The consensus from Australian scientists in positions of authority on the issue of ‘river salinity’ and the ‘spread of dryland salinity’ appears to be crumbling.
As Mick Keogh wrote yesterday in The Australian Financial Review with respect to the issue of dryland salinity:
“Increasingly, researchers are concluding that many of the assumptions and much of the data used in generating this estimate [that 17 million hectares of farmland would be lost to salt] were wrong, or should not have been used. There are suggestions, for example, that some State salinity assessments used to calculate the national estimate overstate the current extent of salinity by factors of between three and seven times, let alone the projected future extent. Several of the state reports had no reliable data to base estimates on, and many made assumptions about future groundwater levels – a critical element in salinity assessments – that defy the laws of gravity and science, and are not supported by available data.
It would be easy to dismiss these criticisms if they were just coming from farmers who have an interest in downplaying salinity.But increasingly, the criticisms are coming from senior scientists and researchers employed by State and Commonwealth Governments, from University academics, and are contained in official reports and published research findings.”
Mick Keogh heads The Australian Farm Institute and published several papers in the institute’s journal last November (Farm Policy Journal, Vol 2, No. 4) by scientists and economists explaining that previous estimates were a gross exaggeration and that many of the policy solutions funded under the $1.4 billion Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality are seriously flawed.
I have been questioning the figure of 17 million hectares since the Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000 was first published*. I am on record in submissions to government inquiries and, for example, in Quadrant magazine in December 2004 explaining how myths are made:
“…[journalists at The Australian] have relied heavily on the government’s report “The National Land & Water Resources Audit’s Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000” (NLWRA) for information regarding the spread of dryland salinity. The document warns that the area with a high potential to develop dryland salinity (from rising groundwater) will increase from 6 million hectares in 2000 to 17 million hectares in 2050, as reported by Hodge in the Australian on March 17, 2001.
The NLWRA has been widely cited and was used to help secure $1.4 billion in funding through the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. It is therefore worth considering its technical integrity.
Interestingly, the report does not distinguish between what might normally be considered irrigation salinity as opposed to dryland salinity. It determined that areas with groundwater within two metres of the surface are at high risk of dryland salinity. The forecast ground-water levels were “based on straight-line projection of recent trends in groundwater levels”.
Yet no data supports the notion that we currently have a situation of rising groundwater in the Murray – Darling Basin. Groundwater levels in the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Coleambally irrigation areas – the regions considered most at risk – have generally fallen during the past ten years.”
I have also questioned claims river salinity levels were rising, and would continue to rise, including in my IPA Backgrounder Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment.
John Quiggin has been scathing of my work on salinity and my daring to challenge “30 years of scientific research”. In April last year he suggested that the debate really comes down to a “a pure question of comparative credibility” and concluded I had none.
What a difference a year can make.
Now some CSIRO scientists are suggesting that their organisation may have got it wrong including John Passioura who wrote in a review paper titled From Propaganda to Practicalities – the progressive evolution of the salinity debate that, “Our only defence against the charge of charlatantism is that before deceiving others, we have taken great pains to deceive ourselves” (Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture, Vol 45, pgs. 1503-1506).
John Passioura also commented:
“Remote sensing techniques, especially aerial electromagnetics coupled with good ground-truthing, were revealing great variation below ground in the occurrence of saline aquifers, both laterally and vertically. The methaphor of the ‘silent flood’, the widespread rapidly-rising uniformly-saline watertable that as going to take out millions of hectares of our most productive agricultural land, was therefore being questioned – not by the mass media, who embraced it with the macabre fascination that goes with gothic horror novels, but by experienced observers of landscapes and of hydrographs.”
Those who hate having to admit they might have been wrong, could now argue that Passioura and others are only referring to dryland salinity, not river salinity levels. That salt levels in the Murray could still be, just about to start rising again.
But come on, the boggie man with respect to reducing river salinity, has always been the argument that because of spreading dryland salinity, well, it would eventually find its way into the Murray and river salinity levels would start rising again.
This argument has now been exposed as just as hollow.
Let’s accept, it now appears that I got it right on both river salinity and dryland salinity! I feel vindicated. But I won’t hold my breath, waiting for an apology from John Quiggin or anybody else.
And I suggest Mick Keogh not hold his breath either, waiting for the ABC to correct the information at their websites.
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*It used to be easy to access the Salinity Assessment on the internet but now I just keep finding this ‘summary document’. Lucky I kept my hard copy!
