Hi Billie

As regards irrigation. Well not many rice or cotton growers will be planting this year. They have very low or zero water allocations.
Much of the hand wringing is because farmers with perennial crops, eg. wine grapes, need and expect a water allocation every year. They use less water but have what is called a 'higher security allocation'. Indeed during this drought South Australia has been receiving fully 80 percent of its total water allocation because most of the perennial crop are down there ... while upstream farmers have gone without.

It begs the question why do some many academics promote wine grape growing and campaign against rice... when in a land of 'drought and floods' it is better to just grow crops when there is water and perhaps let rivers run dry when there is drought?

On the issue of this being a one in 100 or 1,000 year event. Well the rainfall record for the MDB doesn't support such a proposition. But inflows have been very low. Here are some possible reasons why:
salt interception schemes evaporating water, drainage management plans designed to keep water tables low artificially dehydrating the landscape, more plantation, more regrowth in the top of the catchment from the January 2003 bushfires, more water recycling ... and also the low rainfall

Here's a link to the presentation at the summit by the MDBC and the guy who apparently suggested this was a 1 in 1,000 year event: http://www.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/54/First_Ministers_Briefing_7Nov06_MDBC.pdf .
There is no mention in the presentation of this being a 1 in 1,000 year event.
But have a look at how he slips from discussion of low rainfall to discussion of low inflows! Its potentially very misleading. They are different issues.
Clearly the MDB has a low inflow problem. Clearly there is a need for an audit of the different factors that may have contributed to this.

In relation to the MDB, this year has been exceptionally dry. Why don’t you look at this graph from the BOM http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi which shows the rainfall anomalies for the past 9 months. The chart given by Jennifer does not show 2006 data. You can see that the Snowy Mountains and the SW slopes of NSW, both major feeders of the Murray have recorded their lowest rainfall on record. Low rain means low inflow. The low rainfall was caused by a lack of cold fronts intruding into Victoria and NSW, thanks largely to blocking high pressure ridges in the Tasman Sea.

So, a one in a hundred year drought? Yes. One in a 1000? We don’t know

GrahamY,

To suggest the direction in which an answer may be found to your puzzlement as to the ' loss of journalistic sense of smell' in reporting on the great climate change debate. (I'll use the word 'debate', although I am sorely tempted to use the term 'beat up'.)

Is it too much to suggest that we in Australia are in a situation where the resources of this country (and I specifically exclude the human ones) are seen as being of relative significance in a major realigning of energy and environmental impact policy in the US and EU? Given this significance, are we nationwide being subjected at every level to an already agreed upon editorial line from the top down, an editorial line of assertion of the fact of climate change? Would not this international editorial line be capable of being especially well tailored to the shibboleths and articles of faith of Australian politics, as well as the natural sensitivity of Australians to the vagaries of climate, by a native born expert on the Australian scene?

With a line already determined in some detail, and the 'science' selectively harnessed ready in its cause, would it not be easy to assign truly competent journalists to backwater issues, and weed out run-of-the-mill journalists seen to be deviating from the predetermined line before any reporting of significance is done? This may not be a case of the media reporting the issue as it develops, this could be the media deciding what is the issue and reporting it accordingly.

If I'm right about overseas perceptions as to the significance of Australian resources in this policy realignment, it will be desirable to those interests to maintain a relatively weak and distracted national government in Australia. To do this they may need a new political presence in Canberra. I think they have rightly assessed a genuine public concern with respect to sustainability issues, and are simply building credibility for a change that may be already within their power to realize electorally. That way, when the change happens, we'll all believe it.

Hi Jennifer, the presentation talked about the Murray River system, and I always thought that the system was the Murray Darling system.

I note your comment about the lack of information on inflows and as an ignorant layperson note that Cubby Station is at the top of the Darling River so although it has a licence for 25% of Queenslands water, this could translate to 5% of the MurrayDarling irrigation allocation.

Part of the complaint about cotton is the amount of chemicals sprayed on the crop and suggest that cotton really ought to be grown in Kunnunura.

Misunderstanding about the cotton industry is widespread and ingrained. Cotton farmers tend to be very efficient water users, constantly seeking to keep their water efficiencies as high as possible. Water is a large part of their production costs, and as such most have complex recycling systems and experiment with different methods of water delivery and water use by plants. Yes they have a relatively high incidence of sprays on conventially grown cotton. However GM cotton seeks to reduce the number of insecticide sprays and also to simplify the weed spraying process. Roundup Ready cotton is resistant to the use of roundup herbicide (the glyphosate chemical that you use at home for spraying your garden edges), so this can be sprayed to combat weed compitition, rather than using more complex and expensive chemicals. INsecticides are the nasties that most people have a problem with. However it seems that the same people are against GM cotton, which seeks to reduce the requirement for insect sprays by gene manipulation. Other methods of insect control include shelter wheat, where a twin row wheat crop is planted on top of the furrows, and then sprayed out when the stubble reaches a certain height. Cotton is then planted in the middle of the twin rows and the wheat acts as a shield against insects until the cotton reaches the top of the wheat. I have seen it save up to 5 insect sprays.

Note that cotton is a very expensive crop to grow, so the cotton industry has had to be at the forefront of farming technology. Most of the technology and methods developed by cotton farmers eventually flow onto other farming sectors, who dont have as much at risk as cotton farmers, so tend not to invest as much in research as the cotton industry.