Yesterday (18/6/08) a news item motivated me to post this message. It was suggested that the Murray-Darling system is dying. I don't no whether this assertion is true, but I DO know that common pasture is being irrigated over millions of hectares in the Murray-Darling Basin as we speak. Weather patterns have not been favourable in the Basin for a decade but we continue to demand that the sick man runs a marathon. Blaming cotton and rice farmers for this situation misses the point. It is only by addressing the WHOLE issue of use and abuse of water in Australia that we have a hope of saving ourselves. After all, the prosperity of our country largely rests on mining (a finite resource) and the Murray-Darling Basin.

The funny thing is they said they have only 6 month to "act", yet there is nothing they can do without rain. Its all in the hands of the weather now. But I agree if winter rains did not fall in the next 3 month then its goodbye Murray River, it would not be there next year.

Well I can tell you that at least for the MBD only small parts would be getting irrigated now as it is the end of irrigation seaon and most have bugger all allocation to use anyway. Modern day society feels the need for sombody to be blamed for everything that is bad in our lives. It missed the point to blame farmers full stop. We do not grow food/fibre and simply dump it. It is grown to feed/clothe people.

There would be no point farming if we were not feeding/clothing people so to blame farmers for ruining the river is stupid. People need the produce coming from farms so they should also think themsleves to blame.

Just like balming oil companies for high prices. It is our fault for using so bloody much of it!

I don't have time for further comment so I will add to this later but I will leave it for now with the point that if we didn't have an irrigation system out there we would be importing all of the food that relies on an irrigation system. How much more would we pay and what other river out there would be ruined to feed out apetites? Seems that people forget that in order to have a population the size of our planet, things cannot be kept pristine all over the planet and still feed them all. I think that maybe another question that needs to be put forward is should we have some areas of the globe FULLY devoted to agriculture and therefor it is the most important thing and have other areas TOTALLY protested for nature. Having to keep trees and wildlife in a farming situation hurts production and complicates our businesses

Adon,
I don't understand how the allocation system works, I have to admit. But I have seen South Australian farmers irrigating what looked to me like sand-dunes while next door (so to speak) Lake Albert is supposed to be dying. That was in February, but a month ago flood irrigation was in evidence in Victoria from Cohuna to Pyramid Hill. Admittedly, irrigation around Kerang is no longer popular. Something to do with salt, I believe. Towns like Mildura and Griffiths are lush oases in a dessicated landscape. But how long can this fool's paradise last. How long can the Waranga channel be allowed to overflow with water while the whole basin is bled to death?

We irrigate places like the riverina and MBD, which is semi desert in places, because we're building houses all over the viable farming land closer to the coast. We can't grow the food close to where people live, so they've cleverly come up with a Scheme where non-viable areas are irrigated so food can be grown.

When they came up with it, it was a "miracle", man's mastery over nature. Now we're seeing the result.

We have to stop having/importing more people, that's the first step. we can't keep growing like we're doing.

The only way to solve the problems is through national investment. Agriculture is backbone of human society and production of food is as important as it gets. Obviously we have over allocated water but we cant just go and destroy the livelihoods of the farmers we all depend upon. The government should invest in converting farmers from unproductive high water crops to more efficient methods. For instance olives would be perfect for many inland environments but they require long term investment at the expense of short term income. Farmers cant afford that but governments could.
cheers

Funny that the lakes in SA are being used as "proof that the murray is dying. Truth is that they are regulated and if they were to "save" them, the best thing to do would be to open the gates to the sea and let it pour in. A hell of a lot of the lakes over there are "reclaimed" esturine systems that in times of low/no flow they would be salt water. ATM the levels of the lake are BELOW sealevel.

Yes there is a hell of a lot of water taken out of the system now and untilo very recently more irrigation liceances were being release and may still be happening. The fact is that all of the hype going around about saving the river is not helping becasue the only thing that will help the river is water and we need rain to get flows. If greenies got their way and the dams were opened up, there would be maybe a few weeks flow and then nothing again but this time there would not even be a trickle. A flush would be nice but that would mean nothing in the longer term. But once again the river is being used as a political football for pointscoring. The river is SUPPOSED to go dry in drought. We have been far too familiar with the river being regulated and happily flowing all the time when infact in it's natural state, the river would be very low or back to water holes every summer/Autumn.

NO - that would be the worst thing to do....
There are only 2 lakes - not 'a hell of a lot', and they are freshwater lakes.... and also not 'reclaimed'...

Dunno about that Tim E. The salt sea water used to go up as far back as Mannum when the river used to stop flowing before dams started on the Murray I have heard from several sources over the years!

yes but they arent called salt water lakes - they are fresh-water lakes.
Wouldnt salt water just increase the salinity problems that are currently ruining the lakes atm?

I assumed they were estuarine lakes (you know, various levels of brackishness). Be a tourist and go down there. The barrages were installed to convert Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina into fresh-water reservoirs for irrigation. The South Australian government is considering a new barrage at Wellington. Whether they would then demolish the barrages into the Coorong, I don't know. But I'm with Adon on this:-THEY SHOULD DO, and return the Lakes to something approaching their natural state. Needless to say, local vested interest is horrified: "We can't put salt water on our sand-dunes!!!"

Ok well it depends on if you want to see all the local dairy farmers leave plus a whole heap of other people who rely on the lakes for fresh water...
Not to mention kill off several marine animals etc...
I'm just wondering which option would make more sense...

Well it would depend on what you want to achieve for the area. This argument comes up often when we talk of what we believe to be natural eco-systems - up here in the Mountains it's all to do with fire regimes, down there it's to do with flow regimes.

If you want the lakes to return to pre-european conditions then you have to open them to the see, if that is indeed what used to happen. The marine eco-systems will change, just as they did when the lakes were blocked off. But any animal that is there that cannot survive in salt or brackish water shouldn't be there.

From our point of view these new eco-systems become the norm and individuals and environmental groups get it in their heads that these are the ecosystems that we must protect - even if they're exotic to the area.

Recently my parents applied to local council to have a tree removed from their land. They were rejected on the basis that the tree is locally endangered. What they failed to inform my parents was that the reason it was locally endangered was because it was growing about 500m higher than it would normally have grown and the first fire through would have killed it.

:cheers: Will

Yes that was one of the first attempts at regulation that was installed. The lake are below sea level and the lakes would not have been fully salt water but they would have varying level of salt depending on flow. The lake would not have been fully salty because of the sand at the mouth would block off the lakes to the sea. Our green "friends" think that keeping the mouth open is vital where is this was natures version of a barrier. This would build up and eventually blok off the lake to the sea before the water got too salty in Pre European times. When flows would come back, the lake lavel would rise and eventually break the sand barrier and blow the mouth out returning to a decent size. The sight of a digger trying in vane to keep a channel open is just stupid and shows how little these people actually know about the river. It is not a european river running a banker all year but a seasonal river with high and very low/no flow depending on the time of year and the seasonal conditions.

