RIVER DROUGHT: The Murray River in South Australia showing the effects of the prolonged drought.
Image: iStockphoto
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
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Another summer is heating up Down Under, and the forecast looks as worrisome and as potentially deadly as last summer's. A decade of drought is parching landscapes, devastating farmers, killing gum trees, and forcing a new definition of conservation into the continental nation's colorful lexicon. Could Australia see a day when a bottle of water is worth more than a bottle of Shiraz?
They just might. "This is literally a country running out of water," says author–activist Maude Barlow, senior advisor on water to the United Nations. Barlow recently witnessed the reality of Australia's water woes firsthand, from a helicopter above the Murray–Darling river system. "We flew over this dead zone," she recalls. "There was nothing left. No trees. The river's gone."
The Earth's driest inhabited continent is at the forefront of a global crisis. Its adaptations and maladaptations to dwindling supplies of freshwater offer useful lessons to many parts of the world—from the Middle East to Africa to the U.S. Southwest—where dire water trends seem to be following close behind. Global populations grew threefold and water use rose sevenfold in the 20th century, Barlow notes. Meanwhile, climate change continues to drive up temperatures, melt away glaciers and alter rainfall patterns. This, she says, is a "recipe for disaster."
Every threatened region has its own variations of the recipe, including how long the issue will sit in the oven before it is put on the table. Last week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed what has been called "historic" water legislation in his drought-burdened state. California decided its water infrastructure and ecosystems are cooked enough, although there is debate on whether or not the new series of bills—with goals that include restoring the fragile Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and reducing per capita water use—will be enough to keep residents, fisheries and industries from running out of water.
Half a world and a hemisphere away the situation is severer. The Murray–Darling Basin covers a seventh of Australia, supporting about three million people and 40 percent of the continent's agricultural production. But it is drying up; the Murray River no longer reaches the sea and 90 percent of the basin's wetlands have been drained. Where is the water going?
The answer is complicated. For starters, the Mediterranean-like landscape and climate of southern Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Lacking a substantial mountain range and abutted by the cold Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean, precious little moisture fills its air without the help of variable atmospheric circulation patterns—predicted to provide less precipitation to the region as global temperatures rise.
Add to this decades of overextractions for dams, irrigation and urban use, and a devastating natural cycle is spun: Less water means more desiccated vegetation, leading to more bushfires that reduce the land's ability to store water, creating ever more kindling. As Justin Brookes, founding committee member of the University of Adelaide Water Research Center, explains, a 10 to 15 percent decrease in rainfall actually translates to a 50 percent drop in runoff given these compounding factors. Worse still, the water that remains contains more concentrated contamination.
"The issues have been on the radar for a long time, but we've been slow to act," Brookes says. "Nothing spurs activity like disaster."
Australia's adaptation strategies aim to recycle water, use it more efficiently, and find new supplies. Certain approaches are proving more successful than others, as exemplified by two cities at the terminus of the Murray–Darling Basin: Adelaide has enlisted hard technological solutions such as desalination; smaller Salisbury focuses primarily on recycling waste and storm water and utilizing natural filtration systems such as wetlands and lagoons. The latter "softer" options, according to the U.N.'s Barlow, are cheaper, less energy intensive, and have lower environmental impacts.
But she also thinks solutions must run deeper, socially and economically: "We have to start living within our water footprint." Golf courses, swimming pools and green lawns are not sustainable—especially in the desert. Also outside that footprint falls the continual pumping of water from elsewhere and its virtual export through agricultural products, a mainstay of Australia's economy.
"I don't think California has adequately learned the lessons from Australia that it ought to," says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Calif. He thinks Sacramento's new watered-down legislation "doesn't go far enough to prepare us for the real water crisis that is coming."
In many ways, Southern California is looking more and more like a densely populated southern Australia. (Los Angeles is already home to more people than all of Australia, and growing.) Scientists predict the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada could shrink by as much as 90 percent by century's end. And the U.S.'s most populous state is no stranger to wildfires (record numbers have swept through its forests in the past decade) or the pressures of an agricultural economy—80 percent of the Golden State's water is used for irrigation. Like Australia, a substantial portion is dedicated to turning water into wine.
