Drought proofing a dry continent

When the inevitable droughts return and the dams are drained, cities are faced with severe rationing, re-treating waste water or de-salting sea water in expensive power-hungry desalination plants.

Australia has immense deserts and many of our "rivers" (including the mighty Murray-Darling) flow intermittently. Normally "creeks" flow into "rivers", but in the dry inland it takes two "rivers" (the Thompson and the Barcoo) to service Coopers "Creek", and still Lake Eyre is usually dry.

Droughts and floods are a natural feature of Australia's climate.

Our pioneer farmers soon learnt how to cope with drought – "don't overstock, build more dams and keep the hayshed full".

The Cattle King of Australia, Sydney Kidman, created a cattle empire by understanding the weather. He knew that universal droughts were not common – there was always some place that got a freak storm that filled dams, made creeks run and brought a flush of green pasture. So he acquired a string of properties stretching from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Adelaide and had his own intelligence network advising where rain had fallen to produce stock feed, and where he could find distressed droughted properties for sale. His drovers drifted mobs of cattle to the grass and water, preferably towards the big southern markets.

Good grazing managers also build private dams and deepen billabongs. They also manage their soil and pastures so that rain runoff is minimised and pastures benefit. This is best achieved by giving pasture periodic rests from grazing pressure, and improving soils by retaining more water and improving soil aeration by key-line ripping, and by supplying mineral deficiencies.

The greatest enemies of sensible water conservation and river management are the water bureaucrats whose rules change every flood. One decade they are removing trees "to allow flood waters to get away quicker"; next decade they place a ban on removing trees. Dam building is encouraged, then it is prohibited. Levies are built, and then taken down. Irrigators are cheered, and then they are dis-possessed. Finally, drunk with power, they draw up "Basin Plans" like the Murray-Darling Basin Plan which is part of a long term green plan to gradually smother farming, grazing and irrigation along the river.

Sensible people try to conserve water when it is abundant, but every dam proposal soon attracts fierce and organised opposition. This means that most of Australia's dams were completed decades ago - Warragamba NSW 1960, Eungella Qld 1969, Ord River WA 1971, Beardmore Qld 1972, Fairbairn Qld 1972, Snowy River Vic-NSW 1974, Gordon Tasmania 1974, Hinze Qld 1976, North Pine Qld 1976, Fred Haigh Qld 1978, Wivenhoe Qld 1984, Thompson WA 1984, Burdekin Qld 1987, Barambah Qld 1988. Without these dams many Australian cities could not exist, and those who choose to live on flood plains would pay dearly for flood insurance.

Australia's population has increased greatly since our major dams were built, and our water risk becomes greater every year. Today, pampered urban Greens with no understanding of water realities will predictably oppose every new water proposal. (The Snowy Scheme involved building 16 major dams. Imagine getting the approvals to build them today.)

Compiled by Mike Williamson from Australian Government Statistics

There is a growing procession of "ghost dams" in Australia that did not materialise including Nathan Gorge, Urannah, Traveston, Wolffdene, Bremer River, Tully-Millstream, the Bradfield Scheme and the Reid Scheme in Queensland; Clarence, Nymboida and the Macleay Schemes in NSW; Franklyn in Tasmania. Naturally few of these proposals stack up as well as the dams already built, and some may never look feasible – good dam sites are usually used first. But some must be built and they will provide water and food security as well as becoming tourist and wildlife attractions.