Be Like the Beaver – Build More DamsWater is essential for all life, and happily it is abundant on our blue watery planet.However, salty oceans cover 70% of Earth’s surface and contain 97% of Earth’s water. Salt water is great for ocean dwellers but not directly useful for most life on land. Another 2% of … Continue reading Conservation-Viv Forbes →

The NSW Irrigator's Council submission to the SA Royal Commission should be compulsory reading for all those who attack the irrigation industry and the cotton and rice industries in particular. Whilst any submission from irrigators on water usage will always be subject to the "they would say that" syndrome, the submission is clearly expressed and … Continue reading Murray Darling Basin Plan →

The linked article is one of the very best I have read. I commend it to you.

Water is essential for all life, and happily it is abundant on our blue watery planet.However, salty oceans cover 70% of Earth’s surface and contain 97% of Earth’s water. Salt water is great for ocean dwellers but not directly useful for most life on land. Another 2% of Earth’s water is tied up in ice … Continue reading Water-The Basics-From Viv Forbes →

I’m just back home from five wonderful days at the Adelaide Test and a day visiting the western side of Lake Alexandrina, the GoolwaChannel ,Milang, Hindmarsh Island and the so called Murray Mouth. (I prefer to call it the Lake Alexandrina Mouth with, as explorer Sturt said, the Murray Mouth being the entrance to Lake … Continue reading What’s in a Word? →

The linked article,published in The Australian on 7th June should be compulsory reading for all those interested in the management of the Murray Darling Basin.I wrote the following letter to the Editor in support, which at this point has not been published:Congratulations to Johnny Kahlbetzer for so succinctly explaining (‘Free-Flowing Estuary Vital to Healthy River … Continue reading The Barrages and the Lower Lakes →

This submisssion to the Barnaby Joyce inspired inquiry by Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, is in my opinion one of the best things I have read on this subject. A clear, objective view, from an expert not caught up in local politics. I commend it to all. It puts the Craig Knowles interview (see … Continue reading Harvard Professor John Briscoe on Murray Darling Basin Plan →

Letter published in today's Weekend Australian:"At last a senior politician has had the political courage to tell it like it is.("Dam them -- Abbott's solution to harness flooded rivers", 7/1). The last seven to 10 years of drought and the recent "big wet" is a classic example of Australia's natural variability.We need to conserve water … Continue reading Dams →

There is a very widely held view that we need to "restore the health of our rivers". This statement assumes that they are unhealthy, which might well be the case. However, we have just been through nearly a decade of the lowest rainfall/run-off that has ever been recorded.Whilst this is extreme, under natural conditions it … Continue reading Murray Darling Basin →

Letter published in The Weekend Australian on 16th October:In your front page today (Heated backlash Forces Murray inquiry) you categorically state that:"The move to reduce water usage is an attempt to address the fact that states have sold irrigators licences to extract so much water from the system that not enough water is being left … Continue reading Irrigation →