But the new bills set no direct limits on agricultural water use, a target that also is missing in Australia, Gleick notes. At the same time, much of California's legislation reflects Australia's strategy of hard fixes, including new dams and pumps.
Like Barlow, Gleick advocates the softer path, which starts with measuring water footprints before they are shrunk. "We don't even know who is using how much water to do what," he says. "We have to get better at using water more efficiently. That's true for the Murray–Darling; that's true for California; that's true everywhere."
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22 Comments
Add CommentAs predicted, dry places will get drier, wet will get wetter, face it, its happening now, cut C02 dramatically or pay the price..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCutting C02's won't stop the over population problems facing the world, which in the end is the real cause for the C02's ,but perhapts an ice age caused by reducing C02's even a little bit would.Alot more research is needed before we rush in any course of action we might regret later.The lost of food from a rapid on set of an ice age would result in half or more of the world peoples starving to death,and more than likely a world war.We know without a doubt that another ice age is coming 5000 to 10,000 years from now.They have been happening like clockwork, give or take a few, for the last 2 million years ,So why try to hurry it up?Does Al Gore know something that global history isn't telling the rest of us?In the end a cool down would be far worse than a warm up,and we might in fact need to increase C02's a huge amount and release methane from from the bottom of the seas to stop the next ice age from happening,it would be far better to be in a position to do so,rather than trying to play catch up.There's no second chance's if we screw this up.So let us not deceide,to quickly what to do next.These problems are not going to be solved by a 2 hour Hollywood solution,but instead,with a lot of hard science,somebody needs to tell Al,the debate is not over its only just begun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAustralia should adopt Israel's desalination solution. This could supply enough fresh water to support both life and agriculture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhilst Australian Governments persist with their free-market driven water-reform process, the international experience is that such strategies are ineffective and have resulted in the current water crisis in the State of California, which is now implementing emergency measures to address the devastating consequences of massive over-exploitation of its water resources. International experts continue to urge the Australian Government to change tack on water management.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnited Nations senior advisor on water issues, Maude Barlow, has contacted environmental and public water rights advocacy group, Fair Water Use(Australia), in response to the speech to the South Australian Press Club delivered earlier this week by Australian Water Minister, Penny Wong ( http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/images/stories/pdfs/091109%20wong%20speech%20-%20sa%20press%20club.pdf ), stating that the Minister shows an astonishing lack of understanding about the root causes of the crisis in the Murray Darling and the need above all for conservation and watershed restoration. Pushing for a more aggressive market solution to the crisis is exactly the worst path the Minister and her government could have taken. What is needed is for Australia's water to be declared a public trust and protected for all time for all Australians the ecosystem and the future .
Coordinator of Fair Water Use, Ian Douglas, commented today, There is irrefutable evidence of the collapse of national and regional water reserves that is a sequel to short-sighted administrations leaving water management in the hands of the open-market.
He added, The Australian Federal Government cannot continue to ignore such warnings and can no longer afford to delay making fundamental changes to its water policy.
The electorate is now aware that Australias water future is in the hands of the Rudd Government. The Prime Minister must respond in a similar fashion to the Governor of California and declare a State of Emergency in the Murray-Darling Basin, to allow him to implement the necessary changes to its governance and administration , Dr Douglas concluded.
There are three things causing the water shortage:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. A drought, which is a natural occurrence and under normal conditions the system would recover.
2. Excess extraction from the river (including wastage)
3. Prevention of water reaching the system by tens of thousands of dams - some simply ornamental to increase property values and attract council grants.
The drought is not the issue - uncontrolled extraction and premature water capture is.
Effective management is the answer.
stan3,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll are major cities have desalination plants.
Here is our quarterly price for water:
A$150.69 just to be connected.
Concession rate of A$1.61 per kilolitre for up to 5 kilolitres per quarter.
