Stop wasting water.
Says it all really.
Add to that limit and control the present out of control population growth explosion and we might all have enough.

Water isn't everything. What about soil, which, in Australia, was impoverished thousands of years before white settlement and has been used and abused death by European type farming and grazing over the last 230 years. The best soil is on the east coast, but that's where most people want to live and cover the place in concrete.

Soil cannot be replaced. Much of it is blown away during our regular, inevitable droughts. Nothing water will do to stop that or replace soil that has had everything taken out of it. Halving the population to what it should be is the only answer.

Although this subject has already been over-flogged to hell & back, we still have people who are against drought-proofing the country beyond the great Dividing range.
How many more times does it need to be said. Implement the Bradfield Scheme. Use the monsoonal floodwaters from the northern Qld rivers. Don't destroy the environment, enhance it !
End of discussion!

The Bradfield scheme could be done, but not as Bradfield envisioned it given a pipeline that long and that big would cost billions.

We could do much the same thing with a tunnel high in some tropical mountain rage with a series of very small dams and a few tunnels taking some of the monsoonal rain and injecting it into the northernmost reaches of the Great Artesian Basin.

And for a fraction of the outlay required to implement the Bradfield scheme.

We waste huge amounts of water as effluent that should could support mop crops and as underground irrigation for say, lucerne, all orchards vineyards cotton and rice just to name a few cash crops that would soak the moisture and the tons of nutrient, very safely.

Then there are thousands of capped bores, capped because the water was too salt or mineralised, even though the flow rates were at times impressive. And now available as up to 95% potable water a cost-effective irrigation thanks to space age deionisation dialysis desalination.

Which can also be used on everpresent surrounding seawater for the same or any other purpose. With the salt-laden liquor being able to be treated with electrolysis to separate the salable chlorine from the salable sodium!

We're not short of water just ideas people and leaders with enough intestinal fortitude to back them. We can't make it rain but we sure as hell can drought-proof this wide brown land!

Albeit, not with coal-fired power! Given that would simply be too costly to create a profit! Instead, we just need to crack on with walk away safe, MSR's and thorium, to make all of the above, doable!
Alan B.

We also must utilize appropriate crops, ones that do not use more than their fair share of water in such a dry continent. I question whether Australia can afford a cotton or a rice industry.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/our-concern-about-the-drought-isn-t-fair-dinkum-20180821-p4zypf.html

The millions of litres of water we pour out to sea as treated effluent from just Sydney and Melbourne would more than support our cotton crops and dry land rice, and only as taped underground applications.

A few years ago, space-age deionisation dialysis desalination was field trialled In Texas USA as cost effective broad scale irrigation, with resounding success, albeit their power cost just a third of ours!

Even so, we could have power one-third of their's with abandoned but not found technically wanting technology. And you guessed it that already proven technology is walk away safe, carbon-free MSR and thorium. And potential power prices as lower as sub 2 cents per KwH?

Time some of the naysayers got informed and could do worse than read Prize-winning investigative journalist and science writer, Richard Martin's book, Thorium, Super fuel, subtitled, green energy.
Alan B.

A significant, non-infrastructure, step to mitigate drought effect is personal and cultural. Namely, to encourage greater awareness of the effect of every action so that wastage of everything is lessened.
Many of those fortunate to have been deprived in earlier times of plentiful access to whatever they wanted would understand the truth of that old cliché "waste not, want not".
To many others, there is really no thought given about where each piece of food or each glass of water comes from.
After all, if you've only a half full water bottle, you become very conscious of how you use it.
We're not going to be able to 'human engineer' any attitude change except by an individual resolve to become more aware of causes, thus to ameliorate their effects.

We're not going to be able to 'human engineer' any attitude change except by an individual resolve to become more aware of causes, thus to ameliorate their effects.
Ponder,
Well, definitely not with an education system like ours & no national service.!
Making young people earn their money would also be a good start instead of travelling the globe paying no taxes & then demand a Pension.

Viv Forbes,
You started off well, but soon degraded into a lazy article full of fallacies and strawmen.

Had you bothered to understand those you criticise, you'd find that very few people are opposed to all dams, but there are some rivers that should never be dammed because of the rarity of ecosystems and/or species. And where dams are constructed, environmental flows should be maintained.

Changes in rules may seem annoying, but surely it's better than keeping bad policies like removing trees to allow floodwaters to get away quicker? And your outright lie that "the Murray-Darling Basin Plan which is part of a long term green plan to gradually smother farming, grazing and irrigation along the river" shows you to be a resentful prat who values neither the river nor the truth!

And the presence of tropical deserts should make you realise that the ink between warming and rain isn't as simple as you claim it to be. However much water's in the atmosphere, it's unlikely to rain in high pressure conditions, and global warming affects where those occur.
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ttbn,
Actually soil can be replaced. It is a renewable resource (though not an easily renewable resource).

