The Australian government’s new $10 billion, 10 point plan entitled ‘A National Plan for Water Security’ states that there is a need to address “once and for all water over-allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin”. This is point 4 of the plan.
So what does it mean to be “over-allocated”?
According to The Plan “over-allocation is where more entitlements have been issued in a system than can be sustained.”
What does this mean?
According to a recent report ‘Water Use and Regulation’ by the ANZ bank:
“The National Water Commission estimates that as of 205, 1 percent of Australia’s 340 surface management areas and 5 percent of 367 groundwater management areas were over-allocated (that is over 100 percent of sustainable water levels were permanently allocated for extraction and consumption), while another 13 percent of surface water and 23 percent of groundwater areas were ‘highly developed’ (that is 70-100 percent of sustainable water was allocated) putting them at greater risk of temporary over-allocation during dry periods.”
I find the concept that over-allocation means over 100 percent of the water in a system has been allocated unusual and extreme and I have contacted the Nation Water Commission asking for more information and the specific reference. (deleted following comments below from Ian Mott and Wally, see below)
In the relevant document from the National Water Initiative there is no specific definition of ‘over allocation’ and comment is made that each state and territory has used different criteria.***
In the development of ‘Water Allocation and Management Plans’ in Queensland under the Water Act 2000 the arbitrary figure of 30 percent was used; that is if more than 30 percent of a river’s flow is diverted it could be considered over-allocated.*
How much of the Murray Darling Basin’s water is diverted?
Under natural conditions it is estimated that 46 percent of the 24,000 gigalitres that flow into the Murray-Darling Basin is consumed by wetlands and floodplains with the remaining 54 percent flowing out to sea. Now, with all the regulation it is estimated that 11,580 gigalitres, or about 50 percent of the water within the Murray Darling Basin, is diverted for irrigation.**
Based on the estimates in ‘River Losses and End of System Flows’ (MDBC, November 2003, and ignoring the 1,200 gigalitres from Inter-Basin Transfers), it would require that the government buy back about 4,425 gigalitres of water entitlement for the system to be at a 30 percent level of extraction.
If government paid a probably conservative $1,000 per megalitres for permanent entitlements then I estimate they would need about $4.425 billion.
This is an awful lot of money and the government currently only has $3 billion in the budget for buying water entitlements.
Is it worth it? What would be the net benefit of returning the 4,425 gigalitres to the Murray Darling Basin?
The Murray-Darling Basin covers about 14 percent of the land mass of Australia but mean runoff is only about 24,000 gigalitres or 6 percent of the Australia’s total mean annual runoff (Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000, pg 25).
While relatively little water falls within the Basin (6 percent), most of Australia’s water infrastructure has been developed here including the Snowy Mountain scheme build in the 1950s to drought proof the region.
The Murray River has essentially been turned into an irrigation channel with its headwaters part of the Snowy hydroelectricity scheme, four large dams and 13 locks along the way and the system ends in a series of barrages at the so-called Murray mouth.
The Murray River is kept artificially high most of the time as water is moved from the dams which are mostly at the top of the Catchment to irrigation areas downstream and also to meet Adelaide’s water needs.
The Darling is a very different system and less regulated.
In summary, ‘A National Plan for Water Security’ assumes over-allocation in the Murray Darling Basin but does not explain how this was determined and what an acceptable level of extraction might be. Assuming that 30 percent of pre-development flow levels is a reasonable level of extractions, the government would have to buy back about 4,425 gigalitres of water and is likely to cost more than $3 billion.
Buying back this water is likely to significantly impact on agricultural production in the Basin and the rural communities in irrigation areas.
There are already significant environmental flow allocations for the Murray River. Given the Murray River is already a highly regulated and somewhat artificial river system I doubt that the environmental benefit from the return of additional water would be significant. What would the environmental benefits be for the Darling River system?
——————-
This is the second in a series of posts on ‘A National Plan for Water Security’, Part 1 is here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001859.html
* I can’t find a good reference or link for this, Luke can you help?
** Based on ‘River Losses and End of System Flows’, published by the Murray Darling Basin Commission, November 2003. Can someone find the document on the internet for me?
***Changes made to this post at 12noon on Friday 2nd February.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I just heard Mike Rann on the radio calling for an independent board, separate from Government (State and Federal), to control the nations water catchments. I dont think the man in the Lodge will go for that though…?
Jen, the link for ‘River Losses and End of System Flows’ (MDBC, November 2003)
http://www.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/20/water_resourcesver2.pdf
Jen, crazy to base your analysis on the 30% used for Queensland. Queensland hydrology, if one can dignify the pattern of extreme flood and extreme periods of no-flow with such a term, can not be extrapolated anywhere on this planet. And there are some subtle well-discussed economic and philosophical issues here about whether irrigators cop consequences of climate change or the community’s recent desire for a pristine Murray. Over allocation has to be a nonsense concept if it relates to a century of data no longer relevant.