Full rate of A$1.87 per kilolitre for every litre over 5kl per quarter.
Those that are concerned about a freshwater shortage would benefit by reading Peter Andrews' books: "Back from the Brink" and "Beyond the Brink".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeter Andrews describes that the water storage capacity of the landscape is even more important in Australia due to the extreme intermittent rainfall events (called floods and droughts) combined with a relatively flat landscape.
People from Europe and Asia with a mountainous terrain have been able to escape thinking about this issue to a greater degree because they could rely on their watersheds to direct distant rainfall to their locations.
Our current thinking and methods of dealing with water have been complicated by poisoning (biocides and careless mineral/ resource extraction - gold/ oil) the reserves we don't directly waste.
I observe with a sense of irony that as we reap our bitter harvest we are encouraged to create conditions that will make our problems worse (for example. xeriscaping yards around houses).
Comprehending the role of non-edible plant species (aka. weeds) to preserve the water storage function of the landscape is a task that we need to get to gripps with immediately.
Without it, water usage policies will direct us to squander to remaining water and time necessary to restore and rebuild our natual and built environments.
WyldeBrumby:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read both Peter Andrews' books. His second book is better written, his first book makes a few statements that are not scientifically correct. I still appreciate his books and am trying his soil regenerating techniques in my own backyard.
I don't think conditions in Auz are the same worldwide, Peter explains how the rivers in Auz build up their banks and then run at levels above the land surrounding it, this is only possible in a land with very little rainfall. Peter allows natural forces to repair the landscape, it works and it takes time. Hoofed animals also caused major damage, the walked across the dry cracked earth and destroyed the deep fissures that had developed in the dry clay, these fissure acted as traps for any little rain allowing the water to sink deep into the soil rather than run along the hydro-phobic soil and be lost to evaporation.
Peter Andrews is about restoring the landscape to what it was, he is against using chemical fertilisers that kill the worms and micro-organisms in the soil and he teaches us to live with the water we have. In short he is asking us to restore biodiversity and live frugal lives.
That is the answer - restore biodiversity and live the best you can with what you got. Restoring forests will bring more rain, reducing world population will allow biodiversity to flourish and our outputs to be neutralised by other species.
The poster child for the Australian drought is the region commonly referred to as the "Lower Lakes", Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert in South Australia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is not mentioned in this article, nor by any of the comments is that The "Lower Lakes" are supposed to be estuaries and not purely freshwater. They are supposed to be open to the Southern Ocean at a point called the Murray Mouth. Except Australia decided in the 1930's to build dams, or barrages, to separate the Lower Lakes from the rest of the estuary. The 'barrages' keep the seawater out of the now artificially freshwater lakes. The barrages have raised the water levels causing dryland salinity problems. The barrages have been great for agriculture but disastrous for the environment.
Many Australians now find it easier to place blame on 'overallocation', than to accept that they changed the natural ecosystem in the first place. Overallocation is just one part of the problem. Many Australians, especially the ones with political ambitions, find it more to their benefit to debate rather than get on with the work of restoring the Lower Lakes to their natural estuarine state.
Take a look at a map. Try Google Maps for instance. What Maude Barlow may not realize is that the local 'action groups' are loaded with farmers and irrigators all with vested interests to protect their 'freshwater' lakes that they have been allowed to plunder for the last 80 years. It makes better news to make this issue into a political statement on water allocation and climate change than it does to accept that what was built 80 years ago has contributed to the steady decline of this ecosystem.
Susan
www.LakesNeedWater.org
The Murray/Darling river system has all the features of an arid climate - extremely variable - no sign of a statistical Bell Curve here, with more than half of all years of catchment runoff since records were first kept not grouped around the median but either very much greater than the median (floods) or very much less (drought). In this context it is not unexpected to have severe flooding as happened in 1956 and extreme drought as is happening now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe difference is that in 1956 we accpted the devastation as a natural disaster and did not look for someone to blame. Now a number of people with political and/or ideological agendas have misrepresented the facts of a drought without precedent in post European settlement times and exaggerate the overallocation issue - an issue which is relevant when water is available and environmental flows are possible - but right now the amount of water available is less than a third of that allocated to irrigators and other human needs. The Lower Lakes are dry because there is not enough freshwater available to fill them even to sea level - and if that fact is acknowledged, the need to allow a return to pre-barrage estuarine conditions and maintain a cover of water over acid sulphate soils can be seen to be the only natural alternative.
