Moving water at Sydney Uni

Hydrological conundrum land management

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:15:05 +1000

It is about time that I post something again, so here is an interesting conundrum that I found in “Ground Cover” the GRDC publication. There are two articles right below each other. The first one is the article outlining the climate variability salinity link postulated by Prof. Ian Acworth that I have discussed before. Just below this article is an article that has the title “runoff plays a major role in salinity”. Looks like an interesting conundrum to me!

Is storage the problem?

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:06:02 +1000

Finally some rain again in Sydney, it has been pretty dry. It is not much better in some parts of country NSW, as this article in the SMH attests to. In contrast, Victoria seems to be getting plenty for a change. The climate keeps us guessing where the falls will occur this time.

While I was mulling over this variability this morning, I listened to Macca on the ABC. I always get a bit upset with him, but maybe that is ok. I think he tends to be very simplistic in some of his environment comments, or maybe it is just that he lets people I don’t agree with air on the show. So that is not a bad thing, I can write my blog, he can have these people on the show. Anyway, this morning someone was having a go at wind energy and arguing that we would still need coal fired plants to pick up the peak demand. The main concern of the caller was the visual damage of wind energy to the landscape.

Trading water for Carbon?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:07:01 +1000

Finally some rain; It has been a dry couple of months, especially in Sydney. My garden looks like dust bowl and not because of the recent dust storms in Sydney. The amount of soil that was lost in those dust storms is scary and will take years to rebuild. It stresses even more the need to sequester carbon in our soils and many people have already pointed this out. The agricultural community would like to be paid for the amount of carbon they sequester and that is understandable, but, while there is great potential there are difficulties in monitoring the amount of carbon changed. But what about the water? The last month drier weather got me watching the “El Nino” monitor again to see if we are again in for a long drought, but it all seems pretty uncertain. It also got me thinking again about how the rainfall would change under changes in the global climate and how carbon and water would work together.

Natural Sequence farming as Sustainable Agriculture?

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:06:19 +1000

This past Friday and Saturday, I was on a fieldtrip with some of the 2nd year students. This year I had managed to organise a trip to visit Tarwyn Park in the upper Hunter valley, the property which is now relatively well known in Australia through the work by Peter Andrews. I had read Peter's book and I was interested to see the place for myself, and my students were enthusiastic when I suggested this. So last Friday was the big day as we arrived around 2 pm.

Resilient irrigation systems

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:47:41 +1000

Last week, Floris and I wrote a commentary in the newspaper, building on some of the research Floris is doing and related to the to Cubbie or not to Cubbie question. Anyway, you can read it here. But, while writing this article, I was reminded of another question that I have not yet solved: whether Australia is better off growing annual cops under irrigation or perennial crops. I will explain.

P.S.

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:17:41 +1000

The ETS was defeated in the Senate. Australian politicians aren’t even able to take a modest step towards a lower carbon economy. Maybe it is no surprise if people like Senator Fielding get elected to parliament. We are a long way behind the rest of the world people, we better get used to being regarded as the backwater, the slow ones, the ignorant bunch.

Sustainable Liverpool Plains

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:31:20 +1000

The Liverpool plains is one of the best (and maybe the best) agricultural regions of Australia with deep fertile black clay soils and sufficient rainfall and sunshine for production of durum wheat, sorghum and many other crops. It is also a region which has regularly been in the news. First it was related to the over allocation of groundwater to the local irrigators, but more recently because the area is underlain by a rich coal seam. The NSW government would like to sell the mining rights, and, understandably, the local community is none too pleased. All this is understandable, I would not be happy with mining in my backyard either. So basically we have a trade-off between mining and agriculture. But the real question that arises is what the best solution is for Australia and the Australian society in terms of sustainability, resilience and future prosperity. I will try to answer this question from a philosophical point of view rather than going into the specific details of the case. I have commented on this earlier

Salinity, groundwater and climate or landuse effects

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:20:11 +1000

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.

Views and beliefs on Nature and Science II

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:30:23 +1000

As I promised last week I commented on what I believed climate sceptics believe. I got a comment on that from Richard, and I think this post will also answer some of that comment. In the end, I think there are three major points: 1) Uncertainty of science is a given; 2) the “precautionary principle” needs to drive our actions in any environmental case; 3) recognition of trade-off between environmental loss against welfare gain.

The climate sceptic’s assumptions and beliefs

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:55:18 +1000

I have been wanting to write a blog post on this topic for a while as it sometimes baffles me how people can believe that the actions of humans would have no impact on climate or the environment. Senator Fielding’s recent scepticism of the global warming debate also falls in this category. Let me explain.

Agriculture, can it be sustainable?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:23:48 +1000

We just had our annual research symposium of the Faculty. And the theme was the same as the title of this blog post. It is of course an area that is quite near to my heart and I was keen to hear the different talks. I am not sure if I now know what sustainable agriculture means and therefore I thought I should spend a blog post on this topic with my random thoughts.

Water, water everywhere

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:51:32 +1000

Finally some good rain across the state of NSW. A slow moving low pressure cell is over the State and a second one will follow over the weekend. Just when the wheat crops have recently been seeded or are being sown. We better enjoy it while it last, as the Bureau is suggesting we might be in for a new El Niño and thus should be looking at less rain rather than more.

Lake Eyre is filling

Mon, 25 May 2009 22:03:47 +1000

It has been a buzz in inland Australia: lake Eyre is filling! The ABC is making a big story about it with a story on 18 May and one today (25 May) although that one is more focussed on the organic beef producers in channel country. Overall it is recognised as a great event and a good thing for the area. I got really interested in the question how often Lake Eyre actual fills. So some real hydrology this time

Maximising Utility

Sun, 17 May 2009 22:24:57 +1000

One of my PhD students read last week’s blog and commented on my use of the term win-win versus win-lose from an economic perspective. Her comment was that if we would maximise utility it should be a win-win situation. I think some of this was purely in the syntax and choice of words, but it gives me a nice new topic to talk about. Maximising utility is an economic concept I have struggled with for a while and it is a constant discussion point between myself and some of my colleagues in the economic area. I will explain.

Managing the future

Sun, 10 May 2009 22:10:15 +1000

I am reading a few things at the moment and this has spurred me to dig out a topic I touched on earlier. A little while ago, Mike Young, Professor Mike Young that is, wrote another of his “droplets” and this time about changes in managing rivers in the future. I find this a fascinating topic. I also was reading a bit older paper about the connection between climate and the hydrological cycle (Chahine, 1992) and I was reading an interesting historical article about the “Australian Groundwater Controversy 1870 – 1910” (Faggion, 1994). There is an interesting link between these three written pieces which allow me to comment about how I see management of water in the future.