I would not be so annoyed if these people faced the fact that they are farming in a reclaimed area and it should not be used for political fights. Bleeding out "save the river" while they are really wanting sombody else's water is wrong. An action to save the river should be across the board with everybody having to ive somthing up. That includes the people who consume the food as well. These dairy farmers that rely on the lake may have to adopt a system more like dryland farms. A bad season they may just have to shut down and wait it out. Keeping a lake the size of those very shallow inefficient storages is hurting areas further upstream. The evaporation from them is huge. If the lakes were returned to a more natural state, it could bacome a very good tourist area. The esturine lake would not take so much fresh water to keep it right and could help way further upstream.

Pompoota which is slighty downstream from manumn is aboriginal for "hieght of the tide" apparently so it did indeed flow that far up steam before dams and wiers

I would have thought that a good start to fixing the MDB would be to conduct a thorough land-use review. Irrigation would only be allowed where 3 conditions existed:-
1. Good quality soil
2. No salt problems
3. Good quality water available at low infrastructure cost.

Otherwise, all marginal land should be reverted to range-land. And I tend to include Mallee wheat farms in that, too.
To wish and hope for rain in the Basin is, as a former politician was fond of saying, living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land!

I think we are looking at it the wrong way. I see it as our wonderful plan to keep the river full all year round and utilize the water from it is coming to a end. The government in all the states that the river runs through have been to greedy and over allocated the resource. Let it return to a trickling stream in late summer like it was before the barrages stuffed it up. I wonder what the environmental impact statement would read if they wanted to barrage a free flowing river now days. The flora and forna coped once with the change to a year round supply of water. I am sure it will be able the cope again. They only species that wont is us!!

Farmers are the best judges of what to grow on their own farms and how to grow it. If they make a mistake, they suffer. And if they make too many mistakes, they go broke.
Do you really think a land-use review would demonstrate that irrigation farmers are so stupid that they are using precious irrigation water to grow crops on:
1. Bad quality soil;
2. With salt problems; and,
3. Using high cost, bad quality water.
As long as water rights are freely transferable, irrigation water will be used for the most productive enterprises and on the most productive crops.
And as far as (dryland) Mallee wheat farms go, the situation is similar. If they couldn't make money growing wheat in the Mallee, they wouldn't be doing it.

That would be fine BM if corporate entities stayed out of agriculture where their care factor is far far lower and short term profit grabs are the main driver of land treatment.
I agree, farmers are pretty good judges. Corporate desk based jocks with dollar signs rarely are.

Part of the answer has to be a serious look at population ideals for this country doesn't it? IOW just what is the sustainable carrying capacity of humans in this country taking into account food, water and quality of life. The dollar needs not be a part of this equation if it is to work. IMO the paddock is already too full.

However I am an idealistic fool

Sorry, this is going to be a bit long winded guys

So what sort of condition should the Murray-Darling be in? I think that is the question that needs to be answered. As others have already highlighted, prior to "whiteman's interference" the Murray-Darling would have already been a dry sandy river bed not capable of giving the roos enough to drink let alone any kind of settlement. This I think is the reality compared to the romantic notions peddled by green interest groups.

I'm more inclined to think of dams and weirs on our river systems more like the rain water tanks everyone is installing. Without dams, weirs and water tanks, that water ends up going straight down the drain and out into the ocean, of course it doesn't matter when the city resevoirs are full but when you have a level 6 water restriction slapped on you its funny how many people wisen up to holding back a few litres so they can use it after the clouds have packed their bags and left.

As far as the conditions for irrigation go...

1. Good quality soil - What is the yardstick for this? Fact is that Australia is a positively ancient patch of dirt that has been weathered for just a few years. Basically most of the good stuff is gone which is why graziers and livestock owners resort to vitamin, mineral and salt supplementation for their animals to keep them in good health. One needs only to head out to any of the fruit and vege bowls around the traps on a fairly regular basis to see what our growers have to do to keep their crops not only producing, but growing well making them more resistant to disease and infestation. It might pay to remind yourself that when you pickup an unwashed potato in the supermarket that you are actually holding someone's top soil in your hand, not to mention valuable minerals found within said potato have also come the producer's land. You can imagine the cumulative effect this has on the paddock? It's a crying shame!! So should we stop all farming once the soil is bad quality?? How about you stop eating first? :p

Importation of produce was up until recently a reasonably economical option but unless you have been hiding under a rock recently, oil is on the way up which means transport costs of food are escalating as well. I do not believe the answer lies in pillaging the Amazon rain forest so that we can sleep with full bellies and not get the guilts.

2. Soil Salinity - I've done a bit of reading on this over the years and it seems there is no simple solution to this problem. Soil types, land topography, rainfall, irrigation techniques and drainage all have a hand to play in determining how saline a particular patch of soil can end up. With a considered approach many land holders have managed to reclaim badly affected areas. Off hand I vaguely recall a fella in NSW who reclaimed a particularly badly affected block and turned it into an economically viable piece of land, he even controlled the erosion. I think the main part of his success came from filling in all water courses allowing flood water to spread across more land area thus taking some salt away and diluting what was left down to levels that allowed vegetation to grow and animals to graze on it. What was remarkable was that in the dry his land stayed greener (ie. more productive) for longer compared to his neighbours whose paddocks were just dust bowls. The irony is that he was ended up in quite a bit of trouble with the environmental departments because he altered a water course... As far as I'm concerned, this bloke addressed erosion problems and developed a technique which allowed him to utilise available water for longer which kept him productive and actually looked after the environment and his wallet better than what "those in the know" are advocating. WIN:WIN

3. Good quality water at low infrastructure cost - I agree with Bruce on this one, no farmer is going to irrigate his crop with water if he suspects it contains enough contaminates to stunt or kill his crop. That's just commonsense logic to me. I think though if we are talking about the possibility of irrigation water contributing to salinity levels in soil then we'd better all switch to demineralised water to stop this from happening, I can see it now, the local country bloke heading down to the supermarket for some demineralised water to irrigate his snow peas!!! Seriously though, if the irrigation water contains less salt then that of the soil it can actually be used to mitigate soil salinity with careful management.