Jen, I think this blog is stuffed. It has no credibility. Part 1 of the water story got taken over by shower nonsense by people who need to get a life and take a bath. Then of all the intellectually challenging stories you could run with in advance of the IPCC report, you carefully select one for max heat and no light. I wonder if anyone out there has actually shifted their position on a major issue as a result of your selective endeavours. You need to reposition. I haven’t benefited and I wont, because I wont bother visiting for a while.
bazza: I’m off to try lots of old time music on CD
Cheers.
As Grandmaster “constitutionalist” I for one am extremely concerned about politicians using the WATER issue for political purposes to rob the States of legislative powers where the Federal government, and no other must be held accountable for the over-allocation of water.
In my forthcoming book;
INSPECTOR-RIKATI® on the battle SCHOREL-HLAVKA v BLACKSHIRTS
For the quest of JUSTICE, in different ways. Book on CD.
ISBN 978-0-9580569-4-6 was ISBN 0-9580569-4-3
I expose years of correspondence to John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull and others about the WATER issue.
Constitutionally the Commonwealth of Australia has since federation had the powers to deal with over-allocation of WATER of any river affecting the navigation of rivers. Section 100 in the Constitution provided this legislative power to the Commonwealth of Australia, as to determine the usage of river water!
Just that we need an OFFICE OF THE GUARDIAN, a constitutional council, that advises the Government, the People, the Parliament and the Courts as to constitutional powers and limitations.
On 19 July 2006 I succeeded in my appeals on all constitutional and legal grounds after a 5-year legal battle with the Federal government lawyers, and my various published books set out what it is about.
Such as my 6-7-2006 published bok which I then used as evidence in the case;
INSPECTOR-RIKATI® & What is the -Australian way of life- really?
A book on CD on Australians political, religious & other rights
ISBN 978-0-9751760-2-3 was ISBN 0-9751760-2-1
While Malcolm Turnbull seems to claim over-allocation has been going on since the midst of last century, then why did the Commonwealth of Australia never use its legislative powers to stop it, one may ask!
Remember;
QUOTE
Last Update: Saturday, June 3, 2006. 7:32pm (AEST)
Turnbull pours cold water on referendum call
The parliamentary secretary for water, Malcolm Turnbull, is playing down suggestions the Federal Government is making a push to take control of water management.
END QUOTE
John Howard stated http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1833929.htm;
QUOTE
We haven’t allocated any of those water rights. We haven’t made any of those allocations. They’ve all been made by the States and they’re all grossly out of kilter and we’re going to address that problem. We’re going to pick up the cost of something for which we were not in any way responsible. So that’s part of the deal.
END QUOTE
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1833524.htm
Mr Turnbull says the Government has the power to overrule the states if they do not agree to give up the system.
And
Mr Turnbull says he is prepared for a High Court challenge if the states resist.
“I’m not a stranger to the Constitution myself,” he said.
Quite frankly, it is to me sheer and utter nonsense that the Commonwealth of Australia can overrule the States if they do not give up the system, as the Commonwealth of Australia can legislate as to “reasonable use” as to protect navigation but no more! It is the federal Court that would have to adjudicate riparian rights if that became an issue.
Well, I did my 19-1-2007 (artesian waters), 27-11-2006, and indeed my 21-5-2005 correspondence to John Howard as well as Steve Brack dealt with in it considerable way.
QUOTE 27-11-2006 CORRESPONDENCE
HANSARD 10-3-1891 Constitution Convention Debates (Official Record of the Debates of the National Australasian Convention) (Chapter 33 of the CD)
Dr. COCKBURN:
Parliament has been the supreme body. But when we embark on federation we throw parliamentary sovereignty overboard. Parliament is no longer supreme. Our parliaments at present are not only legislative, but constituent bodies. They have not only the power of legislation, but the power of amending their constitutions. That must disappear at once on the abolition of parliamentary sovereignty. No parliament under a federation can be a constituent body; it will cease to have the power of changing its constitution at its own will.
Again;
No parliament under a federation can be a constituent body; it will cease to have the power of changing its constitution at its own will.
QUOTE 27-11-2006 CORRESPONDENCE
As such, the States have no power to refer legislative power as to WATER to the Commonwealth of Australia, not being an issue within Section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution, as neither was the Australian Act 1986.
Hansard 1-2-1898 Constitution Convention Debates
Mr. HOLDER.-We do not want to deprive New South Wales of any such power. We wish to leave that colony as free as ourselves to use her rightful share of the water for any purpose she pleases. Who is to determine what is the rightful share? The Federal Parliament.
