In Australia, multifunctionality has stimulated a debate about Globalized Productivism versus Land Stewardship.

In Australia, the unsustainability of agriculture lies in the application of European type of farming systems in an environment to which they are inherently unsuited (Gray and Lawrence, 2001), and, in pursuit of market liberalism, the application of neoliberal policies targeting "competitive" or "globalized" productivism (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). In this scenario, with the increasing influence of multinational agrifood companies, landholders are pressured to increase production and extract the greatest return from the land in a competitive marketplace in ways that do not reward environmental management (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). To reverse the social, economic and environmental decline of Australian agriculture, the Victorian government has discussed strategies with farmers for moving towards Land Stewardship. The outcome favored voluntary and education- based tools over market-based instruments and saw command-and-control regulation as a last resort (Cocklin et al., 2006, 2007). In this debate, Land Stewardship was seen as a hybrid between the "market-based instruments policy prescription" and a newer "multifunctional approach", with the recognition that people are a vital element in the sustainability equation (Cocklin et al., 2006). Multifunctionality and Land Stewardship therefore emerge as strategies promising new income streams associated with the economic diversification of the enterprise within a more spatially-variable rural space, founded on genuine social, economic and environmental integration.

Participatory land use planning has recently reemerged highlighting its political and economic nature and an increased concern with equity rather than just productivity.

The disciplines of land use and rural planning now bring together the different sectors of the rural economy, especially farming, forestry and ecosystem conservation. Comparisons of actual land use with "notional potential" derived from analysis of soils, vegetation, hydrology and climate, have been based on systems of resource survey and assessment (Dalal-Clayton et al., 2003). In the post-colonial era, these systems have tended to be technocratic tools used by centrally-planned economies and development agencies that have played key roles in both the process of conversion of forest to farming, and the improvement of farm productivity (Dalal-Clayton et al., 2003), optimally at a watershed level or regional level. This hierarchical approach was not often recognized by stakeholders, especially politicians, and was neutral to all-important market influences (Dalal- Clayton et al., 2003). Consequently, land use planning has become: (1) more decentralized, often being absorbed into district authorities; (2) more focused on processes of learning based on natural resource capabilities, rather than producing one-off master plans segregating different sectoral

land uses; and (3) more based on participatory approaches to recognize the need for greater equity, to identify locallydesirable land use planning options and to improve commitment and "ownership" (Caron, 2001; Lardon et al., 2001; Dalal-Clayton et al., 2003). These approaches have led to better national conservation and development strategies but they usually have major capacity constraints, which result in blunt sector-based plans and that do not realize all the potential synergies.

Modeling water allocation at the territorial level contributes to a more efficient water management.

Optimization economic models on water allocation among competing sectors for decision support have dominated the international literature for a long time (Salman et al., 2001; Weber, 2001; Firoozi and Merrifield, 2003). Recently, there have been an increasing number of studies adopting simulation and multi-objective frameworks. Examples include water allocation between irrigation and hydropower in North Eastern Spain (Bielsa and Duarte 2001), an economic optimization model for water resources planning in areas with irrigation systems (Reca et al., 2001), a multi-objective optimization model for water planning in the Aral Sea Basin which has uncertain water availability (McKinney and Cai, 1997), and water allocation to different user sectors from a single storage reservoir (Babel et al., 2005). Links between policy and basin hydrology for water allocation are now being used to allocate water among users based on flow and shortage rights, consumptive rights and irrigation efficiencies (Green and Hamilton, 2000), although the recent implementation of new approaches needs to be better assessed.

A territorial approach to the examination of land management has mitigated issues of land insecurity, inequitable distribution of land, and social conflict.

Customary land tenure issues can potentially create social tension if the rights of all farmers and herdsmen are not addressed when developing new land use practices. Understanding local land management makes it possible to assess the impact of policies and to question their relevancy (Platteau, 1996; Ensminger, 1997; DeSoto, 2005), and assess the suitability of individual land rights (LeRoy et al., 1996). Local rights and institutions are now recognized by the international authorities (Deininger and Binswanger, 2001; World Bank, 2003) and entitlement policy is no longer considered to be the only solution. Beyond the identification of the various regulation authorities (Schlager and Ostrom, 1992), the territorial approach now articulates the local level with national and international levels (Lavigne Delville, 1998; Mathieu et al., 2000), thereby taking into account the plurality of systems, local authorities and land rights.