By all means let's fix the management issues for the longer term for the environment but what we have right now is a natural disaster like the 1956 floods and political misrepresentation of the hard facts is sabotaging efforts to persuade government to do what logically must be done - and with the added effects of climate change, can't be ignored.
Trevor Harden
Resident of the Lower Lakes
Last week in Adelaide we had the highest level US Water delegation ever to Australia; we offer a unique lens into where large parts of the US will be in the next 3-5 years as result of impacts from climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey had a film crew, planning to release a movie about this trip on these findings; the film maker has indicated to me it will make Al Gore's film seem quite tame, as its real time impacts on millions of Australians.
Last week in Adelaide was the hottest ever November (Summer starts next Month) on Records of 118 years, this follow a grim forecast that we will run out fresh water from our main river system the River Murray within the next 18mths, no serious flow in that River system for over 5 years in a record 12 year drought, many Australians in this region are adjusting for the new norm, is this the beginning of massive adaptation period with less water.
Last week in Adelaide we had the highest level US Water delegation ever to Australia; we offer a unique lens into where large parts of the US will be in the next 3-5 years as result of impacts from climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey had a film crew, planning to release a movie about this trip on these findings; the film maker has indicated to me it will make Al Gore's film seem quite tame, as its real time impacts on millions of Australians.
Last week in Adelaide was the hottest ever November (Summer starts next Month) on Records of 118 years, this follow a grim forecast that we will run out fresh water from our main river system the River Murray within the next 18mths, no serious flow in that River system for over 5 years in a record 12 year drought, many Australians in this region are adjusting for the new norm, is this the beginning of massive adaptation period with less water.
We expect here in Sth Aust water price hiles of up to 100% over next 2-3 years ,maybe even up to 150%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe US water delegation decided not to go Israel,Sth Aust ,stayed with inspecting our plants here in Aust and checking out our www.windesal.com offer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"AUSTRALIA'S largest wind-powered desalination plant is planned for Adelaide's north this year'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,25151411-2682,00.html
We will go from about 5GL,p.a. to up to 50GL,pa, prior to this water ran out to sea killed the sea grass, that in turn destroyed the fish breeding grounds, it’s the largest such aquifer recharge project in the world.
We will on completion support a community of some 250,000 people with this fully sustainable new water project.
One of the waste products from our offer is brine; we are planning use brine to grow algae which in turn we can use in our biodiesel back up engine.
I have been thinking about Green Sahara as an quick, easy and cheap way to save the Earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA quick way to stop the threatening runaway greenhouse heating...
Sahara has been during last thousands and millions of years covered mostly by lakes, swamps and dense vegetation.
Green Sahara holds vast amount of carbon - about 10 miljon km2 forests, lakes, swamps, ... If there is on average 100 kg of biomass per m2 , then there about 2000 000 m * 5000 000 m* 0.1 ton/m2 or 10^12 tons of carbon in the Green Sahara.
This about the same as the carbon now in the atmosphere - with an average of 10000 * 400*10^-6 per m2 = 0,4 kg/m2 CO2?
One reason for last decaade's rising global temperatures could be this drying up and deforestration of Sahara and Chad basin?
But how to get enough water there at reasonable costs?
Kongo river is the world's second biggest river with about 40 000 m3/second - and huge electric power potential. Some 1000- 10 000 m3/second water from Kongo, Nile, etc rivers could make miracles in Chad basin, Sahara and world - at modest costs.
By damming Oubangui- river alone and letting 1000 m3/sec of river water flow to Lake Chad, costs are few hundred million bugs .