Hansard 1-3-1898 Constitution Convention Debates
” I say it ought to be upset at once and at the very earliest point. As soon as ever you find it has gone beyond the bounds you ought to say-“This thing is illegal.” Otherwise you will leave to the Ministry of the day these powers of which you are so careful, giving them to a majority of the States and to a majority of the people. You would allow the Ministry of the day to exercise a suspending power as to whether it would enforce a law or not, which is most dangerous.
What this means in plain terms is that the Commonwealth of Australia has the legislative powers to restrict States in their allocation of water to landholders. It can simply legislate that no landholder shall be allowed to trade in water as this is an over-supply of water needed for own purposes.
However, the Commonwealth of Australia could not force anyone to drink recycled sewerage because its powers is limited to where it affect navigation of rivers! If however legislative powers is given beyond this, then soon or later anyone can be forced to drink recycled sewerage, including the water bottles sold in shop.
For the record, I grew up in Rotterdam on recycled sewerage water, and my father was the one employed by the Dutch Board of Works controlling the computers as to turn sewerage and other contaminated water into suitable drink water. As such, personally I have no problems about drinking this kind of recycled sewerage water as an health issue, however I have an issue with my rights as a citizen to determine for myself if I desire to drink recycled sewerage water or not. This opportunity will be more then likely lost in the attempt by the federal political parties to turn the federation into a confederation.
We, the people, must flex out muscles and keep out State sovereign rights where it belong and not have it due to political manipulation eroded. We have seen with the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION that you cannot trust the Government.
See also my website; http://www.schorel-hlavka.com
Mr. G. H. Schorel-Hlavka
Schorel-Hlavka, you must be nuttier than a pink panther eg in a letter to the GG you start by
“I for one wonder if you are a “GUTLESS WONDER” and/or “ARSELICKER” to allow John Howard to continue his conduct to prostitute and otherwise abuse/misuse the Constitution?”
You can expect to be treated accordingly.
Whats with you guys, is it something in the water?
Then hurry up and go, Bazza.
The key point is that the current runoff volume is not the historical runoff volume because the landscape has been extensively modified to change the catchment yield.
Zhang, at the CRC for catchment hydrology estimated that a third of the current volume is the result of land clearing. And that means the natural runoff is only 16,000 Gigalitres. And it is only this 16,000Gl flow that can be used to define any duty of care to the river system.
It is also not well understood that a lot of the irrigation allocations also deliver environmental services as they flow down the river to the user. And in the case of Adelaide’s water, this is almost the full length of the Murray.
The problem with this flow, however, is that it is not delivered as a flood surge that can augment the volumes allocated to wetlands etc. But the construction of a suitable “cubbie station” style off-stream storage in South Australia could enable this water to provide both environmental and user services at the one time.
But the most important issue is the recognition that the Murray was rarely “mighty” and mostly rather ordinary. Any attempt at defining riverine duty of care in terms of the current 24,000Gl is grossly unjust.
At least 8,000Gl that are currently used for irrigation are the direct result of upstream clearing and surplus to duty of care. And that means the community must determine what portion of the remainder is required to maintain the river in it’s pre-settlement condition.
I suspect that Jennifer may have misinterpreted the allocation principles as the reference to 100% of “available sustainable water” does not refer to the total flow but a poorly defined portion that is deemed to be sustainable.
The allocation of 30% of pre-settlement flows has been used in other states as well and is based on the normal range of variation in rainfall events. An amount of 70% of a 5th decile rain year would not produce outcomes very much removed from the normal distibution.
In the case of the MDB, an allocation of 30% of 16,000Gl is 4,800Gl which, when added to the 8,000Gl of clearing surplus yield comes to a sustainable allocation of 12,800Gl which is more than the current allocation.
In fact, the current allocation of 11,580Gl is only 90.47% of the sustainable volume.
It should also be noted that of the volume claimed to be “consumed by wetlands and flood plains”, some 1000Gl evaporates from the surface of Lake Alexandrina with lesser, but no less obscene, volumes evaporating from other shallow storages like Menindee Lakes and Lake Victoria.
Prior to the barrage Lake Alexandrina was a tidal estuary that evaporated 1000Gl of salt water but some intellectual heavyweights decided it was smarter to evaporate fresh water instead. But you won’t see that in Mike Rann’s state water budget and don’t expect this water to ever be paid for under a proper pricing of natural resource user pays system.
It is much cheaper to put a farmer out of business.
It should also be noted that the flushing of the Coorong, just outside the barrage, was rarely done by floods of fresh water. No-one doubts that this essential ecological service is important but it is alos important to note that for millenia, this has been done by the tidal flows that were disrupted by the barrage.
To leave this entirely unjustified edifice in place, and demand a large additional volume of fresh water to do the job that nature did with sea water is as ignorant as it is outrageous.
Other than local tourism on the lake, there is no economic or ecological justification for the barrage. If it were proposed today it would never pass an EIS. It can also be removed for a fraction of the economic dislocation that would be created by trying to flush the Coorong with valuable irrigation water.