As for the state governments over allocating water? Of course they do, that's how they make money!! Those prats will probably sell the same litre of water to three different farmers and we get angry at the oil companies? At least you pay for it once you've filled your tank, we had farmers here that were still paying for their allocations despite the foot valve on their pumps being high and dry. I wonder how many people here pay for Foxtel but don't have it connected? :rolleyes:

Edit: Pepsi, your first point is a good one that I hadn't even thought of. I would like to go one step further and say that foreign ownership of our valuable farming land removes the onus of responsibility even further, this does not sit well with me and I would really love to see some sort of policy addressing this issue. On one hand it is great to see cattle property in the Northern Territory going for $50 mil + and a farmer's investment in his land must be recognised but it would be even better if this land was owned by entities that actually reside in this country.

PM, idealistic you maybe!
Fool you are not!
I am a very strong believer in that this small planet would be a much better, safer and healthier place for mankind to live on if his numbers were less than a couple of billion and preferably less than a billion souls for the total global population.
Australia is still a very lucky country in that we still have space compared to most other regions of the world.
Australia was basically built by no more than about 8 to 10 million people who were amongst the first to build some of the longest continental rail and road systems in the world.
Who built the very first continental wide universal telephone system which a couple of goddamns have being trying to completely wreck in the last few years.
Why we have this constant harping on increasing our population when our resources of water are already stretched to the limit is beyond me but it does show the total inability of our political and big business class to even recognise that there are limits which we cannot go beyond as to do so will and is wrecking our very limited water resources and ultimately will go a long way to wrecking our living standards.

The myopia of the political and big business classes is caused by their total and almost pathological fixation on GROWTH at any cost.
The whole structure of our economy is based on continual growth.
This dream of a business nirvana will come to an end somewhere around 2040 to 2050 when the demographers have calculated that the world population will stabilise at around nine billion people and population will then start to decline.
With an aging and declining population after 2040, our present economic system which is totally based on continual growth will simply collapse.
As global population growth rates will be starting to slow down by perhaps 2020, the current economic growth based system may start to fall apart long before 2040.
We have already seen this sort of behaviour in our economic system when a major recession / depression sets in and it will be much worse as instead of a year or two of bad economic times it will be decades long periods of economic stagnation.

The Japan of today with it's declining and aging population and it's consequent stagflation and inability to politically and economically innovate is the test tube we should all be watching.
This is in a world in which there are enormous growth in population and economic measures which Japan can and has used to keep it's economy ticking over not a world of the future some 40 years ahead where populations are aging and falling and where all economic growth has slowed right down or stopped.

Nobody seems to have done the sums on whether the world can actually continuously produce enough food year in and year out to feed 9 billion people especially when the standards of living are rising and the demands for more animal protein are growing almost exponentially.
It seems that only expressions of pious hope about feeding the world is about all we can get from the experts!
It has been calculated that the world's farmers today are growing enough food to feed ten billion people if they were all vegetarians but I doubt this figure as it is assumed that the oceans would continue to provide about 20% of the world's protein needs, something that is increasingly unlikely as the fisheries of the world are destroyed by overfishing.

Agriculture, despite all the hype about being able to increase production is starting to run into the law of diminishing returns.
We may get more production but more and more resources are going to be needed to climb that ladder some more small steps.
One of those resources is water and not just in Australia but world wide.
We simply do not have enough water in the right place or enough water anywhere, full stop!
To totally agree with PM, our political and big business classes are stark raving mad and criminally ignorant to continually call for increasing population and increasing immigration when we are already at the limit of our available recsources.

Hi everyone. Visitors to the Goolwa, Milang, lower lakes areas are often shocked at how low the river levels are.
In March I attended a meeting where a well known professor was speaking with a passion about the Coorong and it saddened me to hear that bird, and fish numbers are declining as well as the plants that they feed on. In fact following his speech he asked if there were any questions and no one could speak and one lady summed our feelings up in a nutshell by saying "I am depressed now".
I hope the migratory birds will have a food source and enviromental flows will be delivered.

We let Economists rule, with their mantra of Growth. We have to loudly question this, as it does not take into account quality of life, just quantity of consumption.

We can all be living on top of each other, sucking the planet dry, and the economists will still be happy as we're consuming.

It's got to stop. The planet was full some time back, we have to put the brakes on.

Liz, go back and read the posts on page one of this thread.
The Murray we have now is an artificial water course, not the natural river so beloved of the green groups.
The posters on page one have got it right in that the natural blocking of the Murray mouth which is artificially kept open now and the very cyclic and annual runs of the river means that the whole Murray and it's tributaries bear little relation to the river before the coming of white man and all his IMPROVEMENTS to the river.
The Coorong must have often turned brackish before whiteman and I would suggest that many plants, animals and fish may have only been an intermittent residents of the Coorong in times past.
I could go on but from what has happened in the last 60 years to our local western Vic rivers, the quickest way to destroy a southern Australian River is to run "environmental flows" down that river.
All the deep water holes that maintained fish and river fauna are filled and drifted up by the short burst of slow flowing water that deposits it's load of silt into the slowest flowing part of the river, the deep water holes.
Then there are no longer any refuges left for the fish and other river animals.
The old pre whiteman rivers came down with great roaring flash floods that spilled out over the country flood plains and nurtured the tree growth and a huge range of wild life that depended on these flood plains.
The fast moving waters scoured out the deep water holes and then passed on and soon the river dried back to a few long pools and then finally back to the deep holes until the next flood came down.
It doesn't suit the environmental lobby to admit this so an artificial system of river flows based on their beliefs and ideology must be maintained.
Environmental flows are a total disaster and one of the most destructive ways we have of destroying a perfectly good Australian rive and the wild life that depend on that river..

Right on there ROM have seen a water gole in a small creek near swan hill where an enviro flow has mearly shifter the salt water onto the fresh hole and all the fish were dead. Make no sence to me to have an enviro flow in the middle of a drought. when naturally the river would be low anyway.

I agree with ROM too. The Barmah Forest has been recently subject to enviro flows and it has done more harm than good. On the other hand all the old river red gums along the Gunbower Creek are dead because of government practices. The commonality here is stupidity. The Murray will never again be what it was once, but it CAN be a living, viable river once again by the application of foresight and effective control

Very well said annesley

The situation of the coorong is more complex than not enough water in the murray. The major drain network in the south east now takes away alot of the ground water that would have fed into the coorong sustaining it through drier times. Letting water flow down the river for environmental reasons is silly as it will just be pumped out by Mike Rann for Adelaide and whats left will be used by the farmers for stock(not having a go at the farmers, god knows they need the fresh water for the stock).

It is also being suggested that the drain network in the SE of SA is partly responsible for the falling water tables through a lot of the aquifers in that region.
Previously the water ran into swamps and low lying areas and then slowly percolated down into the aquifers.
The drains allow the surface waters to rapidly drain away and no longer stay around to enable the recharge the local aquifers.