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
John Passioura has extremely strong agricultural water management credentials, long experience, and has written some superb articles on agricutural of water productivity (efficiency), which can be found using the search tool at gmopundit.blogspot.com. His comments are almost certainly worth close attention based on my contact with his other work.
Passioura ‘s overview is really good. Ill try and remember to send it to John Quiggin. It strongly endorses the value of debate along the lines Jennifer is promoting.
I found this interesting:
Epilogue: from propaganda to practicalities –– the progressive evolution of the salinity debate
Quote
At the level of a farming system, the notion of ‘perenniality’ in the landscape, rather than of the plants growing on it, was raised by Sheila Donaldson, who pointed out that the tactical use of more than 1 crop per year in northern NSW, which is possible about every second year, reduces deep drainage substantially relative to fallows, and can be more profitable. The issue is one of maintaining a broad-acre cover of transpiring plants for a greater proportion of time, especially during times in the year when evaporative demand exceeds the probable rainfall. Some farmers interested in environmental management systems (EMSs) have already adopted this as a target for implementing less leaky systems ( Ridley AM, Paramore TR, Beverly CR, Dunin FX, Froelich VMC (2003) Developing practical monitoring tools from sustainability indicators. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43, 271–284. ).
A similar story pertains to the mallee landscapes of the Murray–Darling Basin, a region that has been identified by the Murray–Darling Basin Commission as one of great concern because excessive recharge into the highly saline groundwaters there is likely to result in a substantial increase of saline flows into the Murray downstream of Mildura within about 100 years. Recently developed options by the Mallee Sustainable Farming Group, of the tactical use of intensive cropping, offer the promise of substantially reducing excessive drainage ( O’Connell MG, O’Leary GJ, Connor DJ (2003) Drainage and change in soil water storage below the root-zone under long fallow and continuous cropping sequences in the Victorian Mallee. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 54, 663–675; Sadras VO, Roget DK (2004) Production and environmental aspects of cropping intensification in a semiarid environment of southeastern Australia. Agronomy Journal 96, 236–246.). It is the traditional long fallow that has been responsible for much of the deep drainage in that region, and replacing it with crops that keep using water into late spring and early summer reduce that drainage considerably. Moreover, the occasional use of lucerne creates a buffer zone that can accumulate several years worth of drainage before the need to empty it ( Dunin FX, Smith CJ, Zegelin SJ, Leuning R, Denmead OT, Poss R (2001) Water balance changes in a crop sequence with lucerne. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 52, 247–261.; Zhang L, Dawes WR, Hatton TJ, Hume IH, O’Connell MG, Mitchell DC, Milthorpe PL, Yee M (1999) Estimating episodic recharge under different crop/pasture rotations in the mallee region. Part 2. Recharge control by agronomic practices. Agricultural Water Management 42, 237–249.).
J. Passioura
CSIRO Plant Industry, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 45(11) 1503–1506
Submitted: 25 August 2004 Accepted: 7 March 2005 Published: 16 December 2005
doi:10.1071/EA04181
Pretty sobering Jennifer – I always assumed the consensus on salinity was virtually 100% ( though I gave up on anything approaching objectivity from Quiggin some time ago).
Jennifer , I’m not exactly a Google expert though I’ve had a go – where can I get more info re Passioura’s comments above?
Hi Jim, Just sent you a pdf of the paper by Passioura – so it should be in your email inbox.
David (detribe),
On the subject of debate, Passioura writes on pg 1504:
“The delusory optimism [that we have the solution] and pessimism [that the problem is so bad] that we have seen reflects a systematic cultural flaw in our part of the scientific community, the flaw of inadequate criticism, both internally and in several important senses, externally.
… the pessimistic claims have typically been published in the ‘grey’ literature, sometimes as technical memoranda passing between government institutions, sometimes as glossy brochures whose audience is predominantly policy advisers
… the over optimistic claims have typically been embedded in proposals to funding bodies, many of whose staff are keen to believe in magical solutions.”
As a somewhat distant observer of the salt debate it seemed that as soon as one state raised its estimates of actual salted area or potentially salted area then the next would revise its figures to ensure more or less pro-rata dollars to each salt affected state. It seemed at the time Queensland was left behind (with WA and NSW seasawing for the most salt) and suddenly had to find a lot of potential salt or lose out on federal dollars, so the areas just kept increasing.
