, p. 34 following Beck, 1993).
Hence rational representations are at best, partial, and at worst, distorted, representations of complex circumstances
where
‘‘. . .dangers are . . .produced by industry, externalized by economics, individualized by the legal system, legitimized by
the natural sciences and made to appear harmless by politics’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 39).
Consequently, marketing strategies have been employed to manipulate public perceptions by obscuring risk calculus’
contestable assumptions, fabricating certainty, and legitimising financial growth at the expense of environmental
sustainability (Leiss, 1996): see Fischhoff’s items 3–6 (Table 1).
Intolerable
area
Probability of
occurrence
Intermediate
area
Normal
area
Extent of damage
Fig. 1. Risk zones.

Sources: Klinke and Renn (2002, p. 1079) and German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) (2000, p. 19).
3.2. Beck’s second era of modernity
Society in the second era is self-confronted and less prepared to tolerate the risk of socio-environmental hazards. Even
though it turns to emergent formulations of risk to understand ‘‘manufactured’’ hazards, Beck (1993, 1995b, 1995c; Bouder
et al., 2009; Rayner, 1992; Renn, 1998) warns that these constructions could be distorted by competing perceptions of risk, or
the politics of risk.
At this juncture we use Piechowski’s (1994 cited in Renn in German Advisory Council on Global Change, 2000; Klinke and
Renn, 2002) normal, intermediate and intolerable risk categories to explain manufactured risks: Fig. 1 illustrates these three
categories of risk.
Normal risks are ubiquitous with little statistical uncertainty and low catastrophic potential. They are managed through
safety-oriented regulations that are derived from conventional risk-to-risk comparisons and risk-benefit analysis (following
National Research Council, 1982). Manufactured risks fall into the intermediate and intolerable categories: they cannot be
represented through probabilistic distributions because it is difficult to quantify/model their complex causalities (Bier et al.,
2004; Ewald, 1986; Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1992; Rappaport, 1988 in Beck, 2008, p. 52).
Fischhoff’s colloquial expressions 7 and 8 (Table 1) signify the failure of wholly top-down or bottom-up risk assessments
alone to reflect manufactured hazards. The failure of top-down assessments is attributed to its rational risk calculus, whilst
bottom-up failure is caused by lay-persons’ lack of skills to evaluate technical data (Pellizzoni, 1999). Hence Reed et al.
(2005; Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993) advocate providing integrated, coherent, transparent and meaningful accounts that
enable lay-people to interact with, and socialise, expert measurements. Bier et al. (2004) refer to this expert-lay phase as a
social turn favouring ‘‘analytical-deliberative’’ (p. 91) spaces. It could mitigate the ethical lacuna in institutional risk
discourse (Solomon et al., 2011). Leiss (1996) optimistically labels this discursive phase as representing responsible risk
communication, but Beck cautions that its ‘‘ontology and aetiology of risk’’ would still be shaped by the politics of risk (in
Ekberg, 2007, p. 347).
Consequently Beck (2008; Mythen, 2004) suggests reducing unawareness by constructing risk discourse on his three
pillars of (manufactured) risk. The first pillar requires risk accounts to reflect the uncertainty inherent in knowledge about
the multiple-causes and cumulative-consequences of degradation. The second pillar is the catastrophic potential of
manufactured risks and uncertainties, whilst the third pillar highlights the tension between sustainability and economic
values (Beck, 1993, 1995b, 1995c). These pillars are reflected in Beck’s (1993, 1995a, 2008) risk-danger continuum, an
alternative to Knight (1921) notion of risk and uncertainty. Danger refers to the inescapable consequence of unsustainable
lifestyles, or the ‘‘threatening force of modernization’’, such as climate change. Perceptions of risk are coloured by impending
dangers, but unlike danger, risk may be managed through individual decisions. Discourse constructed on the risk-danger
continuum should create a discursive space for reflexively learning to adapt to the natural rhythm of life. However, Hanlon
cautions that competing individualised meanings of risk could culminate in ‘‘confusion and crisis of expertise and
knowledge’’ instead of reflexive modernity (2010, p. 214): this criticism is addressed below.
3.3. Critical evaluation of Beckian reflexivity
Beck is criticised for being overly optimistic, even idealistic, in theorising reflexivity through discourse (Ekberg, 2007;
Hanlon, 2010; Mythen, 2004, 2007). We qualify this criticism as follows: firstly Beck’s (1998, 2008) reflexive turn emanates
from a distrustful self-confronted society. By contrast, Giddens’ (in Beck et al., 1994; Giddens, 1990, 1991, 1998) reflexive
modernity is premised on society trustingly employing knowledge systems.
Secondly, Beck’s reflexive modernisation is derived from the German word for unintended consequences of
modernisation, ‘‘reflexivitat’’. It connotes reflex or ‘‘non-knowing’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 109), that emanates from
the lack of conceptual tools and sensory power to fully conceptualise the implications of human actions on nature
the loss of courage
a sense of hopelessness/apathy in confronting the risks posed by low-probability/high-consequence risk events, and/or
structural influences that perpetuate the legitimacy of existing socio-political relationships (Beck, 2008; Ekberg, 2007;
Renn and Swanton, 1984).
Therefore, non-knowing recognises that humans do not engage conceptually with uncertainty as they have (cognitively)
evolved to learn by trial and error (Sinsheimer, 1971). People resort to judgemental heuristics (or familiar cues) to simplify
decision-making amidst uncertainty because heuristics provide plausible, credible or typical meanings to lived experiences.
However this preference for the familial (or judgemental bias) makes it difficult for people to relate to unfamiliar hazards
that emanate from manufactured uncertainties (Payne, 1976; Payne et al., 1998; Slovic et al., 2009; Tversky and Kahneman,
1973, 1974).
Thirdly, Beck (2008) concedes that individualisation of risk society’s lived experiences does not culminate in the demise
of relationships based on class, tradition and gender2:
‘‘In the first phase [of modernity] it was class or social questions that were paramount; in the second phase it is
ecological questions. Yet it would be much too simple to assume that ecology has supplanted the class question; it is
quite apparent, and needs to be stressed, that the ecological, labour-market and economic crises are overlapping and
may well aggravate one another’’ (Beck, 2008, p. 24).
The implications for the definition of class relations in this second phase are as follows: Beck (1993) explains that,
regardless of where ‘‘industrial production’’ (p. 36) occurs, it contributes to global hazards. On the one hand, these hazards
indiscriminately impact on everyone, resulting in the ‘‘universalisation of hazards’’ (p. 36). On the other hand, Beck concedes
that the globalised experiences of these hazards are fractured by the (different) capacities/abilities of individual actors to
react to these threats. For instance, the wealthy are better able to respond to extreme weather patterns (attributed to global
warming) because they have the resources to physically move away from low-lying flood-prone areas. Unlike the poor and
uneducated, the well-heeled and well-educated are less likely to suffer the consequences of environmental degradation
because they possess the know-how and means to access emergent information about impeding dangers. Beck explains that
this (universalised on versus fractured) contradiction emanates from an overlap between class relations and risk society:
‘‘Inequalities in class and risk society can therefore overlap and condition one another; the latter [re]produce the
former. The unequal distribution of social wealth offers almost impregnable defensive walls and justification for the
production of risks’’ (Beck, 1993, p. 44).
These class-specific afflictions to risk-danger give rise to an

