The world climate is warming. Australia happen to be affected the most.
The question remains if that must be or we could do something about that ?
One month we have catastrophic flooding in next few months catastrophic lack of the that water....
Isn't solution a bit obvious ?
Shouldn't we flood extensive areas to create artificial lakes, swamps.
Storage that water that come in rainy season ?
Then look at the Australia map in few years to see many big blue eyes, surrounded by green belts in the place was only yellow and red dirt?
As a bay product the water sports could flourish at the Australia outback too
Then those that lost on crops harvest could earn on fish farm..

There is hardly any place that rain doesn't fall at all. The only problem is with water retention.
In wet season the rivers are rising and carrying as much water as possible back to the sea.
Since there is no natural obstacle in Australia that could create large internal water storage a bit of engineering is required.
Dams at least and sacrificial large areas for artificial lakes.
If one day Gina pits will be dry of the last drop or Iron Ore and Coal ,v she could refill with H2O to sell what is the most precious later.
For the money spent on desalination plants , bushfire fighting and rebuilding after you could build massive cheap dikes and canal to flood dry land.

The Bradfield Scheme, the greening of the inland by catching flood rains from east of the great dividing range and piping it inland for irrigation, was supposed to follow on directly after the completion of the Snowy Mountains Irrigation Project.

All the required machinery, technology and skilled labour had been landed here so it was logical to proceed with it.

Unfortunately for us our colonial masters in the city of London and Buckingham Palace said NO. Don't let the colonies develop. Rape them of their natural resources, value add to them here in Blighty and then sell them back to them at a huge profit.

Thus it was then and still is today.

There is no way new major damming, river divertion or flood mitigation projects will ever get the go ahead in Australia.

Right now the federal government spends billions of dollars to do stuff like buying back water licences and turning rivers around that have been diverted. I read it cost about a billion dollars to get the Snowy River flowing again. I'm not sure why it costs so much money either. Sounds like a bit of a rent seeking scam.

So the money is going towards turning back the clock on managing Australia's waterways.

Smart money is on buying properties with water licences and then waiting for a pleasant letter from the Federal government offering to buy back the water licence. I wonder if Eddie Obeid is onto this one yet. Funny how licences that were dished out for nothing suddenly are worth heaps of money. Same deal as the taxi licences. There is another scamming industry full of rent seekers.

One for sure. Once there is huge water reserve storage you could not charge people exorbitant price for drinking water from desalination plants.
Any way this water factories are self propelled machines that require constant maintain ace, energy supply and allow for profit to be nicely distributed among share owners and business management class.
Not so easy to charge or release shares for crystal clear water lake storage.

As for government buying water rights, who is paying for this eventually if not all tax payers ?
I bet that Chinese people when in possession of Australian desert land could convert it into sunken rice fields able to feed the rest of the world.
There is not really lack of water in Australia but terrible lack of investment in water management.
I have small dam on my property but due to prolonged dry season in QLD is almost empty now. On another hand in good rainy day this hundreds cubic meters could be refilled in one day by the water flowing down the hill. But I don't have enough land to storage the access and in few hours all that precious water finish in the sea.

Scotty88 said...
We have a water storage shortage NOT water shortage in Australia. Pipe it from up north send it to the farms. It would be cost effective if we can feed Asia.
And they might stop stealing our baby food.

agree

we have a population problem, not a water problem. australia is simply unable to support this many people. it may look big but there is not much arable land or much rainfall over most of the continent.

as to the bushfires- you could have all the water you want nearby but once a fire gets going in remote bush there is little hope of getting to it before it gets uncontrollable

dinsdale said...
Have a look at Lake Eyre. It's 100 or more feet below sea level and only a couple of hundred Kms straight line from the coast. An aqueduct from the coast to Lake Eyre should flow by itself and create a huge inland sea.

Neat eh !!

A one way trip for the water, and every inch evaporated leaves how much salt on the bottom? How many years before we have a dry salt lake 0 feet below sea level?

I'll go with Stamp.

stamp said...
we have a population problem, not a water problem. australia is simply unable to support this many people. it may look big but there is not much arable land or much rainfall over most of the continent.