Jennifer
I haven’t read John Passioura’s paper as yet, still waiting for a copy which is enroute.
I have read some of the other papers in the AJEA http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/73/issue/988.htm and the abstracts from most.
Would it be fair to say that the AJEA edition “Salinity Solutions: Working with Science and Society” does not as a whole present a picture that salinity is a non-issue?
Could it be argued that your statement: “Let’s accept, it now appears that I got it right on both river salinity and dryland salinity! I feel vindicated” may be as much an overstatement as the arguments presented by those who make a living out of stimulating anxiety about salinity? Your claim of victory could be a tad premature in the Murray Darling Basin and is absolute nonsense in WA.
I also find it disappointing that by picking out John Quiggin for special criticism in relation to salinity, you are polarising this issue into the standard left vs right nonsense. We all fall for this one to some extent, but I think salinity is demonstrably a problem in many, but not all, areas. It is not a left-wing Club of Rome exageration of a potential threat; it is, in some parts of the country, already an appalling problem over large areas. Left vs right politics is just cheap entertainment.
People who want to raise awareness of salinity talk about those areas where it is a problem. People opposed to this stance talk about areas where salinity is not a problem. Both parties are guilty of taking a limited local experience and applying it over agricultural areas generally. The conclusion that I detect in some of the comments here is that “salinity has been so overstated, it is not a problem.” This is a flawed conclusion, it is not supported by the AJES edition from which you extracted a few paragraphs written by Passioura. The Journal actually presents an adjustment of current thinking by those involved in trying to understand and seek solutions to the problem. Surely this is the kind of honest reappraisal that you would admire?
Finally, you are completely ignoring the multiple benefits that could be realised by the changes in land practices advocated as ways to tackle salinity. The increased diversity of the ecosystem, and the increased diversity of the rural economy, are both worthy objectives in their own right. Much of the wheatbelt is characterised by the phrase “one tree hill”; thousand acre paddocks without any remnant vegetation worthy of note. I hear the argument that some parts of Australia have increasing woodland density, but much of it does not. The situation in your backyard does not reflect the national experience. Please leave those of us who have a problem get on with our work.
A couple of points Jennifer regarding the Murray.
Isn’t it true to say that salt water must now be extracted from the Murray at verious salt extraction plants, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars?
You also fail to mention the damage to the Corrong wetlands as a result of the damage to the Murray river caused by excessive water extraction:
“UP TO 30 per cent of internationally renowned wetlands at the Murray River mouth will be without plant and bird life this summer as salinity levels reach three times that of sea water.
A University of Adelaide study in July showed the small, flowering plant Ruppia tuberosa, which sustains the Coorong ecosystem, had been virtually killed off in the southern part of the 100-kilometre-long wetlands due to drastically reduced freshwater flow from the river.
Associate Professor David Paton — who has studied the Coorong for more than 20 years — said the latest data followed a two-third reduction in migratory bird numbers since the 1980s and the extinction of several species of fish.”
(The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/salinity-killing-murray-river-wetlands/2005/09/28/1127804547936.html)
You seem to gloat over the good news and pretend the bad news doesn’t exist. How about some balance?
Steve, I think you will find that the salt water is extracted before it gets to the Murray;
http://www.sawater.com.au/SAWater/Environment/TheRiverMurray/Salt+Interception+Schemes.htm
It would be great if Steve Munn or David Paton could provide some data so we can get an idea of trends with respect to bird numbers in the Coorong.
If the situation is as bad as Paton claims, maybe the South Australian government should immediately remove the barrages at the mouth of the River to get some flowing going – to reconnect the river with the ocean.
I was also interstested in Paton’s article in The Age. I followed up with two emails and phone calls (because he did not respond to my initial email). I was just wanting to get a handle on the nature and magnitude of the problem. But Paton has so far refused to provide me with the relevant technical report, see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000913.html . He has told me he is busy. I said if he gave me the relevant reference I could track it down at the local Uni library. But he says that relevant technical information is not published so I won’t be able to access it through my local University library.
So far Murray River scientists have a shameful record of getting it wrong – make pronouncments that are so extreme and so lacking in an evidential basis.
My plea is for less spin and more science.
When will people like Steve Munn learn a little healthy skepticism.
And by the way, I never said it was all fine, that there are not environmental issus that need to be addressed – that we don’t have a dryland salinity problem including in WA. But the $1.4 billion of funding for an Action Plan based on an obviously flawed audit is a national disgrace.
