Kyrill,
The notion of Australian cities running out of water has never yet happened. The press sells more papers when they talk about it, however!! We have been in severe Stage 3B restrictions here in Melbourne for more than a year, which means getting consumption down to less than 100 litres a day per person where possible. My wife stores all kitchen waste water for the garden. No hoses or sprinklers in gardens, only hand held hoses every second day at a prescribed hour. But it is amazing what you adapt to, and we've scarcely felt it here, although the quality of the water has deteriorated slightly as the reservoirs have run lower. We got down to around 30% of our total reservoir holding capacity, but after heavy rains are now up to more than 40%, which augurs well for next summer.
The Australian continent, being a large island, is highly susceptible to southern and eastern ocean currents, just as the US and norther Europe is susceptible to the Greenland Conveyor and the Gulf Stream. If these stop, or slow, the usual transfer of water vapour through thermal gradients in the sea is modified. Land records on the southernmost continent reveal slow cycles of drought, every twenty years or so, and most people of 50, city or country, can remember at least two in their lives. There is even a line in South Australia, the Goyder line, named after a clever Scottish surveyor, above which farming is not viable for reasons of drought. To quote from the South Australian history website at
http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/goyder.htm:
When pastoralists complained during the severe drought of 1863 -1866, Goyder went north to reassess their properties. The first eighteen valuations carried out by Goyder were published in the Adelaide Express in September 1864. His line of travel, which amounted to nearly 5,000 km on horseback, marked off the line of drought and became known as Goyder's Line of Rainfall. He drew a line indicating the limit of the rainfall which coincided with the southern boundary of saltbush country. It separated lands suitable for agriculture from those fit for pastoral use only. It also marked areas of reliable and unreliable annual rainfall. Not all agreed with his Line and some even called it Goyder's line of foolery.
When agricultural land became scarce, combined with good seasons and crops during the early 1870s, and the expected income of land sales, it persuaded the government to disregard the Line and allow farmers to buy land north of the Line. The government even surveyed towns in that area such as Hammond, Bruce, Cradock, Gordon, Johnburgh, Wilson, Carrieton, Chapmanton, Farina, Amyton and several others. Poor seasons in the 1880s proved Goyder right, and farmers slowly moved back south of his Line.
This is not to say farming above the Goyder line is impossible; merely risky. Most of the towns mentioned above no longer exist; failing in either the 19th or early 20th centuries. And there are always individuals prepared to take the risk, but many have lost everything on the driest continent challenging the Goyder line.
But what really does challenge the water issue is increasing pressure on available resources, particularly from big cities which draw their water from huge catchments from hundreds of kilometres around. The water table in even the greenest parts of Australia has been slowly dropping for forty years; now this is dangerous, and what is worse, the water is becoming more salty, along with large areas deep inland which are being seriously affected by pure salt rising to the surface. In the large cities until quite recently it was illegal to erect water tanks to collect the rain; only in the last five years has this foolish law been changed, and now subsidies are paid to encourage the population to buy these tanks. Curiously, the cost of water from our rivers ranges from as little as $15 a megalitre to $350 a megalitre depending on location; several rivers, such as the Darling, are now all but dead. Seano might give us a lot more information on this interesting topic, as he is very knowledgeable. The commodity of water has until now been free, but is finally starting to attract open market prices as increasingly the companies trading are becoming privatised with increasing demand and severe drought.
In the meantime, Kyrill, there's plenty of water in southern Australia now (Brisbane is in trouble however), and we are all able to shower daily, you will be relieved to hear.........
Cheers,
Hugh