‘‘antagonism between those afflicted by risk and those who profit from them’’ (Beck, 1993, p. 46, emphases original).
Hence, class in risk society distinguishes those who produce risk from those who are impacted by the resulting dangers.
Beck (1993) goes on to explain that in the long run these producer–consumer categories of risk become blurred because
sustainability is not a zero-sum game. It gives rise to the ‘‘social boomerang effect’’ (p. 37) as the economic well-being of
producers of risk is eventually eroded by worsening environmental degradation. To sum up, class relationships in the 19th
and 20th centuries have emanated from the struggle over how wealth has been distributed. However, class relations in risk
society are reproduced by the social process that ascertains the level of risk that society is expected to accept/tolerate. Beck
(1993, pp. 51–84) explains how this politicisation of knowledge and reflexivity in risk society has historically been shaped by
power relationships that have enabled (a) unsustainable forms and rates of industrialisation, (b) distributed wealth in an
inequitable manner, and (c) legitimised technological risks with little regard for the welfare of the other. Beck’s emergent
definition of class is illustrated through our case-study in Section 6. The implications for the politics of knowledge
construction are examined below.
Lastly, Hanlon (2010) asserts that Beckian knowledge cannot be socially constructed. Why? Beck (1993, 1995a)
recognises schisms between scientific and social rationalities, and acknowledges that experts remain gatekeepers of risk
discourse despite
‘‘. . .the failure of techno-scientific rationality in the face of growing risks and threats from civilisation. This failure is
not mere past, but acute present and threatening future. In fact it is only gradually becoming visible to its full extent.
2
Beck (1993) had argued earlier that ‘‘. . .risk societies are not exactly class societies; their risk positions cannot be understood as class positions, or their
conflicts as class conflicts" (p. 36, emphasis original).
Nor is it the failure of individual scientists or disciplines; instead it is systematically grounded in the institutional and
methodological approach of the sciences to risks. As they are constituted – with their overspecialised division of labor,
their concentration on methodology and theory, and their externally determined abstinence from practice – the
sciences are entirely incapable of reacting adequately to civilizational risks, since they are prominently involved in the
origin and growth of those very risk. . .[Instead] the sciences become the legitimating patrons of a global industrial
pollution and contamination of air, water, foodstuffs, etc. . .’’ (Beck, 1993, p. 59, emphases original)
Even though Beck recognises the partisan nature of techno-scientific knowledge and the ensuing politics of knowledge
construction, he asserts that
‘‘The growing awareness of risks must be reconstructed as a struggle among rationality claims, some competing and
some overlapping’’ (Beck, 1993, p. 59).
Beck’s assertion is set in the context of dynamic class relations created by the social boomerang effect. By contrast, Hanlon
argues that the dichotomy between expert and lay perceptions of risk would not lead to reflexive modernisation as it would
fuel a spiral of distrust and competing meanings that could tear risk society apart. Hanlon’s and Beck’s opposing stances may
be moderated by the boomerang effect as the producers of risk will in the longer run benefit from sustainable reform.
Hanlon’s and Beck’s may also be moderated by advances in communication technologies that have made the interface
between technical experts, management and stakeholders more porous. For instance, emergent social media platforms (such
as Facebook and Twitter) enable the sub-political strata to openly disclose competing rationality claims to an organisation’s
(global) customers, the public and management themselves. This means that management accountability, which had
previously been impervious to competing stakeholder rationalities, is now much more porous: management’s use of expert
technical tools to camouflage their unsustainable priorities is open to much more scrutiny and publicised debate. Socialised
risk discourse should become the medium for this platform of interaction especially within catchment communities that
share common (environmental) concerns. Consequently risk could, and should, be represented as a social construction that
is inter-penetrated with techno-scientific expertise. This expertise is legitimated when self-confronted communities
socialise it with their lived realities (Lash, 1993, 2000), overcoming the limitations of expertise that has traditionally been
formulated in isolation from real world experiences. Next we examine how Saravanamuthu’s (2009) integrated risk accounts
facilitate this socialisation of expertise: these accounts draw on how Gandhi (1993) mobilised alienated individuals to
participate in the socialisation of discourse, a precursor to social reform.
4. Translating Beck’s pillars into emancipatory accounts: a Gandhian perspective
Saravanamuthu (2006, 2009) represents Beck’s risk pillars as an inter-subjective social construction by drawing on
Gandhi’s (1993) lived experiences in reforming unsustainable practices.
Gandhi (i) connects the authoritative/expert and lay realms of knowledge, and (ii) mitigates Beckian individualism, by
drawing attention to shared concerns. His dialogical platform uses the strategies of satyagraha and swaraj to solve ‘‘. . . the
same problem that faces scientific socialists [i.e. Marxists]’’ (Gandhi in Harijan, February, 20, 1937 in Gandhi, 2001, p. 22;
Saravanamuthu, 2008). Satyagraha is the assertive search for truth amidst socio-structural contradictions that emanate from
asymmetrical power relationships. Swaraj refers to reflexive emancipation from structural and personal contradictions that
emanate from these relationships. Satyagraha facilitates swaraj by (a) harnessing the contestability inherent in its accounts
of shared concerns to (b) mobilise social learning about the other (Dalton, 1993).
Unfortunately satyagraha is often reduced to non-violent politics because it is analysed in isolation from Gandhi’s Advaitic
interpretation of the central Vedic tenet, Tat Tvam Asi or ‘‘Thou Art That’’3 (e.g. Copley, 1987; Dasgupta, 1996; Parekh, 1991).
Tat Tvam Asi makes humanity’s relational existence with nature central to the Advaitic philosophy. Gandhi’s (1993)
documented struggles (as an Advaitic scholar and practitioner) reflect his journey of exploring the implications of this tenet.
Consequently the Advaitic notion of violence refers to the extent to which unsustainable practices fragment nature’s
renewal/resilience frames (Krishnamurti, 1991; Saravanamuthu, 2008). Saravanamuthu (2006) posits satyagrahic discourse
in its Advaitic context, which asserts that society should ensure that natural renewal is not fragmented by competing socio-
economic frames because humans are an integral part of nature. Schumacher’s Middle Way, a Buddhist methodology with
Advaitic roots (Saravanamuthu, 2009), reflects the satyagrahic notion of accountability:
‘‘Man’s greatest single task today is to develop in himself the power of non-violence. Everything he does violently, for
instance in agriculture, could be done relatively non-violently, that is, gently, organically, patiently and adapted to the
rhythms of life. The true task of all future research and development is surely to devise non-violent methods of
reaching the results which man requires for his existence on Earth. The violent methods always seem to produce
3
There are several schools of thought within the Vedic tradition, ranging from atheism to fundamentalism. Two of the dominant schools are Advaitism and
Dvaitism. The former is grounded in the concept of ‘‘oneness" or the union of subject and object (or the spiritual oneness of all beings: Dalton, 1993), whereas
Dvaitism is premised on a dualist interpretation (Gandhi, 1926, ‘‘Advaitism and God", Young India quoted in Gandhi, 1987, pp. 79–81). Gandhi was an
Advaitic scholar and practitioner: he argues that the ‘‘God whom we seek to realise is Truth. Or to put it another way, Truth is God’’ (Gandhi, 1987, p. 186).
Hence, his satyagraha is constructed on the dialectic between the contradictions that occur naturally within an individual and, the contradictions that are
embedded in societal structures: it emphasises ‘‘becoming" rather than ‘‘being" through experiences and learning.
Ideal path of dialectical movement

Content of cube: The towards greater
three dimensions interconnectedness
reflect extent to which
representations of time
and space are
fragmented/stressed. Ideal culture of
experimentation
Unsustainable
risk society
Increasing
customisation in
representing
actuality Increasing
reflexivity
Increasing
dichotomisation
of means-ends in
representing
actuality.
Fig. 2. Satyagrahic accountability constructs.

Sources: Saravanamuthu (2006, p. 319), adapted.
bigger results more quickly; in fact they lead to the accumulation of insoluble problems. . .’’ (Schumacher, 1997, pp.
157–158).
Gandhi uses his ‘‘square of swaraj’’ to explain how satyagraha operationalises Tat Tvam Asi: it mitigates the extent to
which society fragments the amount of time and space that nature needs to renew itself (in The Harijan, January, 2, 1937,
quoted in Bhattacharyya, 1969, p. 280). Saravanamuthu (2006) teases out the implications for an equivalent sustainability
cube (see Fig. 2).
We now explain each component of Fig. 2. First, Saravanamuthu uses the volume of Fig. 2 to reflect the extent
to which human actions fragment the natural rhythm of life. Henceforth we use the term ‘‘stress’’ instead of the
Advaitic ‘‘fragment’’ because ‘‘stress’’ better enables self-confronted stakeholders to reflexively relate to harm
inflicted on the environment (which is represented by the width of cube). Second, stress is expressed through Beck’s
concept of risk-danger: it is formulated from customised accounts (height of cube) of the causal relationship between
means-and-ends (length of cube). Here means-and-ends signify the multiple-causes and cumulative-consequences of
degradation:
‘‘There is no wall of separation between the means and the end’’ (Gandhi, in Young India, July 17, 1924 quoted in
Gandhi, 2001, p. 65).
Third, social learning is depicted (in the centre of Fig. 2) as a dialectical journey that employs customised accounts of
means-ends relationships to experiment reflexively with the sustainability ethos and transform an unsustainable
community.
4.1. Constructing satyagrahic accounts
This section explains how Saravanamuthu (2009) constructs integrated risk accounts from Fig. 2, before identifying a gap
in its participatory methodology.
First Saravanamuthu calculates a stress factor for every (known) cause of degradation: to recap, Fig. 2’s volume
represents the extent to which humanity stresses the amount of time and space that nature requires to renew itself. The
Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC, 2000; also Reed et al., 2006) recommends
using customised baselines as reference points to manage natural resources because baselines promote social learning by
revealing how a community is progressing. Here baselines are used to calculate the level of stress because benchmarks/
safety thresholds (prescribed earlier in ANZECC, 1992) elicit knee-jerk reactions by merely indicating whether targets have
been satisfied/not.
Fig. 3. Satyagrahic accounts representing interconnectivity between multiple attributes of sustainability.
We demonstrate how the stress factor is calculated for a logging operation, which had claimed that its land clearing
practices were sustainable. The firm logged the same area in a native forest once every 80–120 years; the forest’s regrowth
cycle was 500–600 years (Donovan, 2009). Ideally, the median or 80% percentile should be used to ascertain representative
points for the commercial and natural cycles. Because of limited available data, we calculate their mid-points. The stress
factor is
Commercial cycle 100