Jennifer
Now I’m confused. Your review of the state of the Murray has given me the (possibly mistaken) impression that the improvement in the salt levels at Morgan (I think that’s the location you discuss) is a demonstration that salinity in the Murray is not as bad as we have been led to believe.
The link provided by Rog demonstrates that the improvement in salt levels is due to the pumping of saline water tables that are rising under the Murray. These bore fields, I have read in a paper by David Pannell (I think it was David), cost many millions of dollars a year to operate. The link from Rog also states that SA Water is in the process of spending about $70 million more in capital costs to expand the bore fields to extend the protection of the river from saline water tables that continue to rise.
This situation demonstrates that
1. Saline water tables are rising under the Murray and the problem is increasingly threatening. Is SA Water spending the $70 million just to build peoples’ career prospects?
2. The improvement in the state of the river as measured by salt levels at Morgan is due to active intervention by pumping of saline water tables.
3. The pumping strategy is founded upon a scientific understanding of the hydrogeological processes.
4. The success of this strategy to date demonstrates that the “traditional” model of the salinity problem is valid in this application.
Nowhere in any of this information do I get the impression that salinity is exaggerated as an issue. I also don’t get an impression that the Murray is improving anyway and there is not as much cause for concern as many scientists have led us to believe. Quite the contrary, the SA Water site suggests to me that parts of the Murray Darling Basin are similar to the WA situation, where all (yes, that’s all, bar none, without exception) rivers that arise in the cleared wheatbelt have become saline, some of them in my lifetime.
However the MDB situation is much more complex than WA, the response times are much longer, and in many places there is no salinity problem (and is that “yet” or “ever”?). This complexity and variability is not evidence that the “Salt Threat (is) Grossly Exaggerated”, it means that in some parts of the country it is horrendous and in other parts it’s a non-issue. Those who live in the saline free areas should be grateful and step out of the way.
You argue that public funds expended on salinity audits and other processes of government are not all appropriately spent. This is likely to be correct. Not all the funds expended by any government or private bureaucracy are well spent and this waste should be resisted by taxpayers and shareholders alike. However your arguments in relation to salinity tend to become denials of the problem. Most workers in the field of salinity would like to see the money spent differently too. The salinity problem is so complex it challenges our national capacity in terms of intellectual and economic resources. You have to expect confusion, inconsistency, changing arguments; every question is bound to answered with “Well it depends on “. This doesn’t mean we’re making this problem up.
Boxer,
Your not making the problem up. But you are exaggerating it. And many scientists have worked from flawed models and wasted million of dollars.
The audit was a disgrace, the figure of 17 million hectares an invention, and the $1.4 billion – money pocketed because science agencies worked the system, generated the spin.
And you seem to have, in my opinion, a poor handle on both the nature and magnitude of the salt problem in the Murray Darling and also in WA.
I have previously invited you to write a guest post outlining how bad the issue is in WA. Your post was, in my view, unconvincing because it lacked basic data to support your main thesis. Others may have a different view, the link is here http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001033.html .
Jennifer
I have also said several times that the basic data is voluminous and I don’t hold it. I guess if you would like me to actually dredge it up for you, maybe we could discuss my schedule of fees for perhaps a month’s consultancy? As a public servant, I’m sure that wouldn’t break more than several regulations.
To those working in the field, especially in WA, people who start from the understanding or belief that the problem is exaggerated are regarded as if from another planet. Just how bad does it need to be before it is taken seriously? If you get a negative response or are ignored by these scientists (of which I am not one) it demonstrates that the gulf between you is so wide it cannot be bridged by email. I suspect they drop your communication into the wastepaper bin, which is unfortunate. Communication will be difficult and you will only develop it, I think, if you visit people in person. Communication via public arguement just broadens the gulf between us, because our principal objective in a forum such as this is to defend or enhance our egos.
Have you been across here to see our salinity yet? It’s a tourist attraction you know. Maybe I should get out and have another look myself, seeing how I don’t have a handle on it. Lake Grace has just filled up from recent summer storms, a major highway has been cut for weeks now and the recharge into the water table is going ahead at a great rate. (That’s the ego bit)
A couple of years ago government allocated $1.4 billion for salinity research and implementation of solutions. WA got a wad of money? But noone can provide me with basic data for WA – like whether it is getting better or worse?
The article on Salt Interception Scheme gives the reason for the presence of saline water as being due to the existence of Lake Victoria placing pressure on the salty groundwater and forcing it into aquifers.
