Optimising the efficacy of conservation tenders under varying degrees of heterogeneity: Achieving water quality improvements in the Burdekin Dry Tropics across different management actions in different agricultural production systems and different parts of a river basin

The Burdekin Water Quality Tender tested a mechanism for the competitive allocation of public funding for improving agricultural water quality from cane and grazing industries into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The focus of the project was to evaluate how the size (scale) and coverage (scope) of a tender mechanism affects the efficiency of results. Increasing the scale of tenders allows more environmental services to be purchased, while increasing the scope over geographic areas, industries involved and the types of environmental outputs allows a greater range of proposals to be advanced. However, there may be offsetting impacts on administration and transaction costs, and on participation and bid setting by landholders.