¼ ¼ 0:18
Baseline 550
Despite the logging firm’s unequivocal claim that its forestry management practices were sustainable, the stress factor of
0.18 implies that the logging operations may be unsustainable. Other causes of forest degradation would have to be
monitored, measured and converted into stress factors to provide a more holistic basis for assessing the extent of
degradation.
Second, Saravanamuthu expresses each stress factor in terms of the risk it is perceived to add to the catchment’s existing
risk-danger profile. This is a two-stage process: (i) a risk-danger profile for the catchment is constructed, and (ii) the
perceived risk associated with each stress factor is assessed in the context of (i). Both phases involve iteratively socialising
top-down expertise with lay-persons’ lived experiences of environmental hazards. This iterative process mitigates
hegemonic influences by empowering participants to contest embedded notions of externalities, and deliberate about the
implications of intermediate and intolerable risks. Nonetheless, Saravanamuthu (2009) does not provide an analytical-
deliberative platform for iteratively expressing stress factors as perceived risks. We do so in Section 5 through a risk matrix.
Third, Saravanamuthu integrates these risk assessments into satyagrahic risk accounts of anticipatory knowledge: see
Fig. 3 for a visual representation of the cumulative danger (in a particular catchment) posed by the multiple causes of risk.
It is not uncommon to visually represent hazards through graphs, photographs and maps of multiple attributes: examples
include sustainability polygons (Herweg et al., 1998), sustainability webs (Bockstaller et al., 1997), kite diagrams (Garcia,
1997) and a wheel chart (Hani et al., 2003; Reed, 2004). Each spoke in Fig. 3 represents a cause of degradation, whilst the
shaded area from the origin represents the cumulative risk posed to the environment. The number of spokes on each radar
plot is limited to nine because short-term memory may only process 7 2 pieces of information at one time (Miller, 1956). It
encourages users to scrutinise assumptions used to integrate the multiple causes, identify new causes of degradation, and thereby
extend the frontier of knowledge about the catchment’s complex causality. By contrast, conventional heuristics discourage
learning because it reinforces familiar meanings (Hux and Naylor, 1995; Malenka et al., 1993; Mezirow & associates, 1990; also
Edwards et al., 2001).
Therefore, satyagrahic risk accounting provides an anticipatory account of sustainability because it harnesses users’
propensity to learn by prompting them to seek new meanings for unfamiliar circumstances (following Botkin et al., 1979;
Gigerenzer, 1994, 1996; Newell et al., 2007; Rottenstreich and Tversky, 1997; Slovic, 1992). Anticipatory knowledge is
reflected through satyagrahic accounting’s (i) disaggregation of Beck’s risk-danger continuum into the multiple-causes and
Table 2
Qualitative risk matrix.
Likelihood label Consequences label
I II III IV V
A Medium High High Very high Very high

B Medium Medium High High Very high
C Low Medium High High High
D Low Low Medium Medium High
E Low Low Medium Medium High
Source: Risk Management Guidelines (2005, p. 55).
Table 3
Generic categories to describe the likelihood of a hazard.
Level Likelihood Description
A Almost certain Based on hindsight, expect that risk event will occur
B Likely Event has occurred in the past, and could occur again – lived experiences
C Possible Event might occur once in the future
D Unlikely Could occur but not expected
E Rare Only occurs rarely in exceptional circumstances
Source: Risk Management Guidelines (2005, table 64 p.54, adapted).
cumulative-consequences of degradation, and (ii) its relative representation of the amount of risk a community is prepared
to tolerate.
To sum up, satyagrahic methodology is put forward as a non-utopian approach of facilitating social learning by engaging
with socio-structural contradictions. It counters the spiral of Beckian individualism that could tear society apart by drawing
attention to shared concerns which affects everyone’s wellbeing.4
5. Analytical-deliberative platform for satyagrahic accounts
We put forward an analytical-deliberative platform for expressing stress factors as perceived risks in the context of
satyagrahic accounting: it takes the form of a semi-qualitative risk matrix. Our discursive approach aims to address the
limitations of procedural accountability (Shenkin and Coulson, 2007), foster confidence (Georgakopoulos and Thomson,
2005) and facilitate social learning (Reed et al., 2005) in a distrustful risk society.
5.1. Proposed risk matrix
We now explain how we developed a semi-qualitative risk matrix from Risk Management Guidelines’ (2005; Standards
Australia AS/NZS 4360, 2004) wholly qualitative risk matrix (as illustrated in Table 2).
The Guidelines express the likelihood and consequence components of intermediate and intolerable risks as narrative
descriptors because of insufficient knowledge about their causal relationships. Tables 3 and 4 provide a list of narrative
descriptors for the range of ‘‘likelihood of occurrence’’ and ‘‘extent of consequence’’ items respectively. The respective ranges
should be customised on a case-by-case basis to reflect local conditions.
Although the Guidelines assert that qualitative risk analysis is not inferior to quantified probabilities, it concedes that the
narrative descriptors would be quantified as more knowledge is accumulated. Therefore, our semi-qualitative matrix
replaces Table 2’s qualitative ‘‘consequences label’’ with a range of (quantified) stress factors that are customised to local
conditions. Due to space constraint, we illustrate our matrix with Table 5 from the case-study (that will be discussed in
Section 6). Briefly, Table 5 was constructed to assist irrigators to appreciate how their water management practices affected
salinity and watertable in their catchment. Section 6 will show how competing stakeholders used this matrix iteratively to
express stress factors as perceptions of risk. The matrix mitigated individualism by bringing the catchment’s risk-danger
profile to the fore of this risk assessment exercise.
For now, we demonstrate how our risk matrix (i.e. Table 5 for the year 1998/1999) was (i) customised to local catchment
conditions, and (ii) provided an analytical-deliberative space for assessing perceived risk in the context of a non-linear
complex causality. First, the consequence component of Table 5 was customised by using stress factors (derived from
baseline data) to express the range of qualitative consequences (from ‘‘least’’ to ‘‘most’’ stressed) as quantitative intervals.
We customised the baseline to minimise the level of distortion in how the quantitative range represented the real-life water
situation in the catchment. As the catchment’s drought peaked in 2003/2004, we identified two base years (and baselines):
1997/1998 for the pre-drought period, and 2004/2005 for the post-drought period.
4
The question that must be asked is why India is also plagued by self-inflicted environmental degradation. It is partly attributed to Prime Minister Nehru,
who having been educated in England, sought to emulate Europe’s rapid economic growth through industrialisation (Nanda, 1979). Nehru appreciated the
Gandhian strategy only towards the end of his life when he was confronted by the consequences of (unsustainable) industrialisation (Brown, 2003).
Table 4
generic classifications to describe the anticipated consequence of a hazard.
Level Consequence descriptor Definition
I Severe or catastrophic fragmenting impact An impact that seriously affects the environment, changing the eco-system significantly
II Major An impact that is less than I above but still poses significant loss of habitat to ecological
communities. Recovery possible in the long term
III Moderate An impact that is confined to certain areas in the catchment only. Recovery possible
IV Minor Local impact and recovery possible in short term
V Insignificant fragmenting impact Extremely localised with insignificant impact on catchment ecology
Source: Risk Management Guidelines (2005, table 63 p.54, adapted).
Table 5
Ground water utilised for 1998/1999 in catchment XYZ.
Legend for integrated risk estimates (see body of matrix above):

