Drought in Aussie Food Bowl Continues to Worsen
The Murray-Darling Basin exists as Australia’s largest agricultural area, and drains a total of one-seventh of the Australian land mass. The Basin harbors two of Australia’s largest and most important rivers, the Murray River and the Darling River. And the Murray-Darling is also Australia’s foodbowl, providing food for Australia, as well as exports to Asia and the Middle East.
But with water inflows over the past two years at an all-time low, the Murray-Darling Basin is dying.
- » See also: Mango Glut Overloads Brisbane Garbage System - Gluts in Africa are Critical and Need Solutions
- » Get EcoLocalizer by RSS or sign up by email.
The drought currently inflicting much of Australia has been doing so for nearly a decade, and is the worst in 117 years worth of records. A massive 80% of Eucalyptus trees, trees native to Australia, in the Murray-Darling are either dead or stressed.
“It seems to me from what we’ve seen to date, there’s no indication that it’s going to end in the immediate future,” said Wendy Craik, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission which controls water use and flows in the rivers.
Thankfully, the drought has this year seen a measure of relief for wheat farmers. Average rainfall back in July saw wheat farmers able to plant crops, and they are on track for a wheat harvest of around 23.7 million tons for the 2008/09 harvest. This, compared to last year’s crop of only 13 million tons, September is make or break for crops sown this winter.
“What we really need to make some inroads in the situation is a big wet, and what our weather models aren’t showing is a strong likelihood of a big wet over the next few months,” said Neil Plummer, the Acting Head of the National Climate Centre.
A look at the total reservoir holdings of the Murray Basin sees the figure sit at 66%, with massive downturns in current and forecasted water flow per day. Meanwhile, water storage across the country continues to worsen, with my own home of Melbourne seeing their combined water levels sit at just over 33%.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology Drought Statement, released on the 4th of August, summed up the situation;
Near-normal rainfall in July 2008 over large parts of southern Australia, along with unseasonable winter rains in eastern tropical and subtropical Queensland, brought some relief to short-term rainfall deficiencies. However, these rains made little impact on longer-term deficiencies at the 14-month timescale. These highlight areas that received little rainfall relief from the previous year’s La Niña event, with large areas of deficiencies through central and southern parts of Australia.
credit: suburbanbloke at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
More from the GO Network
The Australian Disaster Novel; aka, our Climate Report
Seven Ways to Save Energy by Saving Water
Long Term Rain Needed to End Aussie Drought
