Why not try and use modern technology to reverse the arid conditions of Australia's centre brought about by human occupation? Twenty thousand years ago this entire Continent was one vast rainforest. From The Pacific ocean coastline to the Indian it was all forest and grasslands. A combination of over hunting and man made fires turned this vast wilderness into baking sand dunes long before White Settlement.

Australian Man re-green's the Middle East.
http://www.abc.net.au/northcoast/stories/s727970.htm

Permaculture experts have revitalised hellishly arid soils near the dead sea. They even have mushrooms growing there. Something the locals had never seen before. If they can do it then why not us?

What if we flooded Lake Ayre which is below sea level? It could then become a massive inland sea and a source of evaporation for producing clouds. Are we up to the challenge of digging a ditch to it from the sea or is that too technical for the government?

Seems to me that if we really got serious about it and brought in some real experts to manage the program we could reclaim the desert and expand our living space.

We in Australia suffer from the tyrany of distance.
The great inland deserts are a fact of life.
Our irrigators have not yet worked out that if you keep using bore water to grow crops or trees.
One day you will not have any water.
The greed shown by people who sell their water licences to others is a point of issue I have.
How can royalties be given by one landowner to another.
Water is more precious than oil,yet our governments both State and Federal have allowed centuries of ground water to be stolen.
Nothing will be done until City folk wake up one morning to find that their water taps are empty.
Only then will Australia's water crisis be dealt with.
The quick solution is to pipe water from wet areas to dry areas,but this is only an Adhoc solution.
I do not use mains water.t
The water God provides on my roof is the only water I use,yet I am forced to pay a River Murray levy and thousands of dollars in legal costs, as I refuse to pay my local water authority for water I do not use.
Could somebody tell me why I have to annually pay for water I do not use, yet my government tells me constantly to save water.

I don't think the inland deserts are a fact of life. As the article says, any desert can be made green. A line of hardy desert tree's for shade followed by permaculture soil treatment and more efficient water usage.

We could start around the edges and gradually move inwards. Work for the dole people and prisoners could work in different areas. The Government could set up nurseries to mass produce cuttings of plants and mulch can be found anywhere.

Once enough of the environment has been brought back to life it will become self regulating. Clouds will be drawn to the area and soil humidity will keep improving.

All it takes is political will.

Wayne,

A good thought. Two other things come to mind.

A MAJOR source of underground water was found by a mining company in WA in the recent past. They said it was almost as valuable as the minerals they were prospecting.

The weather is now changing in Australia. It seems that more rain is now falling in the hotter parts of Australia. I think this could be used to our advantage for both the re-greening of Australia and for a partial offset of the greenhouse effect. Imagine how effective a lot more vegetation would be in modifying the weather/rainfall pattern in central and western Australia?

Wayne,
While I appreciate that there is a great difference in establishing greenery on a few acres and starting on a project involving thousands of square kls, I commend you for thinking about what can be done. I am sure I could grow veges on the top of Ayers rock, if I carted the soil and water, but it would not be economic. So economics has to be taken into account.

To fuel your thought processes, I recall a research body, possiblly the CSIRO, doing work with various types of Saltbush in arid situations. This was in the 1960s and I understand that rabbits had previously destroyed much of our saltbush country. Since then we have introduced the Calcy viris that apparently worked well in dry conditions. You could look at that, and apparently the Israelies have done great things with some Australian eucalypts.

Food for thought for those interested.

Dear Wayne,

Keeping Lake Eyre full will increase water vapour in the atmosphere above the lake, possibly leading to more summer storms in eastern Australia, and perhaps a little more rain over the eastern ranges during winter, when cold fronts meet the easterly progressing “moist” air from Lake Eyre. However it would be better to analyse rainfall observations from when Lake Eyre did fill in 1949 and determine whether the filled lake generated any material change rainfall patterns in the local area and eastern Australia. The challenge with this task is that rain in Australia is so variable and subject to the El-Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon that it would be difficult to discern any difference.

Based on the 1949 experience and the fact that the Lake has since dried out, I think the cost of keeping it full would be enormous in terms of infrastructure and energy. Though in theory you could siphon sea water into the lake, the daily volumes are truly staggering just to counter the 2000mm annual evaporation. The lake covers 1.14 million square km and has an average rain of 250mm. Assuming a net evaporation of 1.75m per year, you would need to pump in excess of 5,400 GigaLitres of water per day just to maintain the water level (that’s equivalent to 10 Sydney Harbour’s worth of water per day!). As to turning our desert into productive land – Australia is geologically one of the oldest continents, so our soils are exceedingly infertile and saline. As a keen gardener, I have learnt that poor soils are a costly waste of time and money. The words “pipedream” come to mind.

Rob

Robg,
I understand that the early 1950s were some of the wettest years ever on the Southern Tablelands,NSW at least. Do not know if a full Lake Eyre had anything to do with that.

Lake Eyre was full a short time back, maybe just a few years ago. I recall wanting to fly over it by light aircraft, from Adelaide, that were being offered and for some reason I did not go. It does not fill very often and I should have taken the opportunity then.

Hi Banjo,

yes 1950 was a very wet year in many parts of NSW. In fact it still stands as the wettest on record for many locations. I don't know if it had anything to do with Lake Eyre either, that's why an analysis would have to be done. However I think it is possible that a full Lake Eyre would increase rain in eastern Australia. This thing about filling Lake Eyre came up on another forum that I am a member of. Someone suggested excavating a channel from the Gulf of Adelaide through to the lake – perhaps more feasible than a pipeline? On the other hand, if the earth keeps warming at the rate it has been for the past 10 years, the resulting sea level rise might make the job even easier.

I was certain there was an article on OLO maybe a year or two ago with a discussion debating the merits of the Lake Eyre canal proposal, but I can't find it now. If anyone knows where it is, could they post a link?

From memory the upshot was the engineers didn't think it was feasible, but I can't remember why. My guess is the gradient over the several hundred km from Spencer Gulf to the lake wouldn't be steep enough for water to flow in fast enough to replace evaporation, but I'm sure someone with a bit better understanding of hydrology than mine could elaborate.

I'm not sure of the exact surface area of the lake, but 1.14 million km2 seems out by a factor of about 100 looking at the maps in my atlas. Seems more like 11,000 km2. I think that first measure refers to the total area of the whole Lake Eyre basin.

In era's long gone the continent was split by sea which ran thru lake E to the north-east to the gulf of carpenteria hence the salty lake E.As far as canals is concerned,just took a look at Panama-canal,Suez-canal not to forget my country of birth Holland which is full of canals right down to Belgium. It takes the will from the people NOT the government to achieve those successes of history.
Has anybody heard about ORGONE energy and the application with weathercontrol by the famous Reich?

A variation to the concept of a canal between Spencer's Gulf and Lake Eyre, maybe to build a pipeline that is concentric with a centre open conduit to carry the seawater and an outer conduit to carry the resultant de-salinated water evaporated as a result of the heat provided by direct solar radiation. This will lessen the environmental impact of seawater directly into Lake Eyre. If sinks were provided along the length of the pipeline then the maybe cost could be offset by the sales of the mineral salts that would drop out of suspension when salt concentrations increased. The availability of fresh water would also lessen the impact of human activity on artesian supplies. Geothermal powerplants could provide the electricity for any pumps required. With Australia being geologically stable, surely using the internal heat of the earth instead on nuclear energy is more feasible.