(1) represents low risk;
(2) represents moderate risk;
(3) represents high risk;
(4) represents very high risk;
(5) represents extreme risk
Reasons:
Assumed change of emphasis away from Ground water to River water usage
Cannot continue to lower the watertable. Need to balance overall water usage.
Could be possible because of vineyard plantings replacing other crops as well as a drop in total area irrigated.
Second, we continued to use narrative descriptors to signify likelihood of occurrence. Although Gonzalez-Vallejo and
Wallsten (1992) claim that verbal expressions of probability could be reliably used as descriptors, we concede that there
would be competing stakeholder interpretations of narrative descriptors like ‘‘possible’’ or ‘‘unlikely’’. However, we argue
that this exchange of competing meanings would become part of the journey of acquiring capacities for social learning as this
self-confronted community collaborated in mitigating their shared hazards.
Third the body of Table 5 represented a non-linear depiction of the causal relationship between multiple (irrigation-
related) causes and their cumulative-consequences on the catchment. The risk scale, from low to extreme risks, was visually
enhanced by assigning a different colour to each category of risk. A customised matrix was constructed for every irrigation-
attribute: Section 6.2.2 explains how the matrix was used to assess the risk contributed by each attribute to the catchment’s
risk-danger profile. All stakeholders were consulted in each of these three steps above.
Our proposed matrix acknowledges and underscores the complexities and possibilities within social, economic, political
and scientific systems. ‘‘Subjects’’ in our schematic were motivated to participate in the construction of accounts because, as
members of self-confronted communities whose livelihoods were threatened by rising salinity and watertable, they had to
acknowledge that their life-styles were inextricably intertwined with the health of the ecosystem. Accordingly, we assure
the reader that our schematic is not ‘‘utopian’’.
Next we use the case-study to narrate how stakeholders used our semi-qualitative matrix to construct catchment-
specific satyagrahic accounts: the matrix placed the catchment’s risk-danger profile at the centre of stakeholders’ risk
assessment exercises. We then evaluate the extent to which irrigators, the primary consumers of water, displayed social
learning capacities as they participated in this process of identifying, assessing, monitoring and integrating multiple impacts
of environmental degradation.
6. Case-study: impact of irrigation practices on the environment
Water management is central to developing sustainably (Lewis and Russell, 2011). Hence, this study investigates the
extent to which irrigators in catchment XYZ displayed Pahl-Wostl’s and Hare’s (2004) capacities for social learning by
participating in the construction of risk matrices and satyagrahic accounts on the environmental impact of their irrigation
practices. See Appendices 1 and 2 for satyagrahic accounts for the years 1998/1999 and 1999/2000.
Catchment XYZ was located in the Lower Course of Australia’s Murray-Darling (MD) River system: the catchment’s water
situation was partly shaped by hydrological technologies and public policies of the larger MD Basin. The MD Basin’s tight
water situation will be adversely affected by global warming as the driest populated continent on the planet becomes drier
with prolonged periods of drought, higher temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns (Penny Whetton, Head of the CSIRO,
in ABC News Online, 2006a). Decades of excessive extraction of ground and surface water in XYZ culminated in the dual
environmental dangers of increased salinity and fluctuating watertable. These consequences adversely affected the
economics of crop cultivation, and weakened the resilience of the ecosystem. In keeping with the Beckian thesis, irrigators
experienced these hazards at the personal/individual level even though these hazards could only be mitigated through
collective reform of irrigation practices.
This issue-oriented (following Kennedy, 2011) longitudinal case-study began in 2004 and concluded in 2010.
The following layers of stakeholders contributed iteratively to the social process of constructing retrospective
annual satygrahic accounts (and risk matrices) for the period 1998/1999 to 2007/2008 (inclusive) from available
irrigation statistics: nine local irrigators, preparers of catchment irrigation accounts, regional supervisory body
(the River Murray Catchment Management Board), scientists, a water regulatory body, and water management
workshops. The water situation became so bad that two of the irrigators left the catchment by 2010. Although we did
not interview the prominent environmental body, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, our case-study
narrative includes its well publicised stance on water management practices. We used in-depth semi-structured
interviews with irrigators, the largest consumers of water, to ascertain the extent to which their participation in the
accountability process allowed them to display social learning capacities. The case site and interviewees have been de-
identified.
Prima facie, it appears self-defeating to construct risk accounts from available expert measurements, which had
contributed to XYZ’s environmental hazards in the first place. However satyagrahic accounting is not an end in itself, it is part
of the Gandhian journey of collectively learning to experiment with truth. These anticipatory accounts of the known aspects
of the catchment’s complex causality should prompt users to seek new meanings for unfamiliar circumstances.
We explain the identity of the irrigators through Beckian constructs. Irrigators formed a significant part of XYZ’s lay-
community: the catchment was a major horticultural region with large mechanised vineyards that employed transient
back-packers to harvest grapes. They managed substantial corporate or private viticulture businesses, managing/
owning several holdings that averaged between 70 and100 acres per holding. Both private and corporate irrigators were
under pressure to satisfy financial targets because private businesses relied on external financiers to fund their
operations. However, individual growers did not speak with one voice: their competing perspectives reflected different
levels of self-confrontedness about the extent to which environmental degradation could jeopardise business viability.
Consequently, the more reflexive irrigators took advantage of our analytical-deliberative platform to contest the
prevailing efficiency ethos and contemplate new environmental accountings to guide their individual and collective
actions in the future.
We now posit catchment XYZ in the context of the larger MD Basin. Section 6.1.1 explains how the Basin’s water-
management policies and irrigation technologies contributed to XYZ’s environmental hazards (in Section 6.1.2).
6.1.1. MD basin
The MD River system supplies water to the continent’s food production areas in the upstream states of Queensland and
New South Wales, and downstream states of Victoria and South Australia. Its water cycle had been stressed by weir-dam
technologies and state policies that directed its waters to farm, industrial and urban consumers.
‘‘Rivers, irrigation, farming and the environment have not had an easy relationship for much of the period of European
settlement. And what rivers we [Australians] have - often dry, sometimes flooding extensively – they defy European
desire for order and regularity. Since settlement Australians have wanted to alter not just the course of rivers but in so
doing, fight against the very climate itself’’ (Hindsight, 2008; also, Bonyhady, 2000; Sinclair, 2001).
By 2008, 53% of water available in the MD had been diverted (Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, 2010): it far
exceeded the 33% hydrological safety threshold,
‘‘The best-available science suggests that there is a substantial risk that a working river will not be in a healthy state
when key system attributes of the flow regime are reduced below two-thirds of their natural level’’ (Wentworth Group
of Concerned Scientists, 2010, p. 1).
This state of self-confrontedness was compounded by over-extraction of ground water, the Basin’s highly variable climate
(both geographically and over time), and failure of the state and expert systems to rein in technological excesses. However,
there were no significant changes to irrigation technologies in upstream catchments even after scientists cautioned that the
decade-long drought, which began in 2000, left downstream catchments in a ‘‘critical condition’’ (Wentworth Group of
Concerned Scientists, 2010, p. 11):
‘‘This drought was the straw to break the overburdened and over-allocated Murray-Darling Basin’s environmental back.
No one predicted how quickly this would happen. The Lower Lakes on the River Murray [close to the case-site] have water
levels below sea level, perhaps for the first time in more than 7000 years with the spectre that if they completely dry out,
sulphuric acid will be mobilized and deliver the final blow to the freshwater environment’’ (Kingsford, 2008).
This apathy was attributed to the psychological distance between irrigators and environmental hazards. In 2001 the
Conservative Federal government responded with the National Water Initiative (NWI), structural reform driven by market-
defined efficiencies. It comprised of
(i) a water market that directed water to the most profitable users by allowing users to trade their water rights (that were
delinked from land rights: Martin, 2010)
(ii) centralised oversight of the MD Basin in one Federal authority, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), through the
2007 Commonwealth Water Act (No. 137), and
(iii) Water Accounting standards that barely accounted for ecological resilience.
We evaluate each NWI component in turn: with respect to (i), market signals did not prompt growers to balance the
cultivation of profitable (but thirsty) crops with ecosystem resilience because prices ignored the amount of risk that society
was prepared to tolerate (Martin, 2010).
With regard to (ii), even though the MDBA sought to implement the Water Act’s objective of protecting and restoring the
Basin’s ecosystem, the Basin’s largest water consumers, the irrigators, distrusted the MDBA’s scientific definition of
‘‘sustainable levels of water diversion’’. Irrigators rejected the MDBA’s initial recommendation that 3000–4000 Gl of water be
returned to the environment on grounds that it privileged the resilience of the Basin’s ecosystem over socio-economic
concerns (ABC News Online, 2010a; Goode, 2010; Murray-Darling Basin Authority, 2010). Its Chairman, an environmental
scientist, resigned and was replaced by an ex-politician. The revised recommendation of returning 2750 Gl to the River drew
fire from environmentalists as they regarded the reduced volume as a ‘‘manipulated science’’ that attempted to ‘‘engineer a
predetermined political outcome’’ (Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists in ABC News online, 2012). Further, the
MDBA’s centralised approach failed to diffuse responsibilities down to local communities (following Cashman, 2011). Even
though Kennedy (2011) concedes that top-down regulations should be employed if stakeholders do not accept collective
responsibilities for the other, we follow Gandhi (1993) in arguing that these self-confronted circumstances highlight the
need for catchment-based discourse that mobilises collective responsibility by drawing attention to shared concerns.
Regarding item (iii), the Water Accounting Standards Board, 2009, exposure drafts defined ‘‘water accounting’’ as
‘‘. . .the systematic process of identifying, recognising, quantifying, reporting, assuring and publishing information
about water, the rights or other claims to that water, and the obligations against that water. . .to support public and
investor confidence in the amount of water being traded, extracted for consumptive use, and recovered and managed
for environmental and other public benefit outcomes’’ (Bureau of Meteorology, 2009).
It was informed by the Conceptual Framework which unproblematically extended conventional accounting definitions to
the other. For instance, a water asset was defined as generating ‘‘future benefits’’ for the ‘‘water report entity’’ or ‘‘a group of
stakeholders of a physical water report entity’’ (para 9–12) although the conventional asset’s accountability is restricted to
the entity. Further the Framework uses volume of water (litres)5 as the medium of accounting but litres cannot integrate the
water cycle’s multiple attributes. Consequently the Water Accounts obscured the efficiency frame that stressed the MD’s
natural cycle.
Therefore, the tension between the frames for ecological resilience and efficiency belies the fact that sustainability is not a
zero-sum game. The Basin’s history of water-management shows that the hegemony of efficiency emanates from
unsustainable irrigation technologies, structural reform and water discourse. We now examine hegemony in the context of
risk-based class relations (that has been explained in Section 3.3). Beck’s (1993) ‘‘boomerang effect’’ (p. 37) reflects his (and
Gandhian) premise that sustainability is not a zero-sum game:
5
With the exception of water attributes such as salinity that was quantified as milligrams of dissolved solid per litre.
‘‘Sooner or later the risks [associated with unsustainable economic activities] catch up with those who produce or
profit from them. Risks display a social boomerang effect in their diffusion: even the rich and powerful are not safe from
them. . .The agents of modernisation themselves are emphatically caught in the maelstrom of hazards that they
unleash and profit from’’ (Beck, 1993, p. 37, emphases original).
Beckian class relations fracture the MD Basin community into (relative) positions as producers and consumers of risks-
dangers associated with conventional irrigation technologies. ‘‘Relative’’ because no single (homogeneous) group of actors
remain as enduring (or permanent) producers or consumers of risk. As stated earlier, the Basin’s history of water-
management reveals that the hegemony of efficiency emanated from irrigation technologies, structural reform and water
discourse. We now identify the producers of risk, who (under Beck’s class definition) profited from the production and
perpetuation of unsustainable conventional irrigation and accountability technologies, under the levels of degradation in the
Basin that prevailed at this time of this study. They were the manufacturers of unsustainable irrigation technologies,
gatekeepers of the efficiency discourse (namely, conventional scientific experts and technical monitoring-reporting
systems), irrigators and governments of the upstream states of Queensland and New South Wales. These states depend on
the tax revenue collected from economic activities which were in turn made possible by unsustainable levels of water
diversion. The downstream states, irrigators and citizens of South Australia, and to a lesser extent, Victoria, were consumers
of risk because they were confronted by cumulative hazards that were compounded by unsustainable irrigation practices
upstream. These hazards manifested as increasing salinity and fluctuating watertable levels. Section 6.1.2 shows that
irresponsible actions of some irrigators in these downstream states have fractured this category of irrigators into those with
risk-victim and risk-producer perspectives. If no remedial reform is undertaken in the longer run, the boomerang effect could
turn these producers of risk into victims. This social fracturing reinforces the need for a socially constructed water-
management discourse that is inter-penetrated with techno-scientific expertise.
6.1.2. Catchment XYZ: technological risks
Catchment XYZ was part of the fastest growing viticultural region in Australia. Growers used river and ground water to
compensate for low rainfall in this catchment:
‘‘The rainfall here is only 380 mm of rain which is nowhere near enough to grow a crop of grapes’’ (Irrigator A).
In the early years, growers employed low-tech irrigation methods that complemented nature’s rhythm:
‘‘winter floods or irrigations. . .[that] fill the sub-soil moisture up and the vines could survive on that for the rest of the
year’’ (Irrigator A).
Electricity was supplied to rural areas in 1950. The electric pump technology allowed irrigators to impose the efficiency
frame on the ground water cycle. Irrigators preferred ground to river water as it was more reliable because downstream
irrigators had to make do with what little water was left in the MD after the upstream states had extracted their (over-
allocated) entitlements. By 1970, the unintended consequences of extracting four times more underground water (per year)
than was being naturally recharged into the aquifer (through precipitation) manifested as the dual manufactured hazards of
the falling watertable and increasing salinity:
‘‘. . .with over-pumping, they were dragging salt water in from the edges and the salinity was going up like crazy. The natural
levels in the bore holes were going down and they had merely basically emptied the basin [ie catchment XYZ]’’ (Irrigator A).
These hazards not only threatened cultivated crops, but they also radically tipped the odds against native vegetation
(such as red gums) restoring the resilience of the ecosystem. Subsequent weir, lock, pipe and dam technologies were
employed to artificially create Lake Alexandrina, which in turn entrenched the practice of cultivating thirsty (introduced)
crops. The introduction of Lake water caused the watertable problem to reverse and rise beyond the natural level instead.
‘‘Natural’’ here refers to the level of the watertable attributed to precipitation and natural (as opposed to technologically
manipulated) seepage of surface water:
‘‘We all got our full allocation back again because we went to MD water and it was all imported from the Lake. Now the
sub-artesian basin, [we] might pump 2000 megalitres out of it per year and the recharge is about 6000 megalitres. So
now that’s become a problem the other way, because the sub-artesian has returned to its natural level which then puts
upward pressure on the drainage water and you are getting non-confined water tables sitting above the confined
water of the sub-artesian basin. . . All the salts will build up. . .[because]. there’s clay underneath’’ (Irrigator A).
This history illustrates how irrigation became synonymous with wine-grape production6 (Davidson, 2003). Next we narrate
how the vocabulary of efficiency (that disregarded environmental resilience) became entrenched in XYZ’s irrigation accounts.
6
Davidson (2003) discloses that irrigation is used (1) when vineyard is being established as it allow rapid and uniform development of the vines; (2) as an
insurance measure when the vines mature because it maintains consistent vine health by ‘‘eliminating most of the psychological stresses from dry spells
during the growing season’’; (3) as a means of controlling the berry ripening process so that the appropriate style of fruit can be produced to suit the
winemakers’ needs (p. 62).
6.1.2.1. Partisan irrigation accounts

