In August 2013 we visited Azraq Wetland Reserve in eastern Jordan. It was a heart wrenching experience as little is left of this once magnificent wetland.
The bright new visitor’s centre belies the sorry state of this ecological disaster. The aquifer dried up in 1992 following decades of exploitation by the government to provide Amman’s needs. Recent allocations of water are insufficient to win back the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds who visited the area until the 1970s or restore its original 25 km2.
Pressure on water resources are bound to increase as Jordan is setting up a new refugee camp to take 80,000+ Syrians.
The story of Azraq is clearly an allegory for our struggling planet. If it isn’t clear enough then Wikipedia has more here.
Water scarcity and conflict over existing resources are a continuing part of the Middle East region. Israel and Jordan have continuing problems over the Jordan river and the Negev arabs struggle to get a share of water in their desert home.
As Queensland rivers burst their banks and northern New South Wales is inundated, Nick Evershed sums up the national feeling in Australia about the latest weather and the climate implications:
@NickEvershed: Australia: if it's not on fire, it's probably underwater.
Twitter is not always the best way to get accurate or up-to-date information, especially when communications are down or there’s no power. Jess Faith from far north Queensland is one of many to lose her connection:
@jessfaith89: Hello technology! How I've missed you! #bigwet #qldfloods #Cairns
ABC Wide Bay is one of the national broadcaster's ‘Local Radio' stations. It was just one of many local ABC radio stations to retweet this gem of imprecision.
@abcwidebay: Gympie river is reported to be looking like it has peaked at 20.3m #bigwet #qldfloods
David Kirkpatrick is only one of many online who have linked the extreme weather to climate change:
@daveyk317: We are hearing the word “Unprecedented” a lot in coverage of the #qldfloods - we will no doubt hear this more as the #ClimateCrisis bites.
Professor Tim Flannery addressed the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Conference on 20 July 2012. He spoke about global warming, climate change and their links to human rights issues.
Among the basic human rights, he included rights to: food and water; a nationality; protection from dangerous rates of change; life itself. He argued that each of these is affected by climate change. The greenhouse gases are the product of our economic success. We must uncoupled this link and there has been some progress over the last ten years in doing this.The most disadvantaged people are the most vulnerable and suffer the most from climate change.
The Earth Summit Rio +20, a United Nations conference on Sustainable Development & Green Economy, takes place in June 2012.
This video is an introduction that raises some of the issues.
It will be part of the ThinkBrigade online magazine that starts on Tuesday 10 April.
Thanks to Mark Manney's Remix Abscondo for the instrumental, and the UN photo library for some images. With a lick of irony the music is called 'I'll Die Smiling'
From post for Civicus World Assembly's Climate Justice track:
Hydroelectricity, like nuclear power, is seen by many as one of the answers to reducing carbon emissions. However, negative impacts on the environment such as deforestation and river systems degradation are almost inevitably accompanied by the destruction of local communities. China’s Three Gorges Dam is a contentious example.
Carnarvon hit by worst floods since 1960. (WAtoday 21 Dec 2010)
There is endless debate about whether AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is the culprit in recent extreme weather events such as floods. The floods season is still in full swing in Australia, with Carnarvon inundated for the third time in three months.
Two recent contributions to the controversy add fuel to the fire (oops! mixed disaster metaphors).
It’s a serious question. One of the biggest problems when blogging about water issues, especially issues such as desalination or use of aquifers, is how ‘dry’ and technical it becomes for aqua amateurs. It’s just not sexy enough for the web. Sexy in the sense of exciting, enticing, stimulating, or provoking the grey matter. We need to disturb, inspire or just plain interest a broader audience.
Is Desalination a Solution? (No pun intended)
When Australia was struggling during a decade of droughts, many State governments saw desalination plants as the answer to water shortages in the Capital cities. A number have been built, are near completion or in the planning stages.
The first was the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant in Kwinana. Unfortunately it doesn’t do public tours. It has deflected some opposition by the use of a Wind Farm for its power. The WA Water Corporation promotes desalination here.
Victoria’s plant-in-progress at Wonthaggi has been very controversial, especially after the decade long drought finally broke. It has been criticised as:
more expensive than alternatives such as water tanks
adding to greenhouse gases through its reliance on coal power generation
destroying the surrounding marine environment
One prominent opponent is Watershed Victoria. This image comes from their website:
Bunbury’s Mangrove Cove is one of the least likely locations for a thriving mangrove ecosystem. The estuary is smack in the middle of a fast-growing city of approximately 70,000 people. Bunbury is 200 kms south of Perth, Western Australia.
Birds, fish and insects greeted us on our morning stroll along the boardwalk this morning. This photo gallery captures some of that enjoyable experience:
Received this Facebook message on 31 Jan 2011 from new media artist Keti Haliori:
The “World Water Museum” installation is an artistic rendering of the vast environmental problem of the downgrading and lack of clear, potable water on the planet. The target of the project is to make the public sensitive to the problem and through the use of audio-visual means, to activate and awake the desire to hold the valuable water of the Earth in his protective arms.
This artwork project will be completed through the creation and development of human networks, all over the world, in order to send water samples from rivers and lakes from all over the planet.
All vehicles of authority and groups of citizens are entitled to participation should they wish to be co-creators of the “World Water Museum” installation, taking into consideration the issue and ways of approaching it.
Please support by being a member, interacting and sharing
Last week I finished my post Floods Crises Send Australia Down Under “For many Australians, it's a case of 'will we be next'.” I couldn’t have dreamt that it might be us.
Intense heat and fierce winds are the stuff of Australian nightmares. The Black Saturday fires in 2009 are burned into our Victorian minds.
A fortnight ago a bushfire destroyed five houses near where we are staying ninety kilometres south of Perth. At lunchtime today, with temperatures in the high 30s and strong winds, it was impossible not to search the sky for signs of smoke.
The evening television News added other dimensions to the coming weekend: Cyclones menace WA, north Queensland. A cyclone is headed our way. Its strength and exact path are still speculative (up in the air), with a likely landing on Sunday.
We grew up in the '50s thinking that all famous engineers were Scots, as the only encyclopaedia entries with our surname were a father and son engineering duo. Their water connections were confined to bridges, canals, lighthouses and the like. London Bridge is just one of their many famous projects. This post is about a place far from the sea or rivers, and an Irishman.
Kalgoorlie is famous for a number of things that have become part of our national ethos including:
mining, especially its Gold Mile
the water pipeline from Perth
At Primary School we were told an apocryphal tale about the engineer who built the pipeline. The story went that he had committed suicide days before the water reached its destination, believing that the system had failed.
A great story! A grand quest! A fateful tragedy!
Real life is less dramatic but sometimes just as memorable as myth. In 1902 Irish-born Charles Yelverton O’Connor killed himself less than a year before its successful completion on 24 January 1903. His suicide followed sustained criticism of the pipeline project and allegations against him of corruption. Suicide Mission: Goldfields Pipe Dream
We’re staying near Perth, Western Australia’s Capital city. The last thing I expected to be doing this weekend was fieldwork for Th!nk5: Water.
As an inland sea spread across much of my home State Victoria, it rained lightly here today. It was only the second rainfall in the Perth area for the month of January.
I’ve decided to take this opportunity to write a series of posts looking at urban water, focusing on Perth’s water resources, especially the challenges and controversies faced in securing adequate supplies. The main Perth sources are: dams, groundwater and desalination plants.
On our recent visit to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, we came across a cemetery at Lake Mournpall. Perhaps one hundred mature trees stood dead on the flood plain, a stark reminder of the impact of severe drought and competing demands for water in recent years. My earlier post Australia’s Not-So-Civil Water War has some background on these issues.
River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) are iconic trees in Australia. Of the 800 eucalyptus species, they hold a very special place in our national psyche. They grow to 45 metres and can live for 500 years or more. They live beside rivers, lakes and on flood plains and rely on regular flooding for their survival.
The good news is that governments have taken action in recent years to allocate ‘environmental water’ to areas such as Hattah Lakes and the Barmah forest on the Murray River:
The Commonwealth allocated 7,300ML of environmental water to the Hattah Lakes in Winter 2010. This water will help ensure the long term sustainability of this iconic site, provide refuge for waterbirds and benefit fringing river red gums and will fill a number of lakes that have not been full since 1996. Environmental watering: Murray catchment
The following slideshow, River Reds, shows some of the benefits of this policy. Thanks to Heather Milton for the photographs taken at Hattah.
We’ve just returned from three weeks in North Western Victoria and parts of New South Wales. It was unwitting research for Th!nk4: Climate Change. Our plan was to visit a number of national parks on or near the Murray-Darling river system. It’s an area that has been under extreme environmental pressures because of the harsh drought that devastated Australia for much of this century and the competing demands for water.
We started well, staying at the Wyperfeld and Hattah-Kulkyne National Parks in Victoria. By the second week, heavy rain at Lake Mungo NP not only closed the unsealed road after our swift retreat but also heralded a dose of wet weather that finally brought an end to official drought conditions in New South Wales. Even Melbourne’s dams were half-full after hovering at 25% most of last year. Floods have become common headlines this year across eastern Australia.
You’d think the rain would bring optimism but that is not the case in Australia’s food bowl. During our trip a consultation document (actually a Guide to a Draft Basin Plan) was released by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The Authority is charged by legislation with developing a plan that returns the river basin to environmental health while maximising “economic returns to the Australian community from the use and management of the Basin water resources”. It is also required to “tackle climate change”.
The Guide recommends reductions in water allocations of between 27% and 37%. The big loser would be agriculture, especially irrigators.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has an online explanation of and ongoing updates. One of its ABC TV news reports captured the ‘tea party’ mood communities have shown at consultation meetings.
As the Authority has attempted visited rural towns, the Guide has been burned. Farmers have worn black armbands. Personal abuse has substituted for dialogue.
Lower rainfall is predicted for the basin as a result of climate change. If these warnings prove correct, the battles for a share of the diminishing water resources can only hot up.
"The World Bank says Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is the fastest growing city in the world with a population of 15 million. But as more of the world's impoverished flee to megacities for economic opportunities, the perils of urbanization are being exposed."
