Australia’s Snowy River on 'life support'

By DEBRA JOPSON REGIONAL AFFAIRSJanuary 25, 2010 WATER that the State Government plans to release from Lake Jindabyne dam into the Snowy River over the next three days will do no more than supply ”life support” to a river which is dying through neglect, a local watchdog body has claimed. From today extra water – […]

Peak Water: ‘The iconic rivers of our imagination are drying up’

By SYLVIA THOMPSON FORGET PEAK OIL. Forget climate change. Peak water is where it’s at, according to Scottish journalist and broadcaster, Alexander Bell, who has just written a fascinating book, Peak Water (Luath Press, Scotland). “It’s the coming issue of our age,” says Bell. “Civilisation is thirsty. It has never stopped to think about what […]

Graph of the Day: Groundwater Storage Loss in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Basins, October 2003 – March 2009

In the 66-month period analyzed, the water stored in the combined Sacramento and San Joaquin Basin decreased by more than 31 cubic kilometers, or nearly the volume of Lake Mead. Nearly two-thirds of this came from changes in groundwater storage, primarily from the Central Valley. NASA Data Reveal Major Groundwater Loss in California’s Heartland Technorati […]

Ethiopia dam to destroy crucial Kenya lake

By Staff WritersNairobi (AFP) Jan 20, 2010 The livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans around the world’s largest desert lake will be wrecked by an Ethiopian dam on the lake’s main tributary, conservationists said Wednesday. “The Ethiopian dam project is going to bring nothing but tragedy and harm to Kenya,” warned renowned archeologist and […]

Graph of the Day: NW India Groundwater Depletion, 2002-2008

GRACE measures groundwater level variations, including groundwater depletion in northwest India. Since 2002, groundwater has been lost from that region at a rate of 17.7 km3 per year, largely due to pumping for irrigation. GRACE Can Monitor Human-induced Groundwater Depletion Technorati Tags: freshwater depletion,drought,agriculture,India,GRACE

Graph of the Day: Australia Rainfall Decline, October 1996 – May 2009

Monthly mean SEA rainfall for the long-term climatology (black bars), for the ongoing protracted drought (red bars); changes from the long term climatology are shown as blue bars. The continuous months with negative rainfall anomalies are outlined with the orange box. The long-term rainfall deficiency since October 1996 across South Eastern Australia (south of 33.5ºS […]

Torrential rains can't quench Australia's 'Big Dry'

By Staff WritersParkes, Australia (AFP) Jan 18, 2010 Torrential rains in Australia have failed to quench the country’s “Big Dry”, a decade-long drought that has driven farmers to the wall and shows no signs of abating. While the rains flooded many areas in recent weeks, made parched rivers flow again and even halted the iconic […]

Life returns to river as Australia states battle over further flows

By BEN CUBBYJanuary 19, 2010 Life is blooming in Lake Pamamaroo, western NSW, as the Boxing Day floods wind their way down the Darling River. From the air the pale green, swollen river is a striking contrast to the scarred, orange plains on either side. On the ground the water level is visibly rising by […]

Graph of the Day: Melbourne Water Shortages, 1990-2009

Changes in storage levels in the mid-1990s and the 2000s. Dam levels dropped from almost full in 1996 to a quarter full by 2009 along with a steep decline in the amount of water flowing into Australia’s major reservoirs. Decade in dam levels Technorati Tags: drought,freshwater depletion,Australia,global warming,climate change,agriculture

Sugarloaf Reservoir: Then and Now

The long dry is sapping Melbourne’s dams and raising questions about the viability of the city’s water supply. … Since the network of dams was built several decades ago, Melbourne has never had less drinking water. The record low-water mark was broken in mid-April, when storages reached 28.3 per cent of capacity. With consumption outstripping […]

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