XYZ’s irrigators responded to the dual manufactured hazards in the late 1970s by forming the Water Resources
Committee, under South Australia’s Water Resources Act 1976. It was responsible for ‘‘the development and delivery of
policies to coordinate management of’’ (Muller, 2002, p. 2) groundwater resources. In 1996, it initiated an Irrigation
Reporting Scheme, which required irrigators to monitor and submit prescribed irrigation statistics that were collated into
catchment-based Annual Irrigation Accounts (AIA). In 1997, the Water Resources Act was amended and the Committee was
reconstituted as a non-statutory Water Management Board.
The Board prescribed the following irrigation statistics: the amount of river and ground water applied, volume of the
water sample from 1 metre below the root zone, salinity of water from below the root zone, groundwater level in monitoring
well, distribution uniformity, extent of floods by hectare and length of time, annual irrigation, salinity of irrigation water
applied to the crop, salinity of the soil under the root zone, aquifer recharge volumes, area of each type of irrigated crop, and
area of non-irrigated deep-rooted vegetation. Irrigators who submitted these statistics to AIA were granted ‘‘accredited
irrigator’’ status, a precondition for accessing water entitlements: 110–114 irrigators complied in 2004. The South Australian
Department for Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation conducted audits at random to ensure the integrity of the
accreditation process (Muller, 2002).
AIA entrenched the MD Basin’s efficiency ethos at the expense of the resilience of the water cycle by representing
prescribed irrigation statistics as standalone (un-integrated) time series graphs, and scatter plots that showed each
irrigator’s performance relative to other irrigators. It encouraged ‘‘bare minimum thinking’’ that did not contest taken-for-
granted norms about efficiency:
‘‘So we are looking at water statistics, and asking how we can do it to maintain the [water] licence, and how we can do
it better. I think when you look at that, we just have to do this to keep our [water extraction] licence. . . . this is the bare
minimum’’ (Irrigator D).
‘‘It is useful from the point of view that it provides us with a feedback mechanism to say that we are operating within
the benchmark for water use and other aspects, particularly in relation to water use. . . And that’s a demonstration that
we are being diligent in terms of what we do. . .’’ (Irrigator B).
The efficiency discourse did not draw the irrigators’ attention to the need to balance salinity and the watertable. Salinity should
have been mitigated by adjusting the rate at which irrigation leached/added salts from/to the soil, and the watertable managed by
equalising the rate at which water was extracted/replenished. Instead irrigators continued to irrigate with saline water:
‘‘The threshold for vines to grow in salt water is, from my experience, is about 2500 ppm [parts per million]. I know
there are people probably irrigating with bore water more than that, the problem being you have to put more water on
to flush those salts through. So you are flushing through with salty water. But when you’re not irrigating with that salty
water, the salt will tend to sit wherever that water front from your irrigation has stopped. Now if you do a small
irrigation, that so-called water front finishes around your root zone: that salt will dry and stay there’’ (Irrigator C).
Davidson (2003) demonstrated how expertise could inter-penetrate this lived experience: she warned that salinity
higher than 1200 ppm was unsustainable for grape vines unless there was adequate water or consistently high winter
rainfall to leach the salts in the long-term. AIA should have provided socially constructed spaces, inter-penetrated with
expertise, that allowed growers to deliberate about balancing salinity and watertable.
We now demonstrate why AIA’s standalone information made it difficult for irrigators to balance salinity and the
watertable: there were two sources of salinity, river and ground water. The timelines in Appendix 4 show salinity of river
(RW) and ground waters (GW), and Appendix 5 reveals the volume of water used to recharge the underground aquifer to
reduce its salinity. It became quickly apparent that the complex relationship between salinity and water recharged cannot be
ascertained through these linear standalone timelines: ground water salinity peaked in 2003/2004, but it began to decline
before the spike in volume of artificially recharged water in 2007.
Further, the level of the watertable (in Appendix 6) had to be estimated indirectly through surrogate measures – the
number of test-bore wells reporting rising, falling, or static water levels – as
‘‘.aquifers are very hard to watch because they are all underground and you can’t see anything. . .’’ (Irrigator E).
These difficulties highlight the need to represent the uncertainty and complexity inherent in real-world causal
relationships. The absence of such analytical-deliberative spaces led irrigators to choose the less saline Lake water, which
created an additional unconfined watertable:
‘‘The water coming out of the Murray is much less saline than what we were pumping out of the sub-artesian. Like the
Murray, let’s say it is 700 parts per million and the sub-artesian water put on the lucerne [crop] probably ranges from
over 2500, maybe up to 3000 ppm’’ (Irrigator A).
Irrigators perceived the process of monitoring irrigation statistics as a means of securing water entitlements, instead of
shaping their adaptive strategies (also de Bruyn, 2009). The advent of Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
introduced risk management checklists of climatic conditions (frost, wind, hail and summer rainfall), varietal risk (associated
with when different varieties of grapes ripen), water security and risk of fungal diseases (following Davidson, 2001).
Table 6
Qualitative description of state of Red gum vegetation in XYZ catchement.
Health of red gum: 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008
% of tree health
Dead 0.35% 0.50% 4.00%
Nearly dead 0.35% 1.50% 5.00%
Stressed 0.20% 8.00% 17.00%
Unhealthy 1.60% 9.00% 12.00%
Suboptimal 13.50% 20.00% 13.00%
Healthy 84.00% 61.00% 49.00%
Total 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Source: Irrigation Accounts for XYZ catchments for the years 2005/2006–2007/2008.
However, its water security attributes were not linked to AIA. Further the health of native vegetation (Red gum trees) was
monitored from 2005/2006 onwards, but it too was represented as a standalone measure. Table 6 shows the cumulative
impact of irrigation on ecosystem resilience with 84% healthy gums in 2005/2006 dwindling to 49% in 2007/2008.
By 2008, grape cultivation in South Australia accounted for 23% of irrigation water (ABS, 2008–9): this statistic signifies
the extent to which economic prosperity (generated through irrigation and accounting technologies) was paradoxically
undermined by these technologies’ disregard of natural resilience. Self-confronted irrigators were painfully aware of how
AIA perpetuated the dichotomy between real and perceived risks. They preferred integrated environmental accounts that
could provide a customised platform for rethinking existing practices and adapting to ecological needs:
‘‘. . .[there is a need to] collect more integrated data that can then be used to set quantifiable benchmarks. At the moment
to suggest that we [on one side of the catchment] should put on the same amount of water as someone over. . .[the other
side of the catchment]. . .it is not a reasonable assumption to make – different soil types, different depths to the water
table, we have different climatic requirements. . ., it’s probably windier where we are, there’s a whole complex of data
involved in that and quite dangerous to make assumptions that one is appropriate to the other. And you can’t do that
fairly, I don’t think without having some pretty serious solid information behind you’’ (Irrigator B).
6.2. XYZ’s risk matrices and satyagrahic accounts
Section 5.1 showed how our semi-qualitative risk matrix (e.g. Table 5) was constructed through iterative interaction with
experts and lay-stakeholders. Here we demonstrate how the matrix assisted stakeholders to construct satyagrahic accounts
on the extent to which the water cycle was stressed by irrigation practices.
For the sake of clarity, we begin with the final satyagrahic accounts. We then demonstrate how these accounts were
constructed from stress factors and integrated assessments of perceived risk.
6.2.1. Final satyagrahic accounts