Where’s the peer-reviewed journal papers that show a third of the current volume is from land clearing.
And it’s not the amount of land clearing total even if we were considering it – it’s what the clearing level was when each dam/barrier/weir was started to fill after construction. Put up the land clearing history.
Jennifer may have misinterpreted the allocation principles as the reference to 100% of “available sustainable water” does not refer to the total flow but a poorly defined portion that is deemed to be sustainable.
Obviously. I thought it was too embarrassing to point out.
Wally,
Key point thankyou, I appear to have missed the key word ‘sustainable’.
So there is what could be defined as an unsustainable level of extraction in only 1% of our surface water management areas and 5% of our groundwater surface areas?
This would seem to suggest our systems are not generally overallocated/ in crisis?
Luke, you know damned well that government vested interests have gone out of their way to discourage this part of catchment yield research. Would you like a copy of the moronic crap contained in the Qld NRM ministers response when this issue was raised?
The head of the MDB Commission is on hansard telling the parliamentary water inquiry that there was no need to investigate this issue. He essentially indicated that if ignorant urban voters wanted a permanently flowing Murray instead of one that matched historical flows then that is what they will get. And the ignorant urban MPs accepted it.
The issue is actually more than just change from forest to pasture. Pasture in a grazing rotation normally has paddocks with minimal grass cover that have just been grazed and a number of other paddocks that are either waiting their turn to be grazed or are in various stages of recovery. And these various stages of recovery produce a pastured landscape with less than full leaf area index. And this means that the water yield from this mix will be even higher than the standard modelled yield which is based on the yield from a full pasture.
This would be offset by the reduced yields from regrowth and thickenning, and the reduced yields from regrowth after broadscale clearfiring in national parks which must also be brought into account.
There is no doubt that managment incompetence in national parks has taken at least 2000Gl off the runoff total in the MDB. And farmers are expected to make up the shortfall.
Ian,
Thanks also for pointing out that I misinterpreted what they meant by overallocation.
Now where does the 2,000 gig figure come from?
I have been searching for such a figure.
Thanks again.
Well Ministers responses are not normally that informative and statements have been vetted to death to the point of saying nothing.
I seriously think the issue is well worth exploring – would be good to get set up to seriously investigate.
You do have to be careful though is you’re creating an argument to make a claim for a land management hydrological dividend.
So that’s why you would have to argue up a justification to to a 2007 vs 1890 comparo. The dams were built over a 50 year period. One could argue that the background level/point of origin is when each dam comes on line for each sub-catchment.
There’s also an argument that drought follows land clearing (grossly simplistic) but there are substantial land vegetation evaporation effects (see clouds over the scrub but not over wheat paddocks in SW WA cropping zone border).
And these type of references on vegetation climate feedbacks from evaporative flux effect from trees/scrub :
So how much rainfall has the clearing lost? Or is all this overrun by macroscale influences. Has major clearing of the MDB affected the climate directly?
Another Zhang !
The Compounding Effects of Tropical Deforestation and Greenhouse Warming on Climate
Journal Climatic Change
Issue Volume 49, Number 3 / May, 2001
Pages 309-338
H. Zhang1, A. Henderson-Sellers2 and K. McGuffie3
(1) Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia
(2) Environment Division, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Sydney, Australia
(3) Department of Applied Physics, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Abstract This study reports the first assessment of the compounding effects of land-use change and greenhouse gas warming effects on our understanding of projections of future climate. An AGCM simulation of the potential impacts of tropical deforestation and greenhouse warming on climate, employing a version of NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM1-Oz), is presented. The joint impacts of tropical deforestation and greenhouse warming are assessed by an experiment in which removal of tropical rainforests is imposed into a greenhouse-warmed climate. Results show that the joint climate changes over tropical rainforest regions comprise large reductions in surface evapotranspiration (by about –180 mm yr–1) andprecipitation (by about –312 mm yr–1) over the Amazon Basin, along with anincrease of surface temperature by +3.0 K. Over Southeast Asia, similar but weaker changes are found in this study. Precipitation is decreased by –172 mmyr–1, together with the surface warming of 2.1 K. Over tropical Africa, changes in regional climate is much weaker and with some different features, such as the increase of precipitation by 25 mm yr–1. Energy budgetanalyses demonstrates that the large increase of surface temperature in the joint experiment is not solely produced by the increase of CO2concentration, but is a joint effect of the reduction of surface evaporation (due to deforestation) and the increase of downward atmospheric longwave radiation (due to the doubling of CO2 concentration). Furthermore, impactsof tropical deforestation on the greenhouse-warmed climate are estimated by comparing a pair of tropical deforestation simulations. It is found that in CCM1-Oz, deforestation has very similar impacts on greenhouse-warmed regional climates as on current climates over tropical rainforest regions. The extra-tropical climatic response to tropical deforestation is identified in both sets of tropical deforestation experiments. Statistically significant responses are seen in the large-scale atmospheric circulation such as changes in the velocity potential and vertically integrated kinetic and potential energy fields. Wave propagation patterns are identified in the large-scale circulation anomalies, which provides a mechanism for interpreting the model responses in the extra-tropics. In addition, this study suggests that land-use change such as tropical deforestation may affect projections of future climate.
