Moving water at Sydney Uni

Australia day has come and gone and one of the solutions in the puzzle in the SMH on that day was about Tank Stream. I was thinking about the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia and the difficulty they would have had coping with the variability of the climate. Particularly, since the descriptions on the fertility and climate of the land from Joseph Banks and James Cook had been so glowing. In fact, the Bureau of Meteorology’s Dr Neville Nicholls has identified the years 1790 – 1793 as an El Nino event. Given how we struggled with the last El Nino event, it would not be a surprise that Governor Philip and his men and women were in trouble.

Hal Geering, retired lecturer in our Faculty passed me a copy of the Murray Darling basin Forum on the ABC Science Show on 27 December. I had missed that, but found it interesting reading. In particular a few comments made by Dr. John Williams during the forum. I quote: “I think we need to be careful that we don’t play around with the symptoms and not deal with the cause” (responding to some of Dr. Rob Fitzpatrick’s plans with Acid Sulfate Soils). And “we’ve got to recognise that we’ve got a highly managed system now”. Later: “it’s you and I who are taking the water out of the river because you’ve probably got a cotton singlet on, as I have [..] So it’s us taking the water out not the farmer”. Even later, responding on a question from the audience: “There’s a terrific amount of science sitting on shelves”.

I think I would like to comment on all these little gems and in addition make a link to some of the issues raised by my colleague Michael Harris in his blog (see the blogrol as well)

Happy New Year to all of you! With the SOI stuck high in the +15 area, it might be a wet one! That could be an interesting hydrological year! In most cases the SOI has about a 3 - 6 month lag with the rainfall and streamflow signature, so maybe we are in for a wet autumn. Fingers crossed!

In the mean time I would like to get back to the story of long-wall mining and its impact on water resources. There are some interesting thoughts here, which are related to current world developments and water and the environment.

A while back (24th of November to be correct) there was a story in the Sydney Morning Herald about environmentalists being quite angry that Peabody Energy had received an environmental award for the repair job they had done on cracks in the Waratah Rivulet which flows into Woronora dam. I am with the environmentalists in this case and I will explain why.