Satyagrahic accounts were produced for each of the ten years from 1998/1999 to 2007/2008. They represented (i)
comparative overall risk-danger profiles (Appendix 1) and (ii) comparative risk-danger related to water consumed by crops
(Appendix 2). Ideally, these accounts should have been constructed through multiple iterative interactions with experts,
regulators and irrigators: the iterative process socialises technical data, compensates for lack of technical expertise among
lay-communities (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993; Pellizzoni, 1999), builds trust, and secures greater acceptance of the
emergent accounts. Due to time constraint, only one round of stakeholder consultations was incorporated into our matrices
and accounts.
6.2.2. Calculating stress factors, assessing and integrating risk into satyagrahic accounts
In Appendix 7 we list five steps that were followed in calculating the stress factor and assess risk for ‘‘ground water
utilised’’, an irrigation attribute in the 1998/1999 accounts (see Appendix 1).
These five steps were repeated for each irrigation attribute displayed on the radar plot. For practical convenience, the risk
matrices and satyagrahic radar plots were produced through the Integrated Risk Assessment Toolkit, software which
provided a ‘‘wizard’’ type interface on the Microsoft Access platform.
Note that risk was assessed in a discretionary, not mechanical, manner. For instance, ‘‘Total water utilised’’ in 1998/1999
had a stress factor of 1.01: see Table 7. Its perceived risk was assessed as a category (3) risk, an assessment that lay outside
the column in which the stress factor appeared.
6.2.3. Deliberative evaluations

Irrigators, the largest consumers of water, used these satyagrahic accounts and supporting risk matrices to deliberate
about the impact of multiple irrigation-causes on hazards, which were represented through salinity (Appendix 4) and
fluctuating watertable timelines (Appendix 6). They harnessed the contestability inherent in these risk accounts to
interrogate the values embedded in the AIAs, and to deliberate about adapting irrigation practices to the natural water cycle.
Table 7
Total water utilised for 1998/9.
Rating POSSIBLE/STATUS QUO that is, (3).

Reasons:
As previously mentioned – assumed change of emphasis away from Ground water to River water usage. Cannot continue to lower the watertable – need to
balance overall water usage.
Apart from rainfall two sources of water irrigation. One is on the increase, the other is on the decrease.
‘‘Adapting’’ means balancing the rates at which salts were leached/added from/to soil, groundwater was extracted/
replenished, and river/ground waters utilised through commercial irrigation practices. It may ultimately lead to changes in
expected crop yields and types of crops cultivated:
‘‘From an irrigation point of view, by irrigating, we are importing salt from somewhere else – it is such a critical
problem from a sustainability point of view that we are bringing in things that are not going out the door the other end.
Fertilisers or what-have-you, you bring in and then shift out as a fruit to some extent. To have no net loss over the
entire equation, not just for . . .[a]. . . specific vineyard but for the region, it is a difficult equation to come up with
something that is sustainable’’ (Irrigator B).
Hence Section 6.3 evaluates the extent to which irrigators displayed social learning capacities as they constructed and
applied these risk matrices and satyagrahic accounts.
6.3. Results: capacities for social learning displayed
Here we tease out thematic quotations from in-depth interviews conducted in 2010 with the seven remaining irrigators
to demonstrate the extent to which our risk matrices and satyagrahic accounts contributed to irrigators displaying Pahl-
Wostl’s and Hare’s (2004) capacities for social learning. We did not ascertain the impact on subsequent irrigation practices as
the study concluded after these accounts were finalised and evaluated by irrigators. Table 8 summarises irrigators’
responses: a cross in the body of the table indicates that the irrigator in question had demonstrated a particular social
learning capacity.
We begin with an overview of the results of the study. Irrigators A,B,C,D were already familiar with Standards Australia
International’s risk management pronouncements. They displayed many of the social learning capacities as they took
advantage of the risk matrices’ and satyagrahic accounts’ transparent and contestable interconnectivity to interrogate the
AIA’s, each other’s and our assumptions and values, before suggesting ways to better represent their lived experiences.
Irrigators E–G were less familiar with formal risk management tools and demonstrated fewer capacities to learn socially.
Table 8
Matrix showing capacities for social learning by irrigators.
Capacity for social learning De-identified irrigators
A B C D E F G
Aware of competing perspectives x x x x x x