Lake Victoria was constructed by the River Murray Commission in the 1920’s.
http://www2.mdbc.gov.au/river_murray/river_murray_system/lake_victoria/lake_vic.htm
Many may be intrigued to know that the 9th Conference on the Productive Use and Restoration of Saline Lands was held in Rockhampton in 2004. There is a tremendous body of research based on the following premise;
Options for productive use of saline land – a summary
E.G. Barrett-Lennard
Centre for the Management of Arid Environments, PO Box 22, Kalgoorlie, WA 6433
“Modern society generally thinks of salinity as a curse. This image is widely conveyed in the
media where we are increasingly accustomed to scenes on television of failing agriculture,
dying trees and desperate farmers. However, the PURSL group serves to remind us that there is
a flip side to this image. My friend Michael Lloyd often proclaims: ‘Saline land is the most
rapidly developing agricultural resource that Australia has.’ And of course, something in his
manner is infectious; as he makes this statement we begin to see (perhaps faintly) an alternative
reality developing – a landscape in which salt affected land is valued, and supports a mosaic of
profitable industries and prosperous communities”.
see http://www.ndsp.gov.au/downloads/pdfs/Pursl2001_38.pdf
The mid-2004 Conference was sponsored by the Qld Governments own Department of Natural Resources and Mines. AT this time, the same entity was also responsible for developing regional vegetation management plans and with drafting the vegetation management Bill that went to Parliament early in 2005.
And I can assure all readers that at no time was any information provided to the working groups involved in that process that would indicate that there was ANY productive use of saline land. And there was certainly no indication of an entire school of scientific thought that regarded saline land as an ASSET.
It is also clear that when the Wentworth Group wrote to Premier Beattie to advise him that any broadscale clearing would exacerbate salinity and produce unacceptable land degradation, no information, on the mitigating impact of the productive use and restoration of saline lands, was provided to the Premier by his Minister, Robertson, or his Department.
It is also clear that when the Federal Minister for Environment and Heritage, Kemp, also wrote to Premier Beattie requesting greater controls over clearing in Queensland, that no information, on the mitigating impact of the productive use and restoration of saline lands, was provided to the Minister by his Department.
And given the entirely foreseeable detriment that landowners have suffered as a consequence of this oversight, Senior Departmental Officers appear to have acted negligently, and possibly, fraudulently.
So when do we get the royal commission?
For the full extent of this research, google scholar “Productive Use and Restoration of Saline Lands”. Then reach for your revolver.
Jennifer
Yes, there are WA data to describe whether the situation is getting better or worse; there’s even some that indicates some parts of the landscape are approaching a new equilibrium. But it’s on other people’s hard drives, people I barely know of, so if you’re asking me for the data, I won’t be able to pass them to you. Not only don’t I have it, but it belongs to other people in other organisations.
You must approach those people. Perhaps they should make it available on websites or where ever so it is easy to access, but again you have to take that issue up with them. Any scientist I can think of is careful with their data because it is all too easy for someone else to lift your numbers and publish on the basis of them before you do. Though I have only seen this happen once.
But to give you a little glimpse of the ground you may need to make up when you make these approaches, let me tell you a little story. Some time ago I let slip that I was in discussion with you about salinity. The response was interesting – it gave me an insight into how a palaeontologist might feel if they announced at a conference that they had been in communication with creationists. I think this is also indicated by someone who said they didn’t have time to talk to you or something of the sort. This is possibly professional arrongance, or it may be fury at your implication that they are only feathering their own nests. I don’t know; I’m here having a go.
Now this is not a satisfactory state of affairs and personally I think it’s good to talk to almost everyone (there are limits for me too). I don’t come to this blog to punish myself. But because I am not a scientist and I don’t have to be so careful about my pretty relaxed idea of a career path, I dip my oar in here where people more qualified than I would never go. But I don’t use my own name any more because I need to be a little bit discrete.
Ian
As I remember Ed Barrett-Lennard from school, he could find something optimistic to say whilst standing in the aftermath of a thermonuclear attack. He’s a great bloke, and we need more of them. However within this “salinity industry” there are a vast array of opinions, axes being ground and pet theories about what should be done about the problem. Because this blog discussion is, to a large extent, about whether there is a problem or not, and the salinity industry moved on from that discussion decades ago, there is a lot room for misunderstanding.