The locals in the western Vic region near the SA border where there are no large drainage systems tell me that about 18 months after heavy winter rainfall there is a very significant rise in the water tables in the aquifers.

Some good reading can be found here, a document from 2001
http://www.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/1482/FinalLowerLakes-28-11-011.pdf

Also if you need to keep an eye on the lower lakes level, go here
http://e-nrims.dwlbc.sa.gov.au/monitoring/lakes/

And remember, heights are messured as AHD i.e. Mean Sea Level

Some decent rainfalls over the snowies and upper reaches of the Murray catchment should see a bit of flow go down the river.

Thredbo had 98mm at 8am (unlikely to rise between now and 9am)and a few 50+ falls around the western side of the alps. All that combined with the resulting snow melt should provide a bit of flow.

:cheers: Will

Lets hope it helps somewhat.

Certainly a sight for sore eyes! Can't remember the last flood warning for any part of the Murray!

:cheers: Will

Been years Bigwilly at least! Always good to see rain with these systems but there is always a downside as well more often than not and thats NW Vic farmers hardly got a drop from this system and have heard alot of their crops are almost finished now Mother nature can be cruel sometimes 0mm for alot of the Mallee in NW Victoria Mildura & so on and just 300ks or so North Broken Hill had 20mm. I guess its how the dice rolls but not looking good for the farmers in the West of our state now, looking to be another flop the growing season as September rains fail to deliver again for the 3rd year in a row.

Awesome stuff. Just need a couple of widespread events to nudge that to a major flood then we can literally watch the murray fill up

Nice to see but would'nt all that water be held in the Hume and Dartmouth dams as these are extremely low at the moment

Your quite right Pete. A lot of the water will be diverted to other regions for irrigation purposes.

Flood warnings need to be further along towards Echuca and Yarrawonga for any big improvement of the catchment.

I notice that Perisher had 115 mm's and Thredbo Village 109 mm's. I'm pretty sure Thredbo's does, but does Perishers totals end up in the Murray - Darling as well?

Homer

Would only end up in the Murray.The Darling meets up with the Murray at Wentworth near Mildura

I'm pretty sure both Thredbo and Perisher drain to the east, and end up in the Snowy River?

You're right Pete, most of this will end up in the dams, but you need those dams fairly full for a good flow to continue beyond them.

:cheers: Will

We were at Towong at 1700Hrs the river has broken banks there. I would say only miner flooding at that time but had risen in the time we were there.Rearly was a great sight to see so much water going to the Hume Weir.Couldn't see the mountains because of cloud do not know how much snow is left

Thredbo and Perisher do drain to the Snowy river, the dam at Jindayne will hold this water and it could be pumped back over to the Murray (i think) or to the Murray via the Tumut river and Murrumbidgee. Hopefully they will let a little flow beyond the dam at Jindabyne and on down the Snowy as well. All that rain must of had an impact on the remaining snow cover, i think there was still a lot of snow up until just lately.Great to see some good rain in those areas

The high country is responsible for a big % of the overall inflows into the Murray-Darling system (somewhere around 50-60% depending on how you define it). I suspect a lot of the flooding in the Upper Murray is coming from snowmelt rather than rainfall, though.

I was looking at basin-wide multi-year rainfall totals recently for something I'm working on. Neither the 6- nor 7-year totals have quite reached as low as during the worst of the 1937-46 period, but if spring is reasonably dry the 8-year total may reach record lows by December (by which time the very wet October/November 2000 will have fallen out of the 8-year total).

Lets hope we get a repeat of the flooding which occurred at the head of the Murray Darling tributaries last year to complement the recent inflows down south, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/rain_ahead.shtml ,looks good.

So much for "the best ski season in years". When will people realise that the resorts hype up every year to make money? This article sets the picture straight:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/loc...ay/1283836.aspx

It was a modest snowfall this winter, and people thinking resort hype meant water for the murray are going to be waiting for the flows in vain.

Some advance notice that we'll be putting out a special climate statement sometime around the middle of this week on long-term rainfall deficits - with a particular focus on very severe deficits that have developed on the 3-year timescale in some of the key high-rainfall parts of the upper catchments. Spent rather more of today than I would have liked working on it but it's coming together now...

(By the way, if any northern Victorian readers want to see what I look like I'll be on the Bureau stand at the Elmore Field Days this week).

Would have liked to go to Elmore this year but unfortunalty I have my bro's wedding over that way this weekend and have to get things organised for the few days we will be away.

The statement's now out on the Bureau website (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/special-statements.shtml)

i was back at my favourite place in the world last week, Wongula Sth Australia on the Murray River. i was devastated at the state of the river. i was happy to learn that 35mm of rain fell the day before, in fact it was still lightly raining when i was there, a rare feat in itself. but the water is atleast 7feet below its average height.
The River is usually up where the first tyre is located, thats where we would tie up our first boat, with the second behind it.
River Mud
River Mud, usually its a short step from marina to boat!
Fish, Shrimp and Yabbies replaced by flowers

but it wasnt the river itself that shocked me. for the first time in my 30years, it was the surrounding lagoons and water bybasses that were dry, with nothing left. the breeding grounds were completly gone.
Wongulla Lagoon, usually full of water, ...t the clifs now
Now the kangaroos have replaced the pelicans on the lagoon
this pix shows where i took the photo from, the smaller clump of trees along the road at the bottom, obviously slightly more water two years ago.
Google Earth View of the lagoon in 2006

5km down the road at Walkers Flat, same story,
again this lagoon is dry
Again, google earth view from 2006

Looking east
Google earth 2006

5km up the escarpment from Walkers Flat, you come across this,
Almond Plantation
Almonds
along with its olympic pool size water storage,
Water storage
And Pump!!!

Coincidence or not, this google earth image, shows the new plantation in 2006,
New almonds 2006
u look closely, u might even make out the pipeline runing back to the river. in fact even now u can still see where the scrub had been removed and pipe runs back under the road towards the river.
i think its terrible that plantations like this are being approved at times when other orchids and plantations are struggling or closing, and especially at times when the river is in such a poor condition.

So sad aye, shows you whats actually happening

Thanks for sharing mick.

Yes bad times and bad policy. One wonders if a mate of a planning officer did his friend a favour. It doesn't make sense to me and the state of the river is purely from she'll be right type of mentality. The same type of people who think nothing about throwing their rubbish over board whilst polluting the very same waters that they are trying to fish in, make these decisions.

The river here at Cohuna has been high for a number of weeks, I guess they are filling Lake Victoria. Hopefully some of this water will get down your way Mick.

Thanks for putting those up Mick... many memories associated with Walkers Flat and so sad to see the state of the river and its lagoons.

