Managing Extremes in Australia

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Episode recorded March 15, 2023
Episode released on May 18, 2023

Quentin Grafton is Professor of Economics at the Australian National University. He holds the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance and is Convenor of the Water Justice Hub.

Highlights | Transcript

• Preparing for 2^nd United Nations World Water Conference in New York in March 2023, almost 50 years since 1^st UN World Water Conference in 1977 in Plata del Mar in Argentina: Water scarcity is still a major concern which is also connected to food security. Perspectives article in Nature.
• Recent flooding in eastern Australia over past three years (2020 – 2023) linked to La Nina conditions (Fig. 1).
• Flooding in many major cities, including Brisbane and Sydney and town of Lismore (29,000 people, rapid rise with flood height 40 ft overtopping houses).
• Adaptation to flooding: Government buying back houses in flooded areas and people moving to higher ground.
• Floods preceded by droughts in 2017 – 2019, linked to El Nino Southern Oscillation and resulting in widespread bushfires in 2019 (Fig. 1).
• The Millennium Drought (~ 2000 – 2010) peaked 2006-2007 and ended with flooding in 2010 – 2011 linked to La Nina. Need extreme flooding to overcome cumulative water deficit over Millennium drought.
• Managing floods and droughts:
  • storing water, reservoir storage ~ 53 km³ can provide water for a few years
  • increasing water supplies: seawater desalination
  • reducing water demand, particularly in agriculture
• Seawater desalination: Most of Australian population lives near the coast.
  • Desalination plants in Perth warranted because rainfall declining since mid-1970s and reservoir inflows have been
  • Desalination plant in Sydney built too soon because there was no overall trend in precipitation and reservoir storage was about 60%. The plant has been mothballed since 2012.
• Irrigated agriculture: globally irrigation accounts for 70% of water withdrawals and 90% of water consumption, with similar percentages in Australia.
  • Increasing irrigation efficiency in the Murray Darling Basin (~ A$8 billion investment in Murray Darling Basin Plan) increased water consumption and reduced streamflow, failing to deliver increased water resources because of lack of accounting at the basin scale rather than the farm scale. The Paradox of Irrigation Efficiency
• Who gets the water during droughts: irrigators, municipalities, communities? Water allocation and water planning are critical to managing these extremes.
• UN Water Conference in New York: Too much and too little – Accelerating Integrated Water Resources Management for a Climate resilient water management.
• One of the topics on UN Water webinar was “when it comes down to water: there’s too much, too little or it’s dirty.”
• Water quality issues in Australia: affecting rural communities, naturally occurring contaminants from fluoride and arsenic etc. Affects socially vulnerable communities and indigenous people. Not being addressed so people moving from these towns. Starting to address these issues.

• Some of biggest challenges to water in Australia linked to droughts and floods. Governments are developing approaches to adapt to these extremes but not at the scale and the speed required.