***********
Positive feedbacks of fire, climate, and vegetation and the tropical savanna
William A. Hoffmann
Departamento de Engenharia Florestal, Universidade de Bras. ´lia, Bras. ´lia, Brazil
Wilfrid Schroeder
Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renova´veis, Bras. ´lia, Brazil
Robert B. Jackson
Department of Biology and Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 29, NO. 22, 2052, 2002
We combine general circulation modeling (GCM),
remote sensing, and field results to identify a positive
feedback loop in which clearing of tropical savannas results
in warmer and drier climate, accelerated fire frequencies, and
further tree cover loss. The GCM simulations indicate that
ongoing clearing of tropical savannas increases temperatures
and wind speeds and decreases precipitation and relative
humidity, substantially increasing fire frequency. Using
NOAA-12 satellite images and meteorological data, we
estimate that complete savanna clearing will increase fire
frequency by 42%. Combining these data with long-term fire
studies, we demonstrate that this fire-mediated feedback may
already be contributing to declining tree densities in the
world’s savannas and will become increasingly important as
vegetation change continues in the coming century.
For Dear Readers wanting see some of the science behind this debate on Zhang.
http://www.eoc.csiro.au/aciar/book/PDF/Monograph_84_Chapter_20.pdf
http://www.catchment.crc.org.au/pdfs/technical199912.pdf
Which Ian of course is well familiar with.
Jen, the numbers are a very broad guestimate based on the general observation that dense regrowth will use about half the difference between an old growth forests evapotranspiration and actual rainfall.
At about 1000mm MARF a normal forest uses 830mm, pasture uses only 650mm while dense regrowth is likely to halve the normal forest runoff. That is 1000mm – 830mm = 170/2 = 85mm of extra water use or an 85mm drop in water yield.
At 1500mm MARF a normal forest uses 1020mm with 480mm of runoff so dense regrowth would cut water yield by 240mm.
Most of the Victorian fires have been in the 1000mm to 1200mm zones which is likely to put the loss in yield per hectare at about 150mm or 1.5 megalitres/ha. Multiply this by the current 1.2 million hectares and we are in the vicinity of 1800 gigalitres of lost runoff.
But this is still a very rough figure because some of the forest near Orbost was more 800mm country while other parts were 1800mm plus. We also don’t know the condition the forest was in after the 2003 fires. The mosaic of surving old growth and young regrowth from that fire has a critical bearing on the yield changes.
Vertessy did one study that compared water yield by age class and found that, at 1800mm, 15 year old regrowth yielded only 500mm in runoff while the 240 year old stands produced 900mm. That is a 4 megalitre/hectare difference in yield and it would not take a very high proportion of that cohort to have a serious influence on the mean.
The key point is that the combined effects of the 1.2 million ha burn in 2006 and the 2 million ha burn in 2003 has already made major modifications to Murray Basin runoff.
Here is the portal for the CRC for Catchment Hydrology which has since folded to be replaced by eWater. http://www.catchment.crc.org.au/
There is no link to Vertessy R. “Predicting water yield from mountain ash forest catchments” 1998 but if anyone can get a copy there is a very good section on “Using the Macaque model to predict the hydrological impact of fire” as it was applied to the Maroondah catchment to the NE of Melbourne. It analysed three sites with yield declines of 2.5Ml/ha to 5Ml/ha.
These very significant impacts from the 1939 fires that did not recover for more than 60 years. Note, however, that no modelling of subsequent silvicultural thinning was done that could restore water yield.
There is no excuse for DSE to not already have the information on lost water yield from both 2003 and 2006 fires. Why not toss in an FOI request to get the hens cackling? And if they have not done the work then the DG could be up for negligent misconduct.
The less said about the MurrayDarling Basin Commission the better.
Link you seek
http://www.catchment.crc.org.au/pdfs/industry199804.pdf
Predicting Water Yield From Mountain Ash Forest Catchments
by
Robert Vertessy, Fred Watson, Sharon O’Sullivan,
Sharon Davis, Richard Campbell,
Richard Benyon and Shane Haydon
CRC Catchment Hydrology
Industry Report
Report 98/4
April 1998
What do we do about the Coorong, Jen?
Should we listen to Professor David Paton, or is he just another wrong-headed environmentalist? See http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-great-coorong–a-biological-barometer/2007/01/28/1169919213526.html
Hi Melaleuca,
I’m still waiting for a hard copy of a specific report from him, see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000913.html .
Thanks for the link, Luke.