The almond story is common along the Murray River, the photos below from Victoria in October 2007:

This is the result of the corporations getting tax benefit write offs and tax losses which were allowed to just keep right on going for many years.
The tax office has recently tried to shut the gate where these corporate investors get huge tax write downs but the Supreme or High court, can't remember which, have just thrown the tax office's case out so these outfits can just go right on raping anything and everything and accumulating big tax losses while doing so.
It is starting to happen all over agriculture but genuine legitimate farmers can't get these same tax write offs or losses that these [ city ] investors get and we just can't compete against these tax payer subsidised city investors.
Legitimate farmers are usually one man or family farms and are treated under different tax rules to the corporations who are using these highly discrimatory tax rules to out compete the ordinary legitimate farmer.
Often the investors don't care if they don' t make profit at all with these almonds, trees , vineyards or what ever.
Their claimed tax losses on these agricultural projects more than compensate them by reducing their taxable income below certain threshholds and they are way in front financially.

The old irrigation settlements were OK as they both provided a support base for rural areas around and provided a lot of overseas income in Australia in the early years but the State Governments just kept right on handing irrigation licenses out to anybody and everybody who forked over a nice sum to the party coffers.
Now we and the rivers are all paying a huge price for this stupidity and corrupt dealings by the politicians and bureaucrats.

I think that most of the problems with the Murray are man made managemnet issues atm. Rainfall this year has been adequate and close to normal. The problem is all the dams upstream stopping the flow that are now still very low. As well of course the excesive water use along the Murray basin by large business like the almond farm. Now with the release of water into eastern flowing streams like the Snowy it will only make things worse. We were always living off bowrrowed time when you consider that Eucumbene Dam took 13 years to fill in 13 of the wettest years last century. You cannot blame the climate anymore for the current man made problems.

I can see your point snowmi but from someone who lives in the upper part of the catchment it is still very dry here and most farm dams are still only half full and didnt fill in the winter/spring, our creek stopped running about august and has only today started running after there was 100mm in a storm up in the catchment yesterday and there is certainly no dam on the creek. What is needed is a series of above average years to get the MDB back on track not just one average one. Hopefully this can happen and then the regulators of the MDB can get it right.

Have a look at this:
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/

Just need another system to move through western QLD and we are in business.

An example of all the water up here, the mighty Burdekin river near Charters Towers (120km SW of TSV) has risen from 2m to near 13m in 3 days. Of course all that is going into the Burdekin dam which is already over 2m above the spillway. 2ms over a 500m long spillway with a 37m drop.

WOW that's one hell of a rise! Yeah Qld and NE NSW have done well in the last few months but falls are still isolated as far as I tell so a more general rain would be fantastic. There are OK flows in some of the darling rivers but yeah would be nice to have a big bugger sitting over the Culgoa catchment again as well as the NSW catchments and you would see another good flow heading for the Darling. EC is hinting at a low in the coral sea next week so fingers crossed it comes off and goes to the right spots eh!

Just hope Cubbie et al don't nick the lot...

Yeah well there are more than just the Culgoa that can give a bloody good flow to the Darling mate and I would be more worries about what a lot of farmers up there seem to have done by catching and divering water illegally

Unbelievable rain in Bourke to 9am this morning -197mm - which should, with other inflows, start to give the Darling a good flushing for the first time in years.

Possibly a silly question.

The rain at Bourke & the subsequent water injection into the Darling would take how long to flow through to the end of the Murray & out to sea?

Just on that fall at Bourke IW. One of our correspondents in the local storm watchers up here posted pictures of an area just outside of wilcannia after having 400mm on the same day.

Not sure why the basin should be called Murray-Darling really, the two are very different, they only just happen to flow into each other near the end.

Anyway things are once again getting grim for the Murray basin. I do not like the start to this year so far, things will have to turn around pretty drasticaly soon or trees will die as the basin turns to waste. Close to the driest start to the year for the basin in recorded history.

For some parts. Already had a bit of a pulse run down the Darling from the rainfall around Bourke in Feb.

Be interesting to see where Hamish ends up and if he can give anything west of the divide.

:cheers: Will

Models are currently showing next to nothing from Hamish even for me at Sunny Corner. No rain worth speaking about in the forseable future. Hopefully the patterns will change a bit during the autumn.

Might be nothing from hamish but the inland trough is starting to do its thing.. could be a few patchy but decent totals around the basin in the next coupla days before, IMO, a decent barrage of fronts from later this month onwards.

Took me a while to find this thread! Anyhoo this system is also giving some good falls into the darling catchments so hopefully some flows coming into the darling soon!

Is there anyone in the Warrego or Culgoa catchment on here? I would love to know if there is much water flowing in these rivers.
:cheers:

Let Parts of the Murray System Die: Scientist

Do you agree with this line of thought that the river will 'die' if nothing is done? I'm sure there has been many periods in history when the river has stopped flowing completely, yet it didn't die. Granted they weren't preceded by a century and a half of stuffing the river, but I think it's just maybe a bit too simplistic and polarises the issues at hand?

:cheers: Will

well its raining there now..

I simply don't think that the Murray will die in the sense that some are thinking.
The drying of Australia's inland Rivers as is now happening, has been repeated over and over again since time immemorial!

I will try and put the next statement in a delicate manner but I firmly believe that most of the irrigation that is now permitted on our Australian inland river systems should never have been permitted in anyway at all.
If the rivers are going to be 'destroyed" then that is the place to start looking for the problem, the immense amounts of irrigation water drawn from the inland Rivers.

Before they even consider granting any more irrigation permits from the inland rivers, every politician and every bureaucrat that has a responsibility of any sort for our water and river systems in Australia should be made to read the stories of the once great and now near dry Syr Darya and Amur Dayra rivers of Central Asia.
The great rivers of history and legend that have figured in the legends and tales of central Asia for some 3000 or more years past.
And how those once great rivers and their terminus, the formerly great Aral Sea have been destroyed by the old Soviet Union's drive to irrigate huge areas of cotton in the middle of the Central Asian deserts.
Any politician and bureaucrat who would read the tales of the demise of these former life giving rivers to so much of central Asia , would think twice before granting any more irrigation permits to draw water from our own inland, semi desert rivers.

As I have got older, I am increasingly convinced that our global climate and even down to our local weather runs in a multitude of cycles of all different lengths and persuasions.
Unfortunately for our forecasting abilities, no two cycles are ever exactly the same.
I put this down to the overlap between all the different short and long term cycles in both ocean and atmosphere.
Those cycles can run from a few days long to 100,000 year long cyclic periods that lead to the creation of ice ages and their ultimate collapse into today's benign climate.
Modern man has just made it into the 12,000 to 20,000 year long time slot between the ice ages.
By the cycles of past ice ages, the next ice age will come again in the next few thousand years and I doubt that mankind will be able to do much to stop the age old cycle repeating again.

