Jennifer Marohasy

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Mapping Salinity: What a Mess

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Two weeks ago I received an email from Rob Gourlay letting me know that Brian Tunstall’s response to the 2005 Spies and Woodgate Report on salinity mapping methods was available at the ERIC website.

Some of the issues Brian Tunstall raises in this review, include the same issues that I raised in my Land column of May last year, titled Challenging Belief on Dryland Salinity in which I wrote:

A recent released technical report, Salinity Mapping Methods in the Australian Context (January 2004), from the Australian Academy of Science restates the cause as ‘changes in the water balance of landscapes following the removal of native vegetation and the introduction of European agricultural practices’ (pg. 8).
It predicts that the area affected by dryland salinity will continue to increase because of continuously rising saline water tables from the changed water balance.

This basic premise, however, was challenged by NSW government scientist Dr Christine Jones, who had articles published in The Australian Farm Journal in 2000-2001.

She contends that the ‘rising groundwater model’ has failed us because it makes false assumptions about the nature of pre-European vegetation and the way water moves in the landscape.

Rob Gourlay and Dr Brian Tunstall of Environmental Research and Information Consortium Pty Ltd (ERIC) independently came to similar conclusions through the development of an airborne gamma radiation salinity mapping technology.

According to Gourlay, ‘Dryland salinity (in the Murray Darling Basin) is really a soil health issue, a symptom of soil degradation not a rising water table issue.

The Academy of Science report compares salinity mapping methods with the conclusion that the main ‘knowledge gap’ is the location of salt at depth and whether it is likely to be mobilised by rising groundwater.

The electromagnetic (EM) mapping technique that the report advocates for plugging this knowledge gap is expensive—up to 10 times the cost of doing the gamma ray mapping that focuses on the top metre and that Gourlay has commercialised.

The Academy of Science report was dismissive of the gamma ray technology for salinity mapping describing it as not having a scientific foundation and advising potential users of the technology to seek ‘independent advice on claims made by the vendors’. Gourlay regards this as an attack on his ‘professionalism and capacity to trade’. He questioned how ‘publicly funded scientists who compete with the private sector can get away with using taxpayer money to discredit the only technology that has delivered benefits to clients at a paddock, farm, catchment and regional scale across Australia since 1992’.

One of the authors of the Academy of Science report, Brian Spies, works for the CSIRO and has been involved in the development and commercialization of the TEMPEST electromagnetic mapping system.
CSIRO provides commercial services based around the TEMPEST technology and hence the Australian Academy of Science report could be interpreted as knocking a competing service as well as promoting the CSIRO method.

The saga drags on.

It is interesting to reflect back to November 2000 when the Council of Australian Governments endorsed the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality with a funding package of $1.4 billion over 7 years.

As part of this package state governments produced a series of salinity hazard maps.

On 2nd August 2002 industry representatives gathered with media at The Salinity Summit at Queensland’s Parliament House to hear speeches from State Premier Peter Beattie, Federal Minister for Environment and Heritage Hon Dr David Kemp and others.

The Premier’s speech included:

“The first thing that we have to avoid is denial, and I am going to come back to this. The first thing we have to avoid is denial about the problem. There is a problem. … We have to accept there is a problem, and denial is not on the agenda. It will not be on the agenda. It cannot be. We have got an action plan where all the stakeholders have a say in the solution. …I want to make it clear that we stand by the science in the map. Its methodology has been checked and endorsed by the CSIRO, the National Land and Water Audit and AFFA. As I said before, I want to thank Dr Kemp for taking this constructive approach and lending this support to our science …” (pg. 2)

A lot of government policy decisions, and government dollars were allocated, on the basis of the map the Premier proudly displayed that day. The map was all over Brisbane television that evening.

Ian Beale (a local landholder with a PhD) was reported in the Queensland Country Life (QCL) explaining that according to the government’s own Salinity Management Handbook (QDNR 1997) the area west of the 600mm isohyet could not be at risk of dryland salinity – yet is shown on the Premier’s map as bright red and therefore at high risk. The map with the isohyte marked by Beale can be downloaded here (600 Kbs).

This map that the Premier had proudly displayed at the summit, but with the isohyet as drawn by Ian Beale, was published in the QCL.

