Risk assessment is a fundamental process that underpins natural resources management. Based on the AS/NZS ISO31000:2009, the South Australian Department for Environment and Water's (DEW) water resource risk assessment focusses on western concepts of natural resource management: economic production and environmental conservation. This western framework fails to engage with Indigenous worldviews that focus on reproduction and interconnected benefit and give effect to Indigenous values and interests.
The project team developed and tested a methodology that enabled the translation of Ngarrindjeri Yannarumi decision-making and assessment methodologies into existing water resource planning risk assessments. The methodology articulated the points of connection between the Ngarrindjeri Yannarumi assessment process and DEW’s Risk Management Framework for Water Planning and Management. The project developed proposed changes to the Risk Management Framework for Water Planning and Management that includes a new multi-layered category of ‘Risk to First Nations’.