So the combined effect of a number of overlapping cycles, each of a different length and each affecting some different part of our climate environment creates a weather and short term climate that is currently impossible to forecast long term.
We simply do not have even a small grasp on just what is involved in the combined effects and interactions between the different cycles and it may be another century or so before mankind does have grasp on what all the drivers are on our global climate and weather.

So our old and very ancient Australian Rivers, like the Centralian Todd River, possibly the oldest river on earth, will just continue to run how and when the conditions all line up for them.

Mankind may change them for a few centuries or temporarily "destroy" them but sooner or later mankind will move on and those old rivers will just go right back to doing what they have doing for maybe a million years in the past.

Good and interesting points ROM. Is not the same drying true of the colorado as well?

I think that the regressive and increasingly prehistoric economic principals of eternal infinite growth in a finite world are of a bigger problem than any perceived climate deficiencies.
We are very resistant of change and power and money just stop and bury any change that threatens the status quo and continued "growth".

The "fall" (whatever form it takes) will ultimately be the responsibility of a very very few. As of all of history.

"I think that the regressive and increasingly prehistoric economic principals of eternal infinite growth in a finite world are of a bigger problem than any perceived climate deficiencies. "

We are unfortunately at the mercy of the greatest Ponzi scheme for the benefit of a few and mother nature, the worlds resources and the rest of us are grist for the mill.

Endless "Growth" is the mantra and a reversal is not even called anything but a "Period of Negative Growth" out of psychotic faked optimism .

Growth and Death are natural - what we have is not.

Yes , the Colorada was going the same way as the Murray and quite a lot of other Australian rivers.
The quickest way to destroy a river is to put "environmental flows" down that river.
Sounds good in theory but like all good intentions, there is an unforeseen and a rather nasty cost to environmental flows.
Environmental flows generally consist of minimum amounts of water that models [ models again! ] have calculated will reach the maximum of the rivers critical length to "refresh" the pools and etc.

What actually happens in Australian rivers is that the slow flowing environmental flows slow down even more in the deep pools that are a characteristic of Australian rivers due to the very sharp, heavy, fast flowing flash floods scouring out these big deep pools that fish and all sorts of river life have become adapted to surviving in over the long dry periods.
The slowing down of the environmental flow allows the silt load in the flow to settle in the very slow moving water in the deep pools.
Within a few decades, the formerly deep pools have silted up and all the long duration deep pools that were the survival refuges for river life are destroyed.
This is what has happened to the Glenelg river in SW Vic.
An old former Glenelg River bank resident told me how, as a kid he used to swim and dive in the deep pools along the Glenelg and now in those same pools he can walk across the river.
He was the one who put me wise to the unforseen and in a way, tragic for river life, end result of the much vaunted environmental flows.

This is what was also happening to the Colorado.
However, a couple of water engineers, not the environmental mob who are totally rigid when it comes to new ideas, eventually convinced the Colorado River controllers to save all the water from the Environmental flows and to release it all in one great flood event to try and copy the way the Colorado use to flash flood after heavy storm rains in the up-river catchment.
The experiment was quite successful although like all first time experiments a great deal was learned and many changes were instituted for the following releases.
Rather than myself go into any further explanations, you can read the results here and a long research paper here.

OOP!. the memory ain't what it should be.
It is the Finke that is regarded as the oldest river on earth, not the Todd as I have in the post above.

economics go by population. while a population grows so must the economy. if the economy is not growing while the population is, then our standard of living must fall.

economic growth does not have to rely on resources at all. if someone writes eg a computer program, the resources needed are just the skill and the persons upkeep (which would be the same for manufacture etc). the person is producing a good that has real value, just as everything that has time dedicated to its production. the value of resources is calculated in exactly the same way as for a computer program, by its demand.

gold itself has no real value other than it looks good. its value is the perception that it is worth something, exactly like a computer program.

economic growth in countries such as australia relies on resources because we have many and they are easy/cheap to get. countries like america see the importance in things like silicon valley (computers and software), drugs/medicine, entertainment etc all fairly resource free but all have value as much as gold does.

the easiest way to see it is to assign a value to each persons working life. a person borrows money from a bank, they are borrowing from their future for the now. when you total the population you should see the economy grow at exactly the same rate. places like china are catching up because of the huge numbers of people raising their standards of living. some countries in africa have shrinking economies and thus a lowering of their standard of living. we should not wish upon ourselves a low growth rate for it means we are going backwards.

of course population growth requires more food and housing availabe so there is a dependance on some resources. this dependence leads to a loathing of industries related to them because they are seen as necessary evils and the further you can distance yourself from them the better.

as people drift away from seeing these things as 'necessary evil' into a denial mode due to generations that have not even seen a farm, the rift between country and city becomes larger.

its a very sad situation developing. eg a tv news report about 2 years ago when our main drinking water supply dam was low. the water from it travels down the Brisbane river and some irrigators get an allotment from it. some reporter got sniff of this and like bang! its a major news item, yet nothing had changed for years!. they go out and interview a farmer pumping water form the river and absolutely grill him over his allocation as if to say why are you pinching our water, and the guy didnt handle it too well at all. had him in tears! saying he was down to quarter allocation etc. yet they seemed to believe they had the higher moral ground to demand responses and thats the way the whole story played out. just the norm.

the political class unfortunately are the first to deny the need for more resources as the population grows, instead opting for blaming the industries involved for abusing the resources, this way they can pander to the majority of people that elected them because they are seen to be denying/fighting evil and showing a direction of conservation.

Inflows starting to increase in the North East Vic catchments - Lake Hume increased approx 47,000- meg's in a week. A minor flood warning was also issued earlier in the week for the Kiewa river. Although the Kiewa doesn't flow into Lake Hume it is an indication that the catchment is "primed". Fingers crossed for this weekend's forecast to bring some substantial flows.

And signs of more decent showers/snow and rain for NE Victoria for later next week so should all help

Good to see but hopefully some of the streams that get good flows come in below the dams. The poor old river is pretty low atm while they are filling up Mulwala. It should be full next week and hopefully then they will let some water come through as the ol girl needs a flush.

Bump

I thought I might bring this thread up since the Darling river is flowing in some parts. Currently 6.97m at Louth and falling. At Tilpa its at 4.97m and rising. I'll be interested to see if this flow gets past the menindee lakes.

The Darling at Bourke is flowing at just under 50,000ml/day atm and rising. With the Castlereagh River flood yet to reach the Darling and many other rivers and creek at least flowing nicely, I would say this will put a great deal of water into Menindee. But with Menindee under 10% and many pumpers along the river getting their share I would say that this will only put water into the system and not fill the lakes. Therefore the flow below the lakes will continue to be regulated as it has been for a while now. Flow are pretty low to maintain waterholes and stock/domestic supply. They will most likley give it a flush to keep the locals and greenies happy but most will be stored.