Shared problem identification x x x x x x
Appreciate complex causality of hazards x x x x x x
Motivated to work collaboratively x x x x x Not initially
Trust
Informal connections
E and F appreciated the link between resilience of the natural water cycle and the risk-danger matrix when the underlying
constructs were explained to them again. Although E, a former Water Board member, was politically aligned to the efficiency
ethos, he eventually conceded that his arguments were contestable. Irrigator (G), a member of the older generation of
growers, was uncomfortable with the risk matrix although he asserted that he had always subjectively considered the risk.
He suggested interviewing his younger employees as they would be familiar with risk-management tools.
We now elaborate on each capacity for social learning listed in Table 8 with quotations from irrigators. Firstly, awareness
of competing-and-interdependent goals and perspectives: even though these irrigators experienced financial pressures to
satisfy investors, they acknowledged that they had to re-define their notion of sustainability because it is not a zero-sum
game. Solomon et al. (2011) show that institutional investors regard sustainability as opportunities to be exploited
financially: this is reflected in irrigator F‘s reference (below) to green clean investment opportunities.
‘‘. . .all our investors . . . have a pretty good understanding of the fact that we are dealing with an agricultural situation
and that has its inherent risks. And big risks as well: we are dealing with environments that is totally out of people’s
control. . .I think one of the reasons why they have invested in the industry is because they think the industry is
reasonably clean and green sort of industry to invest in’’ (Irrigator F).
However, self-confronted grower-irrigators (like D) had little choice but to become sustainable because the farm sector in
XYZ was in the frontline of environmental degradation: these irrigators had first-hand experience of how salinity and
fluctuating watertable diminished the value of their land, and the economic viability of their farms.
‘‘As you said, looking at salinity issues and crop use efficiencies and the like, really makes growers think, ‘Well what if I
am doing isn’t sustainable?’. . .For me the big issue for growers here is the sustainability issue. And that ties very well
into the whole risk profile that you have developed. I think that to aim for a sustainable level of risk would be where we
would be going because in any business you are always going to have levels of risk, but in agriculture the breaking
point is obviously very clear and we just need to understand this. . .Sustainability is keeping our investors happy and
going about that, obviously they need to make some money. The way they do that is by having a vineyard that is
producing quality fruit at the best quality price. Sustainability is having a local biodiversity which covers fauna, flora,
insects, and imbalance in the vineyard’’ (Irrigator D).
Maintaining ‘‘imbalance’’ implies allowing nature to take its course and not stressing it with AIA’s efficiency frame: our
analytical-deliberative platform provided a space for growers to articulate alternative values at a time of growing scepticism
of expert advice.
Secondly, with respect to identifying a shared problem, catchment XYZ’s risk-danger profile highlighted the tension
between the AIA’s efficiency ethos, and the dual environmental hazards. Concerned irrigators used the semi-qualitative risk
matrices to de-legitimise entity-oriented accountability and prioritised natural resilience instead:
‘‘There is definitely benefit in any data which takes a macro view of our environment down here. I think it would assist
in our decision making going forward with our water resources. We all understand at the moment that our ground
water aquifer is under some level of stress. And that is not due to current over-usage. I think it is related to usage from
many years ago. And with the advent of the pipeline that draws River Murray water, we have obviously freed some of
the pressure off that aquifer. But moving forward. . .we want to recover our aquifer’’ (Irrigator B).
The matrix became a vehicle for not just articulating competing meanings of sustainability but for learning from this
exchange as well:
‘‘How can we go the next step? What else can we do? I think [monitoring] biodiversity comes into that’’ (Irrigator D).
‘‘There was no consideration [in AIA] given to: What is the water we are actually using doing to the situation anyway,
the amount of salt that we are pouring back onto it? Now I suppose we are [through the matrices] going up the other
end and we are starting to look at how we are going to overcome this problem. But by the same token I still don’t think
we’ve got the real answers. Just by our practices, we are concentrating salt initially in the root zone then eventually in
the soil profile’’ (Irrigator F).
Thirdly, the matrices allowed irrigators to appreciate the complexities of the underlying causal relationships, including
questioning how the accounts engaged with known and unknown effects of irrigation:
‘‘I like the word risk – it sort of invokes a little bit more attention than other terminology used [i.e. the water efficiency
vocabulary in AIA]. I suppose we need to define, as growers and as irrigators, what are the consequences of that risk. I
think that the risk is pretty clear on some of those things, but there is probably a lot of risk that we probably don’t think
about. Clarifying what the consequences are would be good’’ (Irrigator C).
However irrigator E, a former member of the Board, was politically aligned to the ‘‘certainty’’ implied in AIA; he criticised
the matrix for not measuring stress ‘‘accurately’’. E also objected to the intervals of stress factors that were used to represent
severity of consequences in Tables 5 and 7 because he feared it could legitimise water cuts proposed by the MDBA and the
Wentworth Group:
‘‘We the irrigators, we are on the eve of having a new water allocation plan. The Department of Water Land and
Biodiversity and Conservation (DWLBC) want to cut the underground water aquifer up to 25% of its current
allocation. That brings a lot of people kicking and screaming to meetings because they object to that in a big way.
What they have trouble with is appreciating – and this is where I am coming back to – the definition of stress.
What is stress? Let me explain in the context of our catchment. The aquifer back in the 1970s when the
Committee was first formed, people realised that the water level was going down dramatically because they were
pumping it all on lucerne [crop]. They took action and the decline in the aquifer level slowed down. But then,
subsequent to that, the salinity started going up. So there was an issue there. Now the experts are saying the
allocations need to be cut. People who know the aquifer and have worked the aquifer for 30–40 years are saying
well, yes, sure it might be, but it will not be replenished by cutting the allocations. So it comes back to what is
stress?
So I can see where you are headed with these matrices. . .But . . .the consequence column that just uses a multiplying
factor from a baseline year to say that it was more stressed or is most stressed. But I. . .have a lot of trouble with risk
scales, a lot of trouble accepting that once it gets over 1.25 that you call it most stressed.
. . .the growers here . . .in the last few months [in 2010] demanded that nothing virtually happens with the [national]
water allocation plan until this model [a hydrological model developed for the DWLBC: elaborated below], is released
or is understood as to what effect various extraction rates will have on both salinity and the level of the aquifer. . .I
think it [the matrix] is going to be useful but. . ..those [consequence scale] columns [should] be accurately defined
through a tool such as through the DWLBC model’’ (Irrigator E).
However, other irrigators took advantage of the matrices’ transparency to contest E’s assertions as follows: (a) it was
impossible to satisfy E’s demand for accurate indicators. XYZ’s irrigators had previously undertaken field trials to
quantify the relationship between drainage and the watertable: the study was inconclusive because it could not
evaluate the effect of rainfall, an ‘‘extraneous’’ factor. (b) Irrigator E’s assertion that DWLBC’s hydrological model
would generate ‘‘accurate’’ baseline data was problematic because the DWLBC model was based on a macro programme
that had been developed for desert conditions in Oman. This hydrological data was not available when our study was
terminated in 2010. It was questionable whether the DWLBC model’s hydrological relationships would be
more conclusive than the previous field trials. (c) The scale used in our risk matrix was not set in stone: it should
be iteratively scrutinised and contested by stakeholders as they progressed on their journey of social learning. (d)
Irrigator E’s comments below intimate that the objective ‘‘baseline’’ that he sought was either a safety threshold or
benchmark:
‘‘. . .if the [DWLBC] model said sustainable level of salinity is 2000 megalitres extraction, I‘ll be happy to make that the
baseline’’ (Irrigator E).
Predetermined thresholds enable communities to monitor changes overtime, but it is difficult to customise these
thresholds to a particular region (Reed et al., 2006). Irrigator E conceded that safety thresholds fabricate a sense of certainty
and security (Beck, 1995c):
‘‘And then you come to the River Murray, and that is another moving target’’ (Irrigator E).
It is better to use baseline data because it encourages social learning by showing how a community is progressing (Reed
et al., 2006).
The fourth capacity for social learning is the motivation to work collaboratively: even irrigator E agreed to use of baseline
data as long as hydrological data was considered when it became available.
The fifth capacity, trust, has to be engendered despite the distrust inherent in Beck’s society. Our matrix provided a space
for irrigators to deliberate over the extent to which irrigation practices stressed the water cycle (following Reed et al., 2006).
Trust began to emerge from this discursive engagement with competing meanings of our risk accounts. For instance, irrigator
E’s initial distrust gradually gave way to reflexive acknowledgement that his arguments were contestable. However, the
study was terminated before any substantive evidence of trust was observed. Similarly in the case of the last capacity,
informal relationships between irrigators: the formal networks were already in place through the Water Management Board
structure but it was too early to identify substantive informal links.
7. Concluding discussion
This paper builds on two strands of the accountability literature: firstly, calls for imaginative emancipatory accounts
(Gray, 2002; Tinker, 1985; Tinker et al., 1991) have taken a customised turn favouring situation-specific sensitivity to the
other (Messner, 2009; McKernan and MacLullich, 2004). Secondly, social perspectives of risk are increasingly used to
integrate the multiple attributes of environmental degradation because risk discourse can represent the uncertainty and
complexity inherent in emergent accounts of the catastrophic potential of intermediate and intolerable risks (Beck, 1993;
Solomon et al., 2011; Klinke and Renn, 2002).
Beck (1993) explains how increased awareness of these risks and uncertainties culminates in a state of individualised
self-confrontedness that should lead to a reflexive society. Despite the relative positions of (risk-based) producer and victim
classes, which are attributed to the social boomerang effect of degradation, Hanlon (2010) asserts that competing
individualised meanings of sustainability are more likely to thwart reflexivity than engender it. A socially constructed risk
discourse inter-penetrated with expertise, that draws attention to shared degradation concerns, could narrow the gap
between Beck’s and Hanlon’s polarised perspectives. Saravanamuthu (2009, 2008, 2006) employs Gandhi’s (1993)
satyagrahic-swaraj discourse to propose risk accounts that harness and mobilise self-confrontedness into reflexive social
learning about the other.
Our proposed semi-qualitative risk matrix formalises and enhances the satyagrahic process of socially assessing risk. It
draws individuals’ attention to shared concerns, which could undermine everyone’s wellbeing, by bringing the needs of the
catchment to the fore of this participatory risk assessment exercise. Our matrix engenders social learning by harnessing the
contestability of the satyagrahic risk assessment exercise itself. It minimises the chances of this contestability spiralling into
Hanlon’s destructive spiral of competing meanings by placing shared concerns about environmental hazards (which could
boomerang back onto producers of risk) front and centre of this exercise.
We used an irrigation case-study to implement the risk matrix and evaluate the extent to which irrigators – the primary
consumers of water – displayed capacities for social learning as they participated in the construction, and application, of
satyagrahic accounts. Irrigators used the matrix to canvass how the rates at which (i) ground and surface water were
extracted/replenished, and (ii) salts were added/leached through land management practices, could be adapted to the
natural water cycle. The matrix allowed irrigators to think beyond instrumental monitoring of environmental indicators, and
adapt to ecological needs instead. Four out of seven irrigators (A–D) displayed many of Pahl-Wostl’s and Hare’s (2004)
learning capacities. The remaining three irrigators retained greater levels of psychological distance from these manufactured
hazards, and displayed fewer capacities of social learning. Whilst unfamiliarity with formal risk discourse had contributed to
an irrigator’s psychological distance, risk is expected to become more commonplace as an organising concept. We argue that
this community’s sense of self-confrontedness motivated it to embrace the matrix and satyagrahic accounts as a discursive
space, but the space itself countered individualism by positing the individuals’ competing perspectives in the context of their
shared concerns. Our study was concluded before any changes to land and water management practices were effected.
Nevertheless, we argue that our risk matrices (and satyagrahic accounts) moderate self-confronted individuals’ urge to
prioritise their financial interests over the health of the ecosystem by revealing how environmental degradation is central to
everyone’s wellbeing. Its contestable analytical platform helps decision-makers display social learning capacities that could
lead to adaptive management strategies in the future.
Acknowledgements
We thank Gordon Boyce, David Moore, Susan McGowan, Judy Brown, Robert Nyamori and anonymous CPA 2011, IPA
2009 and CPA reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper. In particular we thank Tony Ward,
research assistant for the case study, for time and effort spent in extracting data from Annual Irrigation Accounts and
processing this multi-attribute data using the Integrated Risk Management Toolkit methodology. We will be always
indebted to the irrigators and catchment agencies for insights gained from their lived experiences and thoughts. This study
was made possible by grants from the Universities of Newcastle, and New England.
Appendix 1. Comparative overall integrated risk profile for 1998/1999 and 1999/2000
Ground Water Utilised