Ican’t see how the landscape condition at the time a dam was constructed, or the flow at that time, could form the valid basis of riverine duty of care because modifications have already taken place by then.
I know irrigators and water mafia tend to see it that way because of the primacy of their own place in their perceived landscape but the wildlife don’t share that view.
The species that have evolved over the past 20 millenia have developed interrelated territorial, density and life cycle characteristics that were most suited to the pre-settlement landscape. And to define our duty of care in any other terms but those defined by the species themselves is nothing more than a broader form of urban gardening.
Any other definition of duty of care also holds the process out to competing human interests that will seek to capture various attributes for their own ends, both real and imaginary. The best example is the notion that the Murray should always be “mighty” and “restored to health” when even the dry times perform essential ecological services for numerous species.
It is a bit like the mortality of urban potted plants. Very few of them actually die from insufficient water, most are killed by excessive watering by illinformed owners who do not define “proper care” in terms of the actual needs of the plant.
A pre-settlement riverine duty of care will raise some very interesting issues as to who actually owns the clearing surplus. Does it rightly belong to the property that was cleared, to the government down whose river it flows, or to the irrigator who now has the registered title? Probably all-of-the-above.
The cleared property will own the surplus, the government will own the natural flow and the irrigators will own the portion that can be sustainably allocated from the natural flow.
The irrigators who currently use part of the upstream farmers clearing surplus will probably continue to do so because the upstream farmer faces a major cost to capture his surplus and the government owned dam downstream would store the water more efficiently and the existing irrigator would still have the strongest economic power in a revised market. So the irrigator may still pay the market price for his water but that money would be distributed between the dam owner (the warehouse), the government owner of the river (the transporter) and the upstream farmer (the supplier) or the government owner of the pre-settlement flow.
It may seem complex but in the long term it will provide a more solidly based framework for equitable allocations and open the way for a proper yield management market where some upstream farmers could set aside part of their farm for maximising water yield, like the graded catchments in WA, for sale to downstream users.
This capacity to augment flows through yield enhancement in the MDB is not well recognised. When we consider that normal runoff can be as low as 5% of rainfall then the conversion of only 5% of a property to enhanced yield conditions could substantially increase river flows.
And there is likely to be major ecological and economic advantages in obtaining additional environmental flows through a functioning market. A single hectare of graded catchment at Killarney in SEQ could deliver 10 megalitres of water to a farmer in Mildura while delivering the ecological benefits of that flow to the entire length of the darling river. And a properly functioning market for ecological services should value that water more highly than the same volume that fell as rain at Morgan SA.
$3 billion spent on yield enhancements in the high rainfall zones at the top of catchments could deliver a lot more water to a lot more of the system than buying out water allocations downstream.
And we have hardly begun to think about the potential.
Yep – I have some time for your proposition. Including some terraforming and vegetation management. The principles of ownership and equity need some working up though (IMO). You have made a start on such.
Can you elaborate more on graded catchments despite your earlier references to such on this blog.
A position paper with some marketing perhaps called for. Maybe you have to use commercial consultants and hydrologists to get the numbers crunched? SMK ? WBM ? – how interested is industry and farm lobby NGOs in getting a prospectus.
Time for some indulgent thoughts.
Despite my previous negativity towards cloud seeding, I suspect the Thais may have something and the Australian cloud physicists are waiting for a comeback. But the technology would be used to supplement average or good seasons – not drought bust. In a new Federally managed MDB might we see a role for cloud seeding on both side of the Range at “The Head” just upstream of Killarney. For both the Condamine headwaters on the MDB side and filling Lake Moogerah on the coast side.
Clearfelling Mt Wilson and Mt Superbus may be a tad excessive though (and controversial) despite yielding a far was of water.
Thanks Luke, its good to have a quiet discussion without the vaudeville. I suspect the other threads are victim to excessive liquid intake in hot weather that is stripping people’s water soluble vitamins like C and B and causing the grumps.
The graded catchments in WA seem to be mainly in the 600 to 700mm zone (corrections welcome) and have been widely used where sheep graziers have switched to vinyards. Generally the least productive south facing slopes above good dam sites have their topsoil removed to adjacent areas and are then graded and rolled to a series of hard, road like, slightly inward sloping terraces that maximise runoff into the dam.
So instead of every hectare only yielding half a megalitre in runoff each year, a smaller portion yields 5 megalitres/ha that can then be directed to the highest value uses, usually grapes.
The inward slope of the terraces reduces erosion because water only flows on the hard lower strata. And, at a price of $120/megalitre, each hectare delivers an annual $600 internal profit which sure beats the margin on sheep.
Most graded catchments involve a whole hillside but there is scope for using just a few terraces mid-slope to intercept fresher groundwater just before it gets to saline layers. This retains the groundcover above but lowers the saline water table below.
