Top water experts urge renewed action to secure future of Murray-Darling Basin
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has today urged a suite of actions and investments to protect the future of the Murray-Darling Basin in the face of climate change, which is threatening the river’s health and sustainability.
In a new essay series A thriving Murray-Darling Basin in 50 years: Actions in the face of climate change, ATSE urges more investment in technologies to monitor the river for climate impacts and in sustained governance with regional and rural communities at the centre, coupled with evolving our agriculture industry in the face of decreased water availability and accepted water sharing policies.
The essay series highlights the vibrant, thriving potential of the Basin if sustainably managed for the benefit of communities and the environment. To achieve this, it recommends the reinstatement of a body to provide independent objective policy advice on national water management, including for the Murray-Darling Basin, to help guide consistent national data-driven decision-making.
ATSE President Katherine Woodthorpe AO FTSE said the future of the Murray-Darling Basin is recognised to be at severe risk and that comprehensive action across Federal, State and Territory Governments will be decisive to safeguard its biodiversity, social and economic importance to Australia.
“The Murray-Darling Basin covers one-seventh of Australia’s landscape and is responsible for delivering a significant share of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product. But more importantly, to safeguard and protect this resource for the future, Australia must take urgent action in the face of increasing climate change.
“To inform evidence-based decision making, we need a central data custodian for all water quantity and water quality monitoring data, which is transparently shared with all stakeholders.
“Managing the Basin effectively will also require a review of institutional arrangements that govern property rights at a Territory, State and Commonwealth level for consistency as well as climate-proofing.
“At the heart of this plan, we need to ensure institutional governance benefits rural and regional communities including addressing the cultural water rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
“It is time for a long-term approach to managing our most important water resource,” said Dr Woodthorpe.
The Academy looks forward to advising the Federal, State and Territory Governments on shaping a comprehensive plan for the Basin that is resilient to our changing climate and charts a course for a thriving river system over the next 50 years.
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wam
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Clakka
Return to home pageThe evaporation from the shallow lakes and open drains must be addressed.
With no cotton south or east of the ord
Oz and its federated states are mind bogglingly stupid with their petty little wars across borders that have little to do with where water comes from, is stored and goes to, but everything to do with land use and ownership, rates, excises, and commercial roulette.
It’s not only the Murray Darling Basin, but also the Larapinta Sea (GAB) and others. The historic misuse of water and feckless destruction of vegetation and soils blowing in the wind, has given rise to major salinity problems and creeping desertification. Also the toxification of soils and water supplies by misuse of nitrogenous and phosphorous based fertilizers along with fossil-fuel based weedicides and insecticides. All rolling on to animal extinctions, reduction in nutritional values of produce, and toxification of the food chain leading to decline in human health and substantial increase in chronic illness.
The risks of these matters have been known about for well over 50 years, yet SFA has been done by feckless govts, if not for the hard work of scientists and agronomists and the concerned farmers, we’d be much further along the slippery-slide to hell.
It is startling to understand that Oz has been ignoring examples from America, since the days of the ‘great dustbowl’ and beyond. Not only ignoring, but also allowing us to be captured by America’s m.o. of over exploitation of soils and water, and its fossil-fuel based chemical nightmare. America being perhaps 40 years ahead in its self-destruction, it’s now almost fucked. And if the depredations of climate change are added, it’s almost beyond redemption.
All this should be utmost on our political agenda, but the alleged natural party of the farmers, the ‘Nationals’ are now blighted by abject fuck-wits like Joyce and Littleproud, who are mere toadies to financial exploitation, and destructive culture wars whilst busting their guts to strangle the ALP for their co-conspiritors in the LPA and the mainstream media.
The issues ought long ago have been on the main pages of media, but have continually been supplanted by the jiggery-pokery politics of the main voter cohort of urban and sub-urban Oz being eyed as prey from the greasy ivory towers in the big smoke.
So much for our ‘clever country’, trade balances, the digitization of everything and the wiles of bean counters. Seems soon we’ll face the real threat of having no beans, nor sheep to count as we seek to stem our nightmares. It’ll be too late then to beef about it. One would think we’d have learned, and not had to cotton-on.