Science/Environment Water problems... what water problems.

[Mr Q]

Shit, now I'm going to have to do some research on my days off. I don't actually know myself but when I worked over there 20 years ago in a gold mine I was surprised by it. I didn't even realise there was any over there.

There's very little agriculture outside of the south-west of WA (ie a line from sort of Geraldton to Esperance). Most of WA is, as you'd expect, pretty much arid desert.

Outside of that area, there's a bit around the Ord River, and the plantations of Carnarvon (which are irrigated off groundwater from the Gascoyne river). The rest of the state has cattle and sheep stations, but that's about it.

There's a lot more importation of fruit and vege these days but in those days if a cyclone went through, prices would rise on a lot of produce items nation wide.

If it came a long way south perhaps. But the reality is that cyclones go through fairly regularly - two (three?) have crossed the Kimberley coast this summer already, and one of them went back out and crossed the Pilbara coast afterward. As a category 4 storm as well.

I think there's a lot more ariable land over there than you realise too. The joint is enourmous. I do love it over in the Wild West. Is a great place.

Its enormous, but it's not arable. For the most part it's too dry and too hot. For the Pilbara, what rain falls is mostly from cyclones, there's little other rainfall of note. The Kimberley is wetter (and in some parts along the coast quite wet, and monsoonal crops would probably grow OK, but it's both isolated and climatically extreme by Australian standards (Kununurra has 12 months of the year with average temperatures greater than 30C). You might be able to get some agriculture happening, but it would have to be quite different crops to anything grown in the southern half of the country.

 

[TurboHead]

Dam the river and eventually the lake will get so big the water will make its own way to Perth....

I know the pipe line is NEVER going to happen... but it would be nice. There is so much energy up there (solar, heat for heat pumps, winds from cyclones etc) but I think the best bet would be piping water to the northern edge of some big **** off underground aquifer and pump it in while at the southern end, we suck the water out and pump it to Perth... and let the aquifer do the transportation. Worth a look.

 

[Underdog]

Speaking of aquifers, this site is quite interesting...

http://www.viacorp.com/perth_water.htm

 

[Play by Numbers]

Speaking of aquifers, this site is quite interesting...

http://www.viacorp.com/perth_water.htm

Indeed.

Yeah the situation in Perth is an interesting one.

About 60% of Perth's drinking water comes from the Gnangara mound and 50-60% of total water usage from groundwater.

So whilst low rainfall is an issue it has not been an immediate one for the metro area. Unfortunately water levels are getting very low, mainly due to overuse.

But this is not just a simple case of well if it gets to low, we will let it recharge. In some areas we run the risk of exposing acid sulfate soils and of permanently effecting those sections of or the mounds water quality. Which is why we cannot let levels continue to approach such a critical point.

Partly explains how quickly the last state government was willing to get it's act together with the desal plant and why we are willing to invest in improving the technology. Having not at capacity functioning desalination plants and more importantly water recycling, ties into our ability to first curb our reliance on groundwater and hopefully begin to recharge the mound over the short term.