Climate change and dynamic government policy is compounding pressure on water resources in farming landscapes creating water scarcity. Successful adaptation to a more sustainable farming system in the face of water scarcity is not a foregone conclusion and requires choosing between short-term incremental change or more transformational options. In this paper, we propose a framework ‘unpacking’ four pathways that farmers might use to achieve sustainability: absorb, exploit, adapt and transform. Each pathway has specific attributes that relate to the type of farming system change undertaken. The framework is applied to 28 irrigation farmers from southern Murry Darling Basin, Australia, all facing water scarcity from drought and water policy. Using semi-structured interviews, we test the attributes and found they help understand farmers' pathway choices. We show that farmers use all four pathways, either singularly or simultaneously, to achieve a range of sustainability outcomes when facing a water crisis, although some are maladapted, and result in less sustainable outcomes. The study adds to the literature on pathways to sustainability by illustrating the need to clarify attributes that describe what each pathway means to farmers' decision-making and to consider multiple pathways, not just one, e.g. transformation. Policy implications are clear: there are various pathways to, or away from, farm sustainability. Therefore, policy interventions must be 'fit for purpose' and appropriately consider the diversity of farmer capacities and contexts. A focus on a single pathway or single technological fix will fail to deliver farm sustainability. This paper starts to develop a more specific and nuanced understanding of pathways to farm sustainability that reflect real life farming experiences with insight for policy and practice.

气候变化和动态的政府政策正在加剧农业景观中水资源的压力，造成水资源短缺。面对水资源短缺，成功适应更可持续的耕作系统并非已成定局，需要在短期渐进式变化或更具转型性的选择之间做出选择。在本文中，我们提出了一个框架“解开”农民可能用来实现可持续性的四种途径：吸收、利用、适应和转化。每个途径都有与所进行的耕作系统变化类型相关的特定属性。该框架适用于澳大利亚墨里达令盆地南部的 28 名灌溉农民，他们都面临干旱和水资源政策造成的水资源短缺。使用半结构化访谈，我们测试了属性，发现它们有助于了解农民的 路径选择。我们表明，农民在面临水危机时，单独或同时使用所有四种途径来实现一系列可持续性成果，尽管有些途径不适应，并导致不太可持续的成果。该研究通过说明需要阐明描述每条途径对农民决策的意义的属性并考虑多种途径，而不仅仅是一种途径，例如转型，从而增加了关于可持续途径的文献。政策含义很明确：实现或远离农场可持续性有多种途径。因此，政策干预必须“适合目的”，并适当考虑农民能力和环境的多样性。专注于单一途径或单一技术修复将无法实现农场的可持续性。