One good thing though is that now the catchments are very wet coming into the wet season so we may see more flows coming into the system if further rains fall up there.

just under 50,000ml means just under fifty litres a day according to SI standard symbols.

I hope you mean megalitres otherwise Bourke and beyond REALLY need those upstream floods to surge through!

Yes Kizz megalitres.... Should have been in capital letters but I did not think people would be so picky

there is a LOT of water now coming down and could be in with a chance(a slight one) that this could fill menindee. All depends on if the Paroo river reaches the Darling near Tilpa. The flow is really racing down the river too as the flow has already got to Tilpa. If it continues at this pace it could be in Menindee by Feb. All of this at the START of the wet season with the main chances of cyclones in Qld and the Gulf to come. If there is another major rain event does come start up there, we could be seeing a Darling led recovery of the lower Murray river. Who would have thought.... once it started raining in the MDB the rives flow again... crazy

Bring it on down all the way to SA please!...And don't use it all up on the way down NSW & QLD!

Ian the water is getting past a lot of the bigger pumpers now. Menindee is next but it is only 10% full so it would take some filling. Of course they will not take every drop and there will be a flush flow similar to last year but hopefully there is more than last year coming down and it can get some real flows coming into the murray. BUT this would never even go closer to filling the lower lakes. And IMO this is still a disgrace and the sea barrier should be removed and let the lakes go back to their natural state in drought times.

Looks as though the water has reached Wilcannia. It must be quite a sight seeing the water come down the river. It went from 0 to 50cm in 15mins! Currently the Darling river is sitting at 3.68m at Wilcannia and rising.

I wonder if any of the Paroo will make it into the Darling?

Well Adon, I hope a decent flow gets down anyway. The lower lakes well that would have been fine if left as it was, but not sure what effect it would have now after all the years of the barrages seperating the two fresh and salty zones?

BD from what I last heard about the water quality of the lakes, it was more salty and more acidic than sea water so I reckon that it would have been better for the lake to have open the barrier. As far as I can see, the oreason they have not been opened was that irrigators surrounding the lake would not have access to water. We must remember that this was a RECLAIMED lake that was origionally a lake that went between salt and fresh. Keeping this lake fresh take VAST amounts of water. If the irrigators had piped water instead of pumping direct from the lake, it could save massive amounts of water when flows do improve

I'd love to see the river start flowing. How good would it be, sitting on the bank, beer in hand just watching it fill and flow!

I'd imagine it would be a little more vigorous than the Todd (see the video in the Central Australia thread) and even that would be cool to see start flowing.

Yeah but remember the water holes all along still have water in them so not really like the Todd either. Yes there are sections that would be dry but not huge lengths.

The easy way to fix the whole problem particulaly at the South Australian end, but obviously not the politically correct way, would be to dismantle the whole Snowy Mountains scheme and let nature take its course.

Both the Snowy River and Murray River systems could then do what they were designed by nature to do, namely drain the snow melt and maintain according flows both sides of the Great Dividing Range.

Of course this would never happen with the Hydro scheme and so on. Politicians of all colours can throw billions of OUR hard earned money FOR EVER at it and will never fix the problem....

Not to mention RWM of the billions of dollars of lost production and lost jobs resulting from the water being taken back. It would be like wiping the inland off the face of the map. All to please Adelaide who should not have so many people if they cannot keep them watered (same with every city). I really don't get when people bring this up. Do they not like Aussie grown food???

The lower lakes wasted huge amounts of water in order to keep them full in drought years when they would have been in an esturine phase. Yes irrigation uses huge amounts of water too but keeping the lower lakes artificially fresh WASTES huge amounts of water. Check out the evaporation figures for the lakes. From memory they used more than Adelaide did.

The Darling river at Wilcannia is now at 9.00m, it must not be long until we start to see the lakes fill up

NSW to Share Floodwaters

So I gather from the article that they're expecting Menindee to hit the trigger level (640GL) for downstream releases?

The Wilcannia river station has disappeared from the BOM's Hydro pages - maybe it was washed away?

just saw footage on the news of Bourke underwater with the river now at 10.4m and still rising.. what a sight and its expected to stay like this for a few weeks yet

148 gigalitres coming down Murray to SA's Lower Lakes



Although I also think some should be allocated to the Riverland farmers... but thank God there is some bit of sense in the NSW govt...

Also good to see the rise in the Darling at Menindee (on weir 32 what ever that means; any maps or diagrams?). And we have Wilcannia back at a solid 8.17m. It is still rising ever so gradually at Bourke too, now only 68mm below moderate flood level.

With GFS going off its nana for tropical lows/cyclones for the end of this week and EC at least interested in a tropical low/cyclone for the Cape it could be an interesting couple of weeks in that part of the world!

Found a cool little group on Facebook ( Wilcannia on the Darling River ) with some photos of the Darling first running.

bourke going up faster than expected, 10.75m (earlier on expected at 10.8 by the end of the weekend), both louth and tilpa forecast to possibly hit major levels in the next few weeks which is a decent upgrade compared to last week if only we could get some big rains soon!

Yeah if we could get another tropical originating rain system, that area would go off and there'd be an enormous amount of water heading for Wentworth.

Be even better if we could something for the Murray!

not sure how consistent it has been but EC looks a bit interesting with some pretty decent troughyness and a big tropical low (it looks to be ex-Neville) bearing down the inland late in the run.. extended GFS has some massive inland falls as well. if EC was to come off there would be some serious flooding in those rivers and across much of QLD

NOGAPS, EC and GFS all show some very decent falls coming up across the inland in a week or so...Ex TC (that looks like it builds over land as it moves W, before swinging SE) could move across into the SE of Aus in about 9 or 10 days giving some potentially very big falls Would be amazing for the M-D Basin if it came off - and some big floods to boot - I'd think across the inland and then potentially along the E coast...

Long way off but will be one to watch

Not long now till the environmental releases from Menindee reach the Murray - already reached Pooncarie and Burtundy. The peak of the actual flood though is currently between Bourke and Louth and is expected to reach Louth by next Wednesday.

With the possibility of another tropical spawned system delivering some substantial rain in the region there is the very real possibility of some substantial downstream flooding as well!

Well things are getting a little more interesting now

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN36501.html
Flood Watch for upper north western NSW for Sunday and Monday
Issued at 12:33 PM on Friday the 29th of January 2010


Note: Flood Watch is a "heads up" for possible future flooding and is NOT a
Flood Warning [see note below].

