Murray-Darling Basin Water Storage 16% Of Capacity - Drought Still On, Despite Some Rains

[hatrack]

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Drought in Australia's main food growing region of the Murray-Darling river system continues, with water stores near record lows despite recent rains, the head of the government's oversight body for the system said on Wednesday. The long-running drought has hit irrigated crops such as rice, grapes and horticulture hardest, but has had less impact on wheat with good falls of rainfall in grain-growing areas to the north of the Murray-Darling River basin.

"The immediate prospects are not good as only about 10 percent of Murray system inflows normally occur between February and May, and the latest rainfall outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology shows only neutral conditions across the Basin for the next three months," said Rob Freeman, chief executive of the Murrary-Darling Basin Authority.

The Murray-Darling basin, which is as large as France and Germany combined, accounts for 41 percent of Australia's agriculture and provides A$21 billion ($13.54 billion) worth of farm exports to Asia and the Middle East. Around 70 percent of irrigated agriculture comes from the basin.

Dry land wheat crops are also grown in the region but crops have struggled in recent years. The region contributed little to a boost in Australia's wheat production to 20 million tons for the just completed 2008/09 harvest from 13 million tons harvested a year earlier. The drought has already wiped more than A$20 billion from the $1 trillion economy since 2002. It is the worst in 117 years of record-keeping, with 80 percent of eucalyptus trees already dead or stressed in the Murray-Darling region.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5127CY20090203?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

[SlicerDicer-]

1. Will humans learn a lesson?

That destroy destroy does not work. Look at what the Romans did to the land around Lebanon and Israel that is still being payed for to this day. There is alot to be said for this kind of damage. This is directly human induced just like the Amazon droughts by killing off native vegetation to grow food or fuel.

Yes I deny Global Warming but I do not deny effects like this. I think it has nothing to do with Global Warming but more to do with deforestation or damage to grasslands. If you need further evidence you can look to the Dust Bowl. Damage to the soil is my main concern that I see going forward. The over use of fertilizers that turns the soil to salt you can read about this till you are blue in the face in Australia. Then you can find people in Australia who are brilliant minds who turn their fields around and use proper land use practices and it becomes illegal. You have to wonder where the mindset is these days :/

Damage to soil is very long term.. The further the damage the longer to fix it or rather let it fix itself as you cannot really fix it "quickly" the Chinese are also learning these lessons right now too with desertification. And last but not least look up the desert in maine.. still to this day dunes due to bad land practices. It really does not take a whole lot to damage the land like this.

Reap what you sow... its not just a slogan its a real fact. And till the mindset changes this will become commonplace. Go organic.. go less environmental impact and maybe.. just maybe we can turn this around.

Note for the past 2 years I have been playing with sustainable agriculture practices and have seen incredible results. Its quite my cup of tea here :)