Problem is due to lack of foresight by previous governments to build infrastructure.
Governments these days can't see past the next election.

We were bullshiiiting around a few beers at my sailing club doing the global warming conversation routine. One of the oldies (83 still sailing) had a laugh and said: all the so called climate change expert are calling it extreme weather........ we had 50 years ago, exactly the same weather.......... we used to call it summer! Makes sens to me!

properly watered green crops? you think fires burn through poorly irrigated crops? i suggest you take a drive out west macroscien. have a look at how much bush there is and what it is composed of. grab a handful of eucalyptus leaves and throw them into a fire.
australian flora has adapted to tolerate, and even encourage, fire.

Ian K said...

dinsdale said...
Have a look at Lake Eyre. It's 100 or more feet below sea level and only a couple of hundred Kms straight line from the coast. An aqueduct from the coast to Lake Eyre should flow by itself and create a huge inland sea.

Neat eh !!

A one way trip for the water, and every inch evaporated leaves how much salt on the bottom? How many years before we have a dry salt lake 0 feet below sea level?

I'll go with Stamp.

Oh well might as do the calculations myself. Lake Eyre is 9,500sq km.



Annual pan evaporation out there is 4,000 mm per year. You wouldn't get this over the whole of a full lake Eyre, there'd be more negative feedback over a larger area, but.... If this evaporation was spread out as rain over the whole of SA, area 983,000 square km, that would be an extra 40 mm of rain a year. Allowing for reduced evaporation over a larger water body, and losses to WA, Victoria, NSW and the NT - that's not even an extra inch.

Sea water is 3.5% by mass of salt. Salt has a density of 1.2 so when that 4,000mm evaporates there's 120 mm of salt added to the bottom of lake eyre each year. At the moment it's 15 metres below sea level. In 125 years it would be at 0. Because of the reduction in evaporation it will be a bit longer. Not worth it, I'm sure they did the calculation back in the day.

Going back to the title of the topic, there is no solution to bushfires. The Australian bush is meant to burn periodically. If the pyros or the bushfire fighters don't start the fires then lightning will.

If people do not want to have their homes burnt by bushfires they should not build them on the edge of the bush.

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

Macroscien said...

Ian K said...

Sea water is 3.5% by mass of salt. Salt has a density of 1.2 so when that 4,000mm evaporates there's 120 mm of salt added to the bottom of lake eyre each year. At the moment it's 15 metres below sea level. In 125 years it would be at 0. Because of the reduction in evaporation it will be a bit longer. Not worth it,

Calculations are completely wrong. After 150 years the lake level still will be the same as today. The leftover salts are actually very valuable for chemical industry.
Worth digging out for sure.

Dig it out, of course! Our hypothetical Lake Eyre providing an extra inch of rain for SA accumulates an annual layer of salt 120mm deep over 9,500 sq miles. that's 950,000,000 tonnes pa. Annual global production is 210,000,000 tonnes pa. So you've got to find a few new markets. And you have to let the salt dry out while the bulldozers are in, no extra rain while that's happening.

But then again that is the 2006 salt production, I'm sure we'll use a bit more in 2013, maybe by 2163 you will be able to shift it all.

gibberjoe said...

Bushfires, or more truthfully grassfires as most this year have been. Photos showing clothing on the hills hoist blakened but not burnt while the house [quicky abandoned] by residents, nearby is gutted. Embers have invade ths premises and destroyed. Preventable.
In 50's 60's we . the people fought same type fires with tree boughs and sacks, on foot to save our houses and plant, Huge fires.
Modern man is a poor worker, or maybe the now inhabitants are not suited/capable of living in these enviroments and should remain under the structure of a city

I still can't see any fire proof shelters to be build in fire prone areas.
Every property at risk should have one, then property owner could try to fight with fire and protect his property. If not successfully could retreat to safety near by.
Letting fire to burn to own will and devices is the worst scenario, but without any backup retreat people have nothing better then flee.
If that really so difficult to build underground shelter or bunker that withstand few hours fire outside ?