Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for January 2011

The Value of Water to the Queensland Government: A Note from Tony

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IN all the controversy over management of dams in South East Queensland, it is worth considering the value of the resource to the nominal owners, the Queensland Government, who sell that water to consumers.

With the aid of the Wivenhoe dam capacity diagrams, it is possible to determine that during the recent major drought, Wivenhoe went from 100 percent down to its low point of 15 percent.  That took eight and a half years, and there were no restrictions, and water was always plentiful for every use, be that residential, commercial or industrial use.

The cost of that water at the time was also cheap, in fact, the cost was almost negligible. However, as that low point of 15 percent approached, firstly the Beattie Government, and then the following Bligh Government, started to ramp up the prices and impose progressively more draconian restrictions upon the consumption of that water.

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Looking for AGW in a Sea of Natural Variability: Drought to Flood (Part 1): A Note from Luke Walker

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After the Queensland floods, Stewart Franks’ research on the interaction of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) driving cycles of drought and flood in Australia has been advanced as the rebuttal to the proposition by some politicians and scientists that anthropogenic climate change has had a role in recent events. And that the sceptic position forms a more rational and unique unheard insight into the climate system. That indeed it is business as usual, there is nothing to worry about except mopping up, and that the average rainfall of Queensland is (drought + flood) divide by 2.

Franks’ proposition is well based on physical processes and observed data. Of course there have been other supporters of the same position from various fields:

Peter Helman suggests cycles of beach erosion are influenced by IPO cycles, “The impact of sea level rise during the last few decades has not been expressed due to low storm energy (Callaghan and Helman 2008). Climate variability determines when and how sea level change will occur on the coast. Sea level oscillates with decadal and annual climate variability. Over decades, sea level changes are related to oscillation phases of IPO (Figure 3). It has been shown that during phases of negative IPO La Ninã events are more frequent (Verdon 2007), sea level rises at a faster rate than the long term trend (Goring and Bell 2001) and is higher than the long term trend with high storm energy, are periods of coastal erosion (Helman 2007). The longest period of negative IPO recorded was from the late 1850’s to the early 1890’s and the most recent was from the late 1940’s to the late 1970’s. Both of these periods resulted in major changes and erosion of the coastline (Helman 2007).

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Nerang River and Sealevel Rise

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Dear Jen
 
Yesterday was the highest tide of the year and the highest for the last 12 months and the photo of the sea level against this old sea-wall, I took this morning at the top of the tide at slack water.
 
We built this wall 48 years ago and the SL is around 300 mm [12 ins] below the step. Last January”s KT was around 200 mm [8 ins] below this step.

During the ’60s and ’70s the king tides always came to the top of this step except when there was flooding and/or sea surge from cyclonic conditions, in which case those king tides came above the step. In recent years the SL has not reached this step…

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Conservatism and Inland Water Management: A Note from David Boyd

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I think it was John Howard who once described a conservative as someone who did not believe that everything his grandfather said was necessarily wrong!

Nobody could accuse present day water managers (bureaucrats and attention seeking scientific advocates)of being conservative. They appear to approach current issues from the clear position that their forebears didn’t really have a clue about what they were doing.

So much so, we now have a widespread “conventional wisdom” view that in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) our rivers are all “over allocated” and that this has given rise to their “ill-health”.(They conveniently overlook the fact that the “ill-health” was really the natural result of extreme dryness which Mother Nature has dramatically corrected over recent days.)

The much maligned forebears of these modern “dark green” commentators recognised the massive variability of the inland rivers of temperate Australia and devised a dynamic, adaptive, self correcting management system. Water licenses/entitlements were issued subject to seasonal allocations. Think of it sequentially-it rains, or it doesn’t. Our dams have plenty in storage or they don’t. Our water managers then, guided by long debated Water Management Plans, determine the percentage (if any) of the licensed amount which may be extracted.

This methodology allows account to be taken of environmental and critical human needs before any extractions for irrigation are allowed. It means that in a year when water is in short supply such as in 2008/9 only 3,500GL were extracted in the MDB, not the 13,700GL upper limit which the Guide to the Murray Darling Basin Plan keeps referring to.

Farmers understand the system and its logic and accept the risks involved. They also recognise the smoke screen of politicians talking about granting certainty. A concept totally foreign to Australian farming!

Likewise, they recognise the nonsense of asking the CSIRO to calculate the Sustainable Diversion Limits for each of the rivers. If “sustainable” means the “annual” amount that can always be extracted, then given the fact that all of our inland rivers,including the mighty Murray, sometimes actually stop flowing, then the limit must be placed at nil.

Faced with these variability issues the modern water managers then revert to using averages. Given the massive spreads around the average such mathematics quickly becomes meaningless.

All of this was well understood by those who devised the system. It is clearly not understood by those who glibly state that our rivers are over-allocated and advocate correcting the perceived problem by having the Government buy up water licenses without ever mentioning the role of seasonal allocations.

Oh for more conservatives!

Read more from David Boyd at http://davidboydsblog.blogspot.com/

National Broadcaster Willfully Ignores the Evidence

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A week ago, our national broadcaster, the ABC, interviewed both Stewart Franks, Newcastle University, and David Karoly, Melbourne University, on the alleged impact of global warming on the floods. 

Professor Karoly blamed carbon dioxide and his opinion was broadcast.  Stewart Franks,  who has for some time been warning of the likelihood of significant flooding in southern Queensland and NSW, explained the floods in terms of natural climate cycles and his opinion was not broadcast. 

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Tony Windsor Willfully Ignores the Evidence

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THE ability to perceive anomaly – something that deviates from what is considered standard – is important for the progress of science and also good public policy.

Until the recent widespread flooding in Australia, water planning in the Murray Darling Basin was based on the assumption that the region would experience continuing drought because of climate change.  The underlying science was considered the best available because it was endorsed by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology and it confidently predicted a major decline in rainfall for decades.

This assumption has since proven wrong.  Indeed during 2010 rainfall was 163 percent of the long term average. 

The latest flooding was predicted by Stewart Franks, a hydrologist at the University of Newcastle.   Professor Franks, in a series of papers published in peer-reviewed journals since 2003, has confirmed and provided explanation, for what many farmers have known intuitively that the Murray Darling Basin generally exists in one of two states – flood or drought.

While recent flooding, and the rainfall totals for the Murray Darling for 2010, dramatically demonstrate the anomaly between government water policy and reality, Tony Windsor, the independent for New England who holds the balance of power in the federal parliament, remains in denial.  Indeed despite the flooding he claims there is no need to rethink reform within the Murray Darling Basin.

In an article published by The Australian yesterday Mr Windsor went as far as to suggest that the Murray River is still dying.

So the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Australian Greens and now even the Independent member for the rural seat of New England are willfully ignoring evidence that contradicts their beliefs.  This is a bad omen for public policy in Australia.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/windsor-rejects-rethink-on-basin-plan/story-fn59niix-1225989031335