In March 2005 at the Australian Water Summit in Sydney I listened to a speaker from Geoscience Australia explain how technology used by the Queenslnd government to develop the salinity hazard maps and other maps used in catchment management planning were based on old technology. I queried this during the question session and Brian Spiers (a member of the Conference audience) volunteered that the Queensland scientists who put the original maps together were not skilled in the technology that they were using. This includes the map Premier Beattie said he stood by at the Summit and that he said CSIRO had endorsed.

Meanwhile Tunstall and Gourlay continue to explain how CSIRO has got it so wrong with the new review at ERIC. Tunstall summarizes part of the problem:

… This error could reflect deficiencies in the
presentation of hazard and risk in the report as, while hazard is implicitly identified as being categorical, this was not explicitly
stated. However, it demonstrates the limited ability of those producing the report [and maps] to integrate the disparate information it contains. If the information in the Report is inadequate for the authors to draw correct conclusions then it would be considered grossly inadequate for those that are meant to use it. If the authors get it wrong from the material presented then it
would be reasonable to expect that most people will get it wrong.

This inability to integrate diverse information derives from a failure to apply basic scientific considerations such as the
form of variable (e.g. continuous variable or category), independence of observations (the advocated use of information that is
not independently derived results in circular arguments) and mutual exclusion between categories. This latter condition is illustrated by the failure to discriminate between soil water and ground water, and
the apparent confusion between geology and hydrology.

…………
Relevant documents/links:

Peter Beatties speech at the Salinity Summit,
Download file .

The Spies and Woodgate report, (I am having trouble uploading my copy of this report, perhaps someone can send me a link? 19/9 at 6.30pm) (4,000 Kbs).

The Tunstall report at ERIC, Download file (678 Kbs).

The GM-Free Price Tag

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The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE)has just issued a media release:

Australia’s GM-free stance on planting transgenic canola could result in significant losses for Australian farmers, according to the September issue of Australian Commodities released today by Dr Brian Fisher, Executive Director of ABARE.

Although Australia’s gene technology regulator has approved transgenic canola for commercial planting, state and territory legislators have established moratoriums prohibiting the growing of transgenic canola. Moratoriums on commercialising transgenic canola currently exist in all states and territories except Queensland and
the Northern Territory.

“ABARE modeling has found that failure to commercialise transgenic crops now and in the near future could, by 2015, cost Australians $3 billion,” Dr Fisher said.

Continued growth in the adoption of transgenic crops and continued development of new varieties of transgenic crops in Asia and in north and south America will potentially result in Australian grain and oilseed producers competing with increasing volumes of transgenic grains and oilseeds in export markets. This is likely to result in
lower profitability and lower market share for conventional grain crops, which are more expensive to produce than transgenic varieties.

“The current moratoriums are having a negative impact on Australia’s research and development effort, and Australia risks being left behind as other nations embrace innovations in transgenic crop development,” warned Dr Fisher.

Australian canola producers are already competing with transgenic canola seed in their major export markets. Australian producers of other conventional grains also face a future in which they potentially are forced to compete with lower cost transgenic crops grown in Asia and in north and south America.

For media interviews and comment, contact report author Stephen Apted on 02 6272 2059.

For copies of the article Transgenic crops: welfare implications for Australia, please visit the ABARE web site www.abareconomics.com or phone 02 6272 2010. This article is contained in the September 2005 issue of Australian Commodities.

The Dutch Ban Free-Range Chooks

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While in the US, the Prime Minister announced that Australia is joining the new International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza (IPAPI). On 16th September he said,

The partnership will bring together concerned states to limit the spread of a pandemic. Every necessary step will be taken to promote international cooperation aimed at joint preventive action and to develop capabilities to respond to a pandemic threat.

The IPAPI should also complement and support the ongoing work on pandemics conducted through the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health.

The Australian Government is working at the domestic, regional and wider international level on influenza and pandemic planning and response measures.

Australia is working to remain at the leading edge in planning for an influenza pandemic. The Australian Government has provided approximately $160 million over five years for national pandemic preparedness and response.

Australia’s involvement with the partnership will build on our existing work in the region to prepare for pandemic threats such as avian influenza. Our response to date has been both significant and strategic, with a contribution of over $18 million since 2003 to combat avian influenza and SARS in the region.

The Government believes that APEC provides another useful forum to promote regional cooperation on this important issue. APEC has been working for two years on preparedness and response to pandemic threats and initiatives to strengthen this work will be discussed at the Leaders’ meeting in November 2005.

Australia also supports a Canadian proposal to host an international meeting of Health Ministers to discuss global pandemic preparedness.

