Jennifer Marohasy

Salinity is a significant land management problem in Western Australia but not in Queensland. In 2000 the extent of dryland salinity in Queensland was reported to be 48,000 hectares and rapidly increasing to a level where 3 million hectares were likely to be affected by 2050. It was widely believed that tree clearing had to [...]

Water is meant to be a really precious commodity in Australia, particularly in the Murray Darling Basin. Yet the Murray Darling Basin Commission recently announced, and with some pride, that the ‘National Salinity Prize’ had been awarded to Pyramid Creek Salt Interception and Harvesting Scheme, a scheme that evaporates precious water to sell subsidizes [...]

Since last Sunday’s feature story ‘Australia’s Salinity Crisis, What Crisis?‘, I’ve pondered whether Wendy Craik’s claim on the program that decisions in the past were based on the best available information really hold’s up to scrutiny.
If funding is secured on the basis of the best available information, even if it is subsequently shown to be [...]

Since last Sunday’s feature story ‘Australia’s Salinity Crisis, What Crisis?’, I’ve received comment that it is difficult to understand the different models and theories explaining dryland salinity. The dominant theory has been the rising ground water theory which Dr Brian Tunstall suggested was complete “bunkum” on Sunday.
In my opinion the model has some [...]

Rob Gourlay from Environmental Consultants ERIC, is calling for an independent investigation by the Australian Government to get to the bottom of the claims in today’s Channel Nine Sunday Program:
“The Channel Nine Sunday Program on Salt Solutions (28 May 2006) was a wake-up call to public workers involved in dryland salinity science and administration in [...]

It was not long after I started with the Institute of Public Affairs in July 2003, that Prof Bob Carter at James Cook University suggested I contact Brian Tunstall.
Bob knew I was struggling with dryland salinity issues, that I was feeling outraged by the methodology used by the National Land and Water Audit to propose [...]

“Unless you’re prepared to redo thirty years of scientific research yourself, the debate on this point [the salinity crisis] comes down to a pure question of comparative credibility,” wrote Professor John Quiggin in April 2004, click here. John Quiggin was suggesting that I had no credibility on Murray River issues because my thesis [...]

CSIRO, Australia’s largest scientific research organisation, released a two-part report* last Friday on ‘water’ in the Murray-Darling Basin, a region often referred to as the food bowl of Australia. The icon within this region is the Murray River and salt levels in the river have long been considered an indication of the region’s [...]

Some time ago I was sent a link to a paper by Myanna Lahsen, an anthropologist who spent seven years studying climate modelers at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
Her research findings seem to focus on what the modelers said, without scrutinizing the extent to which what they said about the models, accorded with reality. [...]

Regular commentator at this blog Ian Mott sent me the following email:

Hello Jen,
We have all grown accustomed to the notion that it is the removal of trees from the landscape that causes salinity. But recent research from the Argentine Pampas indicates that the addition of trees to a natural grassland can also increase the salinity [...]