The scope for water trades between farmers at both ends of the MDB is enormous and with huge ecological benefits to the system. But if governments continue to claim that they own all the water, including surpluses created by lawful actions, then it will be left to urban tax payers to pay for their own ignorance, again.
Ian , I agree that too much fresh water is lost to evaporation from Lakes Alexandrina and Albert at the lower end of the Murray. There are farmers down there however that depend on the lakes as a water supply. In returning the lakes to pre-barrage condition something will need to be done to continue their supply or compensate otherwise.
Lake Victoria looses 200GL/year simply because the Barmah choke limits river flow during peak demand in the summmer.
Currently the Menindee lakes, at very low capacity, contain about 200GL in order to supply Broken Hill with 8GL/year. The 200GL will evaporate within the next 2 years to supply just 16GL. Surely the govts can do something to address these inefficiencies(Mr Howard in his speech the other week did allude to such measures)
With regard to over-allocation, general security licensing takes some of this over-alloc into account in its(lack of) reliability. In high runoff years this water allows for irrigation of annual crops such as cotton,rice,grain etc and in low runoff years the water supplies only the high security licences.
Also many licences have never been activated or fully utilised. The entitlement exists but so far has not had an effect on extraction levels. These are the licences most likely to be sold to govt but will not yield much additional water to the river.
I think rather than buying the licence govt should either buy the water on a temporary basis(cheaper when there is plenty and will be more effective in a high river flow situation) or lease the licences at current market values(approx 5% of worth). In order to be effective govt should target high security water so that the water is fully usable.
Thanks for the numbers on Lake Victoria and the Menindees, Rojo. I feel pretty certain there is a great new technology that could deliver water to the farmers near Lake Alexandrina. It is called the pipe.
It should also be pointed out that the government already owns a lot of land in the basin and a very small portion of it could be used as graded catchments as well.
But all up, given the fact that historical flows were more like 16,000Gl, not 24,000Gl as claimed by the MDBC, and given that total wasted water from evaporation from redundant shallow storages is in the order of 2000Gl, then there is no need to buy any licensed water.
There is absolutely no reason why the historical records for each decile of the rainfall stats cannot be converted to the same set of deciles for river flow so everyone can look at any part of the river system and know what sort of flow should be there in that sort of year.
And as has already been demonstrated by the MDBC, any lesser transparency will be abused to produce “ecological profiteering” where additional water is taken for purely landscaping purposes.
The Broken Hill numbers are interesting Rojo. A proper storage for Broken Hill’s two yeasr supply of 16Gl could be 1000ha at 1.6m deep, 100ha at 16m deep, 50ha at 32m deep or 25ha at 64m deep.
The 1000ha option would completely evaporate in 12 months so it would take another 32Gl in a 4.8m deep storage to do the job but it would still save 152Gl, worth $15.2 million at $100/Ml, every two years.
The 100ha option would only lose 3.2Gl in evaporation over the two years, saving 180.8Gl worth $18.08 million every two years.
The 50ha option would only lose 1.6Gl in evaporation over the two years and save 182.4Gl worth $18.24 million every two years. This apparently small additional savings would still cover the cost of an additional $960,000 in capital works like higher banks on the storage or additional pumping cost to a higher storage level.
At the moment Broken Hill uses $10 million worth of water to deliver 8Gl a year or $1250/Ml wholesale. That city is squandering $9 million in water each year that would enable primary production of at least $36 million which, with further value adding would amount to about $108 million a year. At a GDP per capita of $35,000, this is the equivalent of a town of 3085 people or 1/7th the population of Broken Hill itself.
Multiply that by three for the impact of Lake Victoria or multiply it by five or six for the impact of Lake Alexandrina. All up, there is a missing city of at least 31,000 people whose future has been evaporated by poor governance.
Most of those missing 31,000 are country kids who now live in the cities because there were few opportunities at home. They each produce about $6000 a year in added congestion costs in those cities for a total of about $186 million a year.
I think being able to isolate each lake(there are 4) and as you say pump into one that is small and deep would be most effective. This may involve higher embankments on the chosen lake, but there are limits on how high such walls can be built with the material on hand. 10m could be feasible.
The lakes do hold water at 5-6m depth when full, and historically fill every 2-2.5 years(according to DNR)so up until now no-one has been particularly bothered about the wastage. It has been much easier for the uninformed to question the merit of growing cotton than to mitigate such evaporative losses.
The obscene bit is that Lake Alexandrina is now being classed as a wetland, a natural one, and under threat from undersupply.
I dont know the exact area of this lake but about 750km2 seems like the case. And back in the tidal days this experienced a half metre tide twice a day. That is, about 375Gl flushed in and out of the Coorong twice a day or 750Gl a day.
So it boggles the mind how any serious ecologist could believe that this same ecological service could be delivered by any available volume of fresh water from the Murray. In fact, the entire 24,000Gl annual flow of the MDB would only deliver 32 days worth of flushing and still not fix any of the Coorong’s problems.
The barrages have lessened the water energy available to flush the tidal sand back out to sea. The biggest environmental concern for the coorong is the hyper-salinty in the eastern part. It seems the is not enough fluctuation to mix the water sufficiently, I don’t know if the barrages are the cause, or if the coorong requires a big fresh water flood.
It seems that the area between the barrage and the Coorong has insufficient volume to give a proper flush. The much larger volume in Lake Alexandrina would have needed a much stronger flow simply to move it up and down in 12 hours. And this is more likely to deliver a proper flush to the Coorong.
I’m not sure if the mouth is big enough to fill the lakes in the period between low and high tides. I suspect it would fluctuate in the one third from low to two thirds from high tide range. I would think an isolated coorong would maintain a level closer to the tide level and hence max mixing.
Yes the barrages remove the sheer push from such a body of water tyring to get back out to sea. I think the coorong level falls too closely to tide fall to create enough head loss and thus not enough velocity to keep the mouth open.
Do you know of any early reports on the Coorong? Especially if there were other gaps further East.
No I haven’t seen any reports but in a meeting with SA water people they have decided to return fiver flows that had been diverted seaward back into the eastern end of the coorong.
The mouth itself moves over time but the amount of tidal sand movement means there is only one opening. The “sand bar” seperating the sea from the coorong is a lot higher than I would have ever imagined, I’d guess 6m above sea level.
Just filing this here (from Crikey.com 5th April 2007): Richard Farmer writes:
Treasury Secretary Ken Henry is not the only senior Federal bureaucrat who thinks his advice was ignored — or not even sought — before the Government announced it intended to take control of the Murray Darling Basin.
When Prime Minister John Howard wrote to the Premiers in February with details of his $10 billion plan for the basin, a senior officer of the Federal Environment Department rang a state counterpart requesting a copy of the letter. That the officer, with years of experience in formulating Commonwealth water and environmental policy, had no idea what the PM was proposing is further evidence of the extraordinary way in which this major policy decision was reached.
It is now clear that the decision by Prime Minister John Howard to try and take over management of the Murray-Darling system had very little to do with anything other than politics. Knowing that global warming had become an issue favouring Labor, Howard and his then Parliamentary Secretary for Water, Malcolm Turnbull, decided that a grand plan to save the Murray was the ideal diversionary tactic.
An Office of Water Resources (OWR) was established by the Prime Minister on 26 September 2006 supposedly “to provide greater Commonwealth leadership in the sustainable management of Australia’s water resources” and a man rather unfairly sacked by the South Australian Government as head of its state transport system was brought in to run it.
Dr James Horne had moved to Adelaide from a position as a first assistant secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and 15 years in senior positions in the Federal Treasury. He returned to Canberra after his dismissal when he advised the SA Government that he was not prepared to consider an alternative position in the South Australian Public Service.
Dr Horne was the man given the unenviable task of developing the Murray-Darling plan that now threatens to become a considerable embarrassment to Mr Howard. Not only has Dr Henry cast doubts on its financial soundness, but the Victoria is still refusing to participate.
As if the Treasury assessment was not enough ammunition with which to embarrass the Government, Labor is sure to trot out again the evidence Dr Horne gave to a Senate Estimates committee earlier this year. Labor Senator Penny Wong asked how it was decided that $3 billion would be set aside for structural adjustments and buying water entitlements as part of the water plan.
“The Government has done no modelling of any impact on employment, no assessment of the numbers of people who might have to exit the industry and has not costed any price for purchasing entitlement,” she said.
Doctor Horne agreed that was the case. “As far as it goes, that’s correct,” he said.
Senator Wong said the Commonwealth could not know if the funds were sufficient, but Dr Horne said the figure was based on sound estimates.
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull is the man with the difficult task of rescuing what his leader planned as a key plank in his efforts to establish the environmental credentials of the Government.
This week, Mr Turnbull was down by the river in Victoria trying to persuade irrigation farmers to back the $10 billion plan but, as The Age reported, he was having some difficulty. The Victorian Farmers Federation told him it wanted a written guarantee that Victorian irrigators would maintain their existing water entitlements and property rights and a written guarantee that bulk water entitlements — legal agreements that divide the water in the Murray-Darling Basin between environmental, agricultural and urban users — would not be reviewed until 2020, as enshrined in state law.
Until the VFF is satisfied, the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks is not inclined to join his fellow Labor Premiers from NSW, Queensland and South Australia and give the Commonwealth the powers it is asking for.
Federation president Simon Ramsay is in no hurry, saying that “the view by industry is that there is some urgency for the Prime Minister to get all the states signed up. I’ve said to Malcolm (Turnbull) we won’t be pushed into trying to meet their election deadline merely to satisfy the PM”.