5
Other Ave Irrigation 4 River Water Utilised
3
2
1 1998/9
Grape ave irigation 0 Total Water Utilised
1999/2000
Other Irrigated Total Area Irrigated
Grape area irrigated
Appendix 2. Comparative water consumption by crops for 1998/1999 and 1999/2000
Grapes
5
4
Other 3 Lucerne
2
1 1998/9
0
1999/2000
Almond Vegetables
Fodder
Appendix 3. Calculating stress factors for irrigation statistics
Consumption of ground and surface water

Measure 1: Ground water
utilised
1997-1998: pre-
drought base
year 1998-1999 1999-2000
Current ML/ baseline ML 2392/2392 2107/2392 2129/b
Stress factor 1 0.88 0.89
Measure 2: River water
utilised
1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000
Measure 3: Total water
utilised: river & ground for
crops
1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000
Crops - acreage of irrigated area

1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000
Measure 4: Changes in total
ha irrigated
Current total ha of grape &
others/ baseline ha 6502/6502 6153/6502 6625/b
Measure 5: Changes in grape

ha irrigated
Current ha of grape/baseline 3645/3645 4084/3645 4665/b
Measure 6: Changes in other

ha irrigated 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000
Current ha of other crops
/baseline 2857/2857 2069/2857 1960/b
Irrigation stats by crops

1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000
Ave irrigation: mm/yr by crops
Measure 7: i) Grapes
Current ave ML per yr/baseline 167/167 217/167 238/b
Measure 8: ii) All other crops

Current ave ML per yr/baseline 1863/1863 1665/1863 1951/b
Crops – water consumption

1999-
1997-1998 1998-1999 2000
Grapes: ave ML per ha
Current ave ML per yr for
grapes/baseline 1.65/1.65 2.17/1.65 2.15/b
Lucerne: ave ML per ha

Current ave ML for Lucerne per
ha/baseline 4.22/4.22 5.05/4.22 5.96/b
Vegetable: ave ML per ha
Current ave ML for vegetable
per ha/baseline 3.93/3.93 4.55/3.93 6.29/b
For vegetables - acreage to explain extent of stress above

Current ha under veg/baseline 679/679 518/679 121/b
Total water use for

vegetables
Total ML for veg/baseline 2670/2670 2355/2670 761/b
Potato: ave ML per ha

Ave ML per ha not grown not grown 3.74
Current ave ML per yr for
potatoes/baseline 3.74/3.74
Stress factor 1
Fodder: ave ML per ha

Current ave ML per ha for
fodder/baseline 4.14/4.14 3.76/4.14 3.73/b
1999-
Almond: ave ML per ha 1997-1998 1998-1999 2000
Current ave ML per ha for
almond/baseline 2.41/2.41 1.95/2.41 2.83/b
Other crops: ave ML per ha

Current ave ML per ha for other
crops/baseline 2.58/2.58 1.33/2.58 1.74/b
Appendix 4. Time series graph showing salinity levels (ppm)
Salinity
8000
7000
6000
5000 Upper Level GW

PPM
Lower Level GW
4000 Upper Level RW
Lower Level RW
3000
2000
1000
0
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005-
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Years
Appendix 5. Volume of water artificially recharged/pumped into aquifer
Volume Water Recharged

2500000
2000000
Kilolitres
1500000
Series1
1000000
500000
0
7
8
99
99
99
00
00
00
00
00
00
00
00
00
-1
-1
-1
-2
-2
-2
-2
-2
-2
-2
-2
-2
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
Years
Appendix 6. Time series on number of test wells reporting rising, falling or static watertable. Also dry wells and nil
reports
Well Monitoring
200
180
160
140 Rising
Number
120 Static (Net)

Falling
100 Dry
No record
80
Total
60
40
20
0
1998-99 1999- 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
2000
Years
Appendix 7. Calculating stress factor and assessing risk for the irrigation attribute, ‘‘ground water utilised’’
Stress factors are calculated from baseline and observed data. Appendix 3 provides baseline data for 1997/1998, and observed
data for 1998/1999 and 1999/2000. Irrigation measurements for the accounts in Appendix 1 are numbered from 1 to 8. The
remaining measurements in Appendix 3 are used to construct the accounts in Appendix 2.
First, 1997/1998 was selected as the base year as there was less stress inflicted on the natural water cycle. The baseline for
ground water utilised was 2392 ML, and actual water utilised in 1998/1999 was 2107 ML (see Measure 1 in Appendix 3). Second,
0.88 (that is, 2107/2392) was computed as the stress factor. Third, 0.88 was inserted in the third row of Table 5 (our risk matrix) as
a ‘‘raw measure’’.
In step four, hydrologists, regulators and lay-irrigators used Table 5 to assess the risk associated with 0.88 in the context of the
catchment’s risk-danger profile. It was assessed as a category (2) risk: that is, it was ‘‘possible’’ that the consumption of 2107 ML of
ground water could culminate in a ‘‘less stressed’’ level of consequence. Reasons for this assessment were itemised as ‘‘reasons’’
below Table 5 as satyagrahic discourse harnesses the contestability of this assessment to engender social learning. The chances of
this contestability spiralling into a destructive spiral of competing meanings were minimised by bringing the shared concerns (in
the form of the catchment’s risk-danger profile) to the fore of this exercise.
In step five, the category (2) risk for Ground water utilised was displayed via the satyagrahic radar plot in Appendix 1. These
five steps were repeated for each irrigation cause displayed on the radar plot.
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Critical Perspectives on Accounting 24 (2013) 410–437

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Enhancing stakeholder interaction through environmental

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 4921 7226.

(i) reﬂect spatial and temporal dimensions of the eco-system;

2. Review: accounting for the environment

First era of modernity 1. ‘‘All we have to do is get the numbers right’’

3. Beck’s transformation of risk discourse

3.1. Beck’s ﬁrst era of modernity

Fig. 1. Risk zones.

3.2. Beck’s second era of modernity

3.3. Critical evaluation of Beckian reﬂexivity

These class-speciﬁc afﬂictions to risk-danger give rise to an

4. Translating Beck’s pillars into emancipatory accounts: a Gandhian perspective

Ideal path of dialectical movement

Fig. 2. Satyagrahic accountability constructs.

4.1. Constructing satyagrahic accounts

Fig. 3. Satyagrahic accounts representing interconnectivity between multiple attributes of sustainability.

Commercial cycle 100

Likelihood label Consequences label

A Medium High High Very high Very high

Level Likelihood Description

5. Analytical-deliberative platform for satyagrahic accounts

5.1. Proposed risk matrix

Level Consequence descriptor Deﬁnition

Legend for integrated risk estimates (see body of matrix above):

6. Case-study: impact of irrigation practices on the environment

6.1.2. Catchment XYZ: technological risks

6.1.2.1. Partisan irrigation accounts

Health of red gum: 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008

6.2. XYZ’s risk matrices and satyagrahic accounts

6.2.1. Final satyagrahic accounts

6.2.3. Deliberative evaluations

Rating POSSIBLE/STATUS QUO that is, (3).

6.3. Results: capacities for social learning displayed

Capacity for social learning De-identiﬁed irrigators

Aware of competing perspectives x x x x x x

Ground Water Utilised

Other Irrigated Total Area Irrigated

Grape area irrigated

Appendix 2. Comparative water consumption by crops for 1998/1999 and 1999/2000

Appendix 3. Calculating stress factors for irrigation statistics

Consumption of ground and surface water

Crops - acreage of irrigated area

Measure 5: Changes in grape

Measure 6: Changes in other

Irrigation stats by crops

Measure 8: ii) All other crops

Crops – water consumption

Lucerne: ave ML per ha

For vegetables - acreage to explain extent of stress above

Total water use for

Potato: ave ML per ha

Fodder: ave ML per ha

Other crops: ave ML per ha

Appendix 4. Time series graph showing salinity levels (ppm)

5000 Upper Level GW

Appendix 5. Volume of water artiﬁcially recharged/pumped into aquifer

Volume Water Recharged

120 Static (Net)

Beck U. What is globalization?. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2000.

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