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Alan B.,
We should certainly be making better use of the Great Artesian Basin, including recharging to more when water is abundant. But the northern GAB is underutilized with much of the water just flowing out to sea.

And if you want to desalinate with an electric (rather than distillatory or osmotic) process, CDI (capacitative deionization) is more efficient than ED.

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estelles,
The very thirsty crops like rice are generally not grown when water is in short supply.

Houelebecq,
A tip. When you add a link on this site delete the s from https and then the link will be active.

If Tony Abbbot was PM he could progress his governments initiative that led to the submission here; see Index F., Fairfax John C.

http://agwhitepaper.agriculture.gov.au/supporting-information/published-submissions-green-paper

JF Aus,
If we want Australia to become a sustainable rather than progressive (limited) Nation then we need to plan without the involvement of all present senior politicians & bureaucrats & consulting engineers. They got us to stagnation point so off we go to get new blood. The only way to achieve a reintroduction of common sense is to rid ourselves of ALL heads of Departments & replace them asap.

individual,

There are some good heads of departments. What is missing is leadership. Presently government is wasting time like a football team running in all directions without focus on goal posts.
Self serving politicians should be exposed by say a Royal Commission into the national stagnation you refer to.

There is dire urgent need for water ecosystem management, whole of water ecosystem management, involving land and ocean and atmospheric water.

The political bickering and abuse that wastes so much time in Parliament should be outlawed. Available time is needed for encuraging and planning development of worthwhile productivity.
In other words, use available tome to lead plans to kick goals.

This sums it all up precisely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUWx59PZcHg&feature=youtu.be

Perhaps the new PM could consider to at least lay the ground work for a Bradfield type scheme.
He appears to be more on the pragmatic side than all others.
If nothing else, this project could be a permanent option to get youg able-bodied with no plans for life out into a world where their mentality will get a chance to change & at the same time make the water flow west. It could be morphed into a national service kind of policy.

Really all that is needed is strategically placed tunnels, the distribution system west of the range already exists.

With modern equipment tunnelling is a relatively easy process.

Use of modern aqueduct would prevent water lost to seepage and provide for flow over long distances.

Rather than going for expensive man-made methods of channelling water west, advantage should be taken of natural water courses. Extremely careful selecting of engineers is vital for a positive outcome with a project like this. Consulting engineers companies must be put on stage by stage contracts not just given the job no questions asked. Once the water runs downhill west the the game is won. Ideally, a mono rail should be built alongside at the same time. It'd help with the delivery of equioment to the sites & once finished it'll provide flood-proof all year round transport.

Natural Australian outback river beds are mostly too sandy to drain water long term without considerable loss due to seepage. The natural beds cope well for sudden brief flood water flows.
Depression in those river beds, waterholes, do hold water long term but they are too few and far between to avoid loss of water due to seepage.

There is also evaporation to consider especially in shallow channel country rivers where bkack soil does help prevent too much seepage.

Steel aqueduct will generate business for mining and steel and food and fibre local and export industries,& while generating drought proofing for many farmers at the same time.

JF Aus,
Yes, Natural sandy riverbeds will absort a massive amount of water in the beginning. The secret is to saturate them as the work progresses. There'll need to be weirs & reservoirs along the way, in fact the more water is absorbed in the beginning the more will then flow on. The groundwater has been so depleted that it'll need several monsoons to replenish but again, once that is achieved, it'll become easier as it goes along. It will very likely result in a new, wetter weather pattern which will add to the permanency of usable water in the long run. The key words are political will & patience. Nature will be enhanced a great deal. The good part is that this project would not require as much effort as many people believe it would.

individual,

I doubt there is enough water at the source to soak and saturate vast distances of bone dry sandy river beds.
Better for available water supply to be used on stock and crops and wetlands.

I wonder if the new PM will give water infrastructure and farmers a fair go. A fair hearing of ideas until proven feasible or impossible.
Australia is a food producing nation isn't it?

I doubt there is enough water at the source to soak and saturate vast distances of bone dry sandy river beds.
JF Aus,
That's where the pragmatists will come into the picture. Use existing watercourses & wherever required, modify them to reduce water seepage. From a technical & economical point this is hardly worth of considering as an obstacle. Where the riverbeds are too wide, narrow them !
Where they're too narrow, widen them ! where there is too much seepage, seal it or divert.
The two most important factors are; 1 get water beyong the Great Dividing range & 2 curb the ever increasing run-off into the GBR.
This project could be an economic stimulus beyond the grasp of those who aren't interested in anything outside suburbia. As I stated before, combine the channelling of fresh water with a progressive construction of a rail line. For least maintenance expense & least environmental impact this should be a mono rail. Whereever necessary, the rail structure could incorporate irrigation piping.