Hey are people going to Israel or Iraq?

Ludwig and Glen Writer are way off the topic. It is obvious that Australia is very short of water and requires more ‘green’ power to help counter global warming. We have resources and must learn how to use them to our best advantage. We cannot revert to the land of the dinosaurs. The points raised by Ludwig are another matter and somewhat akin to a ‘head in the sand’ approach. Like it or not, Australia is committed to supporting an increasing population and the idea of reducing population or ceasing irrigation is just not politically feasible.
Colinsett raises a number of very relevant questions and I don’t have the expertise to provide the answers. Which is why I suggest having a number of PhD students study and evaluate all the points Colinsett raises. Once we have this research done, there will be detailed scientific data available on each question. Then, we will see if it is worth proceeding with a feasibility study to guide us towards future development. I believe we would gain by flooding Lake Eyre to generate power and to increase rainfall. I can only be shown to be right, or wrong, after a proper study of the factors. A dozen PhD students to study the problem is a minimal cost and we will have added to our knowledge about the possibilities. We will never know unless we look.

Before pointing PHD students towards Lake Eyre:
Lake Eyre North is about 144 X 77 kilometres; Lake Eyre South 64 X 24. The total area they occupy is about 9690 square kilometres.
Maximum depth 3.7 metres, and the important mean is 2 metres, below sea level.
Annual precipitation averages about 167 millimetres, but evaporation is at least 2,000 millimetres. (Evaporation nett then is about 1.8 metres).
Total contained water at maximum has been stated as 30.1 cubic kilometres.
Total annual nett evaporation loss, calculated from above, is 17.7 cubic kilometres.
Having got our basic items for consideration, then for the (200 kilometre?) channel from the sea to keep it filled, (replacing 17.7 cubic kilometres per year):
The channel flow will put into the lake 0.002 cubic kilometres each hour.
A channel depth greater than 2 metres would be superfluous.
Assumed rate of flow - adopt 1 kilometre per hour (for preliminary calculation purposes only).
Then calculated from the above data, the width of channel needed to accommodate this flow is 1.0 kilometes.
Time taken for water to travel the 200 kilometres would be 200 hours. With only 6 hours between ebb and flow of tides in the sea at the channel mouth, such tides will be of little help in pushing water towards Lake Eyre.
With the channel oriented roughly north-south, the tidal lump in the water body will vary across the channel, rather than along it, as the moon passes from east to west.
Therefore, there will be no tidal help
Then there are salt considerations.
Seawater is about 3% salt. With evaporation removing all incoming water each year, the volume of accumulated salt from it will, in about 30 years, equal what is the annual water intake. As that is about half the volume of Lake Eyre, in 60 years there will be nothing much other than 30 cubic Kilometres of very concentrated brine.
All in all, the prospects for the scheme are not great. But no worse than the prospects for a society in which population increase is fostered in perpetuity

“OK, how do we stop people moving to SE Qld, the 1500 climate refugees who resettle here every week? Build a big fence? Ban people selling land? Ban developers?”

Thanks for asking Steve.

It is a pretty fundamental right to move freely in this country. However, this is highly compromised – we can’t set up residence on public land or on someone else’s property without their permission. In fact, the choices for residence are extremely limited, all-considered.

It is also a pretty fundamental right of a community to protect its quality of life and environment, and to expect its leaders to do something about pressures and threats to it.

These rights often conflict. So a balance is required. This balance requires some slowing of, and an eventual limit to, increasing pressure in many areas. This continuously increasing pressure is wrought first and foremost by continuous population growth.

So we should expect our governments, at all levels, to regulate this influx where necessary, by way of limiting approvals for new housing developments, signing off on limits to this sort of development in strategic plans, and perhaps implementing various financial incentives that make moving into crowded or resource-stressed areas less attractive. It DOESN’T mean putting up a fence at the border and it certainly isn’t draconian.

This sort of balance, as opposed to allowing or even encouraging rapid and unending growth, should most definitely be seen as one of the core duties of governments.

And again, this population-growth-mitigation philosophy simply MUST be a major part of the water issue, and many other issues, in SEQ and several other regions and cities around the country.

Thanks colinsett
for telling us you understand statistics but don't understand anything else.
There are millions in Australia who understand statistics.
They are people with a good salary who carry around a piece of paper all their life . . . and conribute nothing to the nation.
Thanks for explaining the scheme does not work and therefore saves the environment.

David, you wrote:

“Ludwig and Glen Writer are way off the topic.”

What?! Surely you can see the connection between increasing populations and increasing pressure on water resources!

“Like it or not, Australia is committed to supporting an increasing population and the idea of reducing population …. is just not politically feasible.”

This is terrible! If you really believe this, you don’t have true sustainability at heart and seem to be just reacting to a current resource shortage without seeing the long-term view. Or perhaps you are one of those vested-interest people who want forever bigger populations to create ever-bigger markets for ever-bigger profits.

I don’t think you are somehow, although I can’t say why I feel that.

It just befuddles me that you could be so highly concerned about water-provision that “we must consider every possibility and not jump to a conclusion which is not soundly based or adequately researched”, and yet not see the bigger picture of sustainability, which necessitates balancing supply and demand, instead of blithely pandering to unending increasing demand.

Whose head is in the sand?