It is important that the world works together to coordinate our forward defence around the globe against a pandemic outbreak.”

I asked Roger Kalla what he thought about the announcement and he wrote back:

“The PM’s announcement from the UN 2005 World Summit summit outlining the coordinated global effort to develop capabilities to respond to a pandemic threat is an acknowledgement that the bird flu is a global problem that might be winging it down under.

What are we doing about it? The development of vaccines against the avian flu strain is being ramped up here in Australia and elsewhere but need to be tested and are 6- 12 months away . Governments and health scientists that realise the seriousness of this potential threat (including Peter Doherty Noble Prize winner in immunology) have quietly been stockpiling anti viral drugs such as Relenza, resulting in a doubling of the share price of local Biotech Biota that developed it.

However there are only 120 odd confirmed cases worldwide of infected humans, the majority being poultry factory workers that come in direct contact with infected birds.

The alarming fact though is that of these 120 cases half proved to be fatal. By comparison, only 10% of the victims of SARS in the 2003 outbreak died while it is estimated that the Spanish flu (which also originated from a bird flu strain) killed 2.5% of the infected population.

Another alarming find with possible repercussions for Australia is that migrating water fowl in Western China has picked up the avian flu (H51N) before departing their breeding grounds in their thousands at the end of the Northern summer.

The birds travel huge distances to their winter grounds. Some mingle with birds in Siberia that fly to South-East Asia or down to Australia. Just last month discovery of wild birds with H5N1 in western Siberia and the Altai region of south-western Russia made Holland ban free range domestic poultry. Germany is about to follow Holland and force all poultry indoors.

Just last week I was driving through South Gippsland on my way back to Melbourne and spotted one free range chicken and egg facility with hens roaming free around in the open. This free range facility is only a few kilometers away from one of the biggest feeding grounds for migratory wading birds in Australia, Corner Inlet . Avian flu could conceivably be transferred from infected migratory birds to chickens roaming the outskirts of Melbourne. This produce is finding a ready retail outlet in the thriving local Farmers Markets which have sprung up along the Highways and Freeways within easy driving distance from Melbourne.

I think it’s time for Australian Governments to take the next step and consider banning free range chickens. This will no doubt cause animal liberationists angst but it is a entirely rational precautionary approach to a potentially very serious pandemic.”

Roger also provided the link to this weblog from Nature specifically on birdflu:
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050912/full/050912-1.html .

Suzuki on Katrina

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A reader of this weblog sent in the following link to a column by David Suzuki published in Canadian newspapers:

…Katrina, it seems, was just a convenient excuse to get the same tired “Global warming isn’t happening, and if it is it has nothing to do with anything people are doing,” message out to the masses. The charitable among us might call that being opportunistic. The cynical would call it ambulance chasing.

…To demand absolute proof in science before acting on a threat is to ask the impossible. It’s not just anti-scientific; it’s anti-science.

The piece is at:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/weekly09090501.asp .

He raises some important issues.

A Christian Forester’s Views

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I received the following email from a reader of this weblog:

“Folks,

At times the church has been drawn into the forest debate causing concern among Christian timber folk, the church appearing to follow the anti forestry argument.

But now it is great to see perhaps a more balanced approach by the Church, with the Anglican Church publishing a very positive article from Christian forester Hans Drielsma.

Please take time to read,
http://www.anglicantas.org.au/tasmaniananglican/200508/200508-09.html .”

Now Scientific Basis for Climate Change?

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According to Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese the latest issue of science journal ‘Science’ provides,

“A scientific basis for what the Government was told in its climate change risk and vulnerability report just two months ago”.

And when the 7.30 Report interviewed me they indicated that the science was already settled. So how does this report value add? Is it really definitive? Is the opposition a couple of months behind the government in accepting “the reality of climate change”.

Albanese is reported as stating, “Australia is at risk because of the higher incidence – in this case – the scientists have reported a doubling of category four and five cyclones and hurricanes.”

The same news reports states,

“The research, from the University of Georgia and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, shows that high-strength cyclones have nearly doubled in 35 years in all five of earth’s ocean basins.

“Global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes,” the researchers said.

However, scientists say they lack enough data to be definitive, because the period studied in the report is too short.

They also say other factors, such as El Nino current or humidity play a role in the intensity of tropical storms.”

Now why didn’t they include the data from the 1940s – the last time the US had lots of intense hurricanes?

Who has read the paper in the new issue of Science?