About two weeks ago there was an article in the newspaper which dealt with a story about salinity. Prof. Ian Acworth from UNSW discussed a study of groundwater levels that he completed with Aleksandra Rancic form DECC.The key point was that they believed to have found that the expression of dryland salinity was more related to climate variability then to landuse change.
"By studying historical records for thousands of water bores across NSW, researchers from the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change and the University of NSW have shown that salinity is traceable to rising groundwater levels."
Well we knew that, but I assume that is the reporter not getting it right. it started off much more controversial:
"CLIMATE and rainfall, not land-clearing, have emerged as the main drivers of salinity in south-eastern Australia, in a study that could overturn years of research."
Ian knows how to kick up a controversial story and this one definitely got the airwaves buzzing. Several people have contacted me and checked whether I read the story and wanted to comment. I promised I was going to write something on my blog about this.