During Sunday a low pressure trough associated with the remnants of Tropical
Cyclone Olga is forecast to extend over western NSW. This system is expected to
bring widespread rain and moderate to possibly heavy falls to parts of western
NSW from Sunday through into early next week.

This forecast heavy rain could cause local flooding in the state over an area
north of Wilcannia and Cobar and west of Brewarrina during Sunday and Monday.

The NSW State Emergency Service advises landholders in this area to prepare for
possible isolation due to floodwaters.

The rain could also lead to renewed main river flooding along the Paroo,
Warrego, Culgoa, Birrie, Bokhara, Narran and Darling Rivers later next week.

Flood Warnings are current for the Darling and Warrego Rivers.



bring it on and keep those tropical lows coming

Yeah i agree keep them coming through April looking a great system to Flood West QLd and W NW NSw and re flooding the darling keep the water coming

The first flush of water is expected here in Wentworth mid next week.
Be great if it floods up there again next week and then Menindee lakes are full and all the flood water comes down and floods Wentworth and the Murray in March that would be sweet as

looking good for another 100-150mm up that way on already wet soil good times

Heres a good site I stumbled onto today. Menindee lakes is only at 18%, so it has a long way to go. But as you said there is still alot of water coming down the river

http://www.mdba.gov.au/water/live-river-data

Adam the lakes 8% before the flow started so they are rising very quickly. Also looks like there could be enough to just about fill them on this one flood so another would pretty much go straight through to the lower Murray. Flows are in the high 40000 to 50000 megs a day upstream where the peak is so if it has risen 10% already and the best of the flows are to come it should fill them. Hopefully they send some down the ana branch looked terrible last time I was there.

And keep in mind that the lakes have risen that 10% while releasing pretty substantial enviro flows.

That's a great site you've found Adam; I had been searching for ages for a comprehensive summary and data about the Menindee and lower Darling.

My boss' daughter and son-in-law live out at Menindee too, so I get to see the odd picture of roads closed and weirs flowing, but without having been there myself it's hard to put it into context.

Try this one for a better idea of what is coming down the Darling.

http://www.waterinfo.nsw.gov.au/drr/

There is still a lot of water all the way up to Bourke. Your right BW the amount of water getting let down the Darling now and it is still going up is an indication of what is to come for SA. Most likely the locks in front of the flow will be releasing water before the flow gets there so we may see Murray flows increasing in the next few days. We may even see(fingers crossed) the murray mouth discharging water into the sea for the first time in years.

Apparently (according to one site) 94% of the rain water in the darling evaporates leaving only 4% for inflow.. thats a HUGE loss

Not in the are here, but just to let people know that Lake Albert here is now dead. The small puddle that is left is now unable to sustain any life. More than 1500 dead fish were removed over the weekend with more to come as the lake dries up. Looks like it will be dry by the end of the month. Also many dead mussels as well. If only some of the northern water could be shipped down here.
Duane.

Yeah it's pretty ordinary isn't it Duane. Was a pretty sad scene on the front page of the DA this morning.

As you say, just wish some of that NW rainfall could find its way down here...

[EDIT] Just had a look at the temp trace at Louth ( 3rd from the top ); something tells me the instruments are a little out of whack. Or is 48C water normal in that part of the world?!

Haha reckon it's a little out BW! Where is lake Albert? never really heard of it. is it very big?

ER the Darling does loose a bit out of evaporation but think that may be a little high. Where the big evap goes on is when it gets to Menindee Lake Victoria and the biggest of all the lower lakes in SA. They loose a huge amount of water. All the more reason to let them go back to their natural state and take those barriers out.

Albert is just a small lake in Wagga. It's only purpose is recreational and general amenity; so when it dries up it's no big deal - just makes for a pretty sore sight and dents morale a bit.

Ah OK no wonder I never heard of it. Still sad but yeah... We got our lake back this year after 12 years. I know how it feels. Pity this event is flopping really. It would have been good if it hugeged the ranges all the way down to the snowies.

I was wondering the same looking @ some of the graphs...And wondered if a fresh flow over dry river beds during the middle of the day could indeed cause temps that high - only to drop down again as the flow increased and the temp of the river bed dropped?

Probably would be pretty high for a very short period but Louth has been flowing banker for over a months now so the temp would be pretty steady now.

Thanks Adon...No chance of infeeds upstream raising the temp of the river? Aprpeciate you'd probably need pretty decent infeeds to have that impact...But that graph does look plausible...It is not a sudden peak and drop...that I wonder if there are any natural reasons for the temp change?

When you begin to look at the energy requirements that would result in lifting the temperature of the river by the amount shown in the graphs, it soon becomes clear that the required energy makes it implausible: Now there are some very basic assumptions here and a bit of memory back to high school, so the calcs could be out a bit!

- 347cubic metres per second of water was flowing down the Darling at the time of one of the temp rises.
- Assume the river is flowing at 1m/s
- Based on the above, 1m of river length holds 347,000L of water.
- 1 joule is required to heat 1mL by 1C
- 347,000,000ml per metre of river
- Delta T of 10C
- Required energy input = 347,000,000*10 to heat a 1m column/row of water by 10C

3,470,000,000J or 3.47GJ or the equivalent energy of just under 1T of TNT!!!

Looking at the graph, you can see the diurnal pattern of heating, that one would expect to see on clear days, begin from about 20/1 onwards - that also provides some relevance on which to gauge the likelihood.

Yep - you've convinced me The diurnal pattern only comes back in towards the latter half of the run. Wonder if the gauge could have been in a backwater / out of the main flow...Will google for images of guage @ Louth to get some idea of the setting

Just a stuff up in the gauge or a practical joker with a thermos!

Thanks for those darling basin links all - I reckon the state of this system holds a major key to the health of our economy and the ability of being able to feed ourselves.

Subway rolls made from overseas pre-prepared dough!! - jeez dont get me going!

Have a look at how much the darling has dropped at Louth. Quite amazing really.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDN60238/IDN60238.548005.plt.shtml

Is any floodwater still on its way down to the lower lakes ?
There was a lot of information a month ago in the news and on the web sites and the politicians were out in force but everything has gone very quiet .
Does anyone know what is happening ??

For Interest on the topic, my latest update web article on the following:
REVIEW & UPDATE OF HOLTON WEATHER GENERAL LONG-RANGE RAINFALL & NATURAL DAM INFLOW FORECAST ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN 2008 & 2009
http://www.holtonweather.com/article2.htm

Another new web-page for anyone interested, which has the historical since 1982 HALRI Index, mentioned in the article I posted up in the post before.

The Historical Monthly Series of the 12 Holton Weather Australian Ocean-Rainfall-