Ed works for Agriculture WA. Their brief is to find something good to say about the problem and to develop solutions that mesh neatly with sheep/wheat farming. Burueaucratic agriculture doesn’t want to see the problem over-emphasised, though there is private admission at times that annual cropping will go the way of the dodo (I disagree with this very strongly). They are generally opposed to trees as a perennial vegetation component because trees have always been something that you hit with the seeder bar at 2am in the morning – the fewer trees the better. Trees are also strongly advocated by CALM and the Forest Products Commission, and long-standing (stupid stupid stupid) rivalry between Ag WA and these organisations means trees have their opponents within the salinity industry. (Many farmers don’t see it this way and they are planting millions of trees.) So, saltbush and other salt tolerant perennials, and deep drains, are the main focus of Agriculture WA.
Conservation agencies such as CALM talk about the 450 species that are threatened with extinction due to rising water tables. The doomsdayers come predominantly from this side. They are predominantly tree proponents because of the culture of their organisations.
I work for a group that, like Ed B-L, is looking to develop new industries to reduce the problem and make the solution self-funding. There’s room for everyone.
There is little agreement within the industry about how large the problem will be in the end or what should be done about it. The mechanisms involved are hotly disputed – this is very complex stuff. There general agreement that all our best efforts will still see the extent of salinity worsen before it is halted or a new equilibrium is reached. To pick a few paragraphs selectively from this debate within the salinity industry and use that to argue that the problem is minor is to ignore the extent of the problem already before us.
Just take a day’s drive around the wheatbelt. Most valley floors show some salinity, most remnant vegetation in those floors is in decline or has long since vanished. Old wells that were dug 25m down to fresh water are now full to the top year-round with salty water. I have never seen anything like it on a number of road trips around the eastern states, the severity and the extent of it, it’s almost everywhere that’s been cleared long enough. I remember a bus load of Victorian farmers being shocked into silence (but it didn’t last long).
I appreciate that in some parts, the attempts at federal and state levels to repond to this issue means alarmist proposals are put about inappropriately. In an analogous way, we can’t understand why the issue is not taken more seriously and we become enraged by the stupidity of national politics which is reduced to political point scoring and attempts to apply blanket solutions to complex and variable problems. This uniform national response, laced with phrases like “national action plan” (code for Murray Darling Basin) is holding us back as much as it is threatening your farming in the western slopes or where ever in Qld.
And by the way, Boxer, at least 2 of the PURSL conferences were in WA, 1996 and 2002. And note, E.G. Barrett-Lennard is based in Kalgoorlie.
Roq, don’t you just hate sites that produce maps without a scale? And given that Lake Victoria has been raised above natural level, has anyone modelled the impact of this added volume of water on the fluid dynamics of the surrounding aquifers? I hope the bed is impermiable and the added weight is not forcing the surrounding aquifers to rise. Because that would mean the farmers are being blamed for the consequences of government works.
With regards Boxers comments is there a cover up?, with modern software and computers lots of data is easy to handle, it should be on the web in real time e.g. climate date, river hydrographs (some states). Perhaps WA needs to keep up thre pretense to keep the federal dollars comming, perhaps the same in the eastern states!.
With regards Boxers comments is there a cover up?, with modern software and computers lots of data is easy to handle, it should be on the web in real time e.g. climate date, river hydrographs (some states). Perhaps WA needs to keep up the pretense to keep the federal dollars comming, perhaps the same in the eastern states!.
Boxer, don’t get me wrong, the salinity problem in Wa is a serious problem but it is totally inappropriate to extrapolate from WA to anywhere else. I have been through the hills of the WA South West but not the eastern lowlands.
And whenever I was shown a slope with a saline creek and stock watering bores half way up the slope where the fresh water was I couldn’t but ask, so why the heck don’t they take the fresh water surplus for other uses and reduce recharge into the salt load?
I suspect that many of the worst salinity problems could be fixed with “graded catchments” over the main recharge areas. These capture all of the recharge for productive uses and, over time, must produce a decline in water tables in the lower, saline effected areas.
And the PURSL option for a large salt scald would be to dig out a pond in the middle, stock it full of trout at up to twice ocean salinity levels (ie, 7% or 70,000ppm) and make money while evaporating 20ml/ha each year.
Clearly, if surface salinity is a problem then it is because the salt lakes are not deep enough to lower the surrounding water table through evaporation. Of course, easier said than done for places like Lake Brown or Lake Deborah.