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad
http://lakechad.iwlearn.org/
ABUJA DECLARATION ON LAKE CHAD BASIN 2007:
"....positive impact of the proposed Oubangui-Lake Chad Water Transfer project and the fact that the project will serve as an opportunity to rebuild the ecosystem, rehabilitate and replenish the lake in a manner that will increase and improve the level of irrigation activities thus boosting agricultural production and reforestation...."
http://lakechadparlcomm.org
geologist Kai.j.lahteenmaki@gmail.com
I have been thinking about Green Sahara as an quick, easy and cheap way to save the Earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA quick way to stop the threatening runaway greenhouse heating...
Sahara has been during last thousands and millions of years covered mostly by lakes, swamps and dense vegetation.
Green Sahara holds vast amount of carbon - about 10 miljon km2 forests, lakes, swamps, ... If there is on average 100 kg of biomass per m2 , then there about 2000 000 m * 5000 000 m* 0.1 ton/m2 or 10^12 tons of carbon in the Green Sahara.
This about the same as the carbon now in the atmosphere - with an average of 10000 * 400*10^-6 per m2 = 0,4 kg/m2 CO2?
One reason for last decaade's rising global temperatures could be this drying up and deforestration of Sahara and Chad basin?
But how to get enough water there at reasonable costs?
Kongo river is the world's second biggest river with about 40 000 m3/second - and huge electric power potential. Some 1000- 10 000 m3/second water from Kongo, Nile, etc rivers could make miracles in Chad basin, Sahara and world - at modest costs.
By damming Oubangui- river alone and letting 1000 m3/sec of river water flow to Lake Chad, costs are few hundred million bugs .
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad
http://lakechad.iwlearn.org/
ABUJA DECLARATION ON LAKE CHAD BASIN 2007:
"....positive impact of the proposed Oubangui-Lake Chad Water Transfer project and the fact that the project will serve as an opportunity to rebuild the ecosystem, rehabilitate and replenish the lake in a manner that will increase and improve the level of irrigation activities thus boosting agricultural production and reforestation...."
http://lakechadparlcomm.org
geologist Kai.j.lahteenmaki@gmail.com
California has a water problem because the Luddites and Environmentalist will not let the State build any more water storage systems. IN FACT the nut jobs want to tear down the useful dams. The State has a "imbecile in charge of the State" problem, not an environmental one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince WW2 when my Dad now 90 who trained up in the Draintree National Park saw how much fresh water is flowing out to sea from the costal plains of Queensland.. With these fantastic tunneling machines why cant Australian develop a tunnel through the mountains to the feed rivers of the Darling river. What a proud time ,just like the snowy mountain scheme, it would be for Australians. We could wash the salt out to sea, refill our western rivers , raise crops to bring billions of dollars to Australian and support a wonder work force. Has no one looked at this engineering feat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe U.S. has an illegal alien population approaching 10%. If allowed to stay their water use will increase even more. In California a judge blocked water to the central valley farmers due to a frivolous suit by the "greenies" over a tiny non native fish. Every project at building power plants, refineries or seawater desalting plants is blocked by the "greenies".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPetermlloyd:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe principal problem driving climate change is our population.
Yes you can increase the water supply, but that will have consequences for the region where the fresh water currently drains off into the ocean. We are not the sole species on the planet and the way the planet has evolved requires the current mix of species to maintain our environment. Our atmosphere is the result of life forms altering the natural atmosphere of 4.5 billion years ago, there was very little free oxygen then, if there was more life would never have evolved.
Australia needs to control her population, 25 to 30 million is perhaps all we can support. We need to restrict the $5k baby bonus to the first two kids. Free education and publicly funded benefits should be restricted to the first two children.
That would be doing our bit for the survival of our species.
One small correction:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe population of Los Angeles is about 9.9 million people.
The population of Australia is about 21 million.
So lots of people in Los Angeles, lots of water problems but Los Angeles alone is only half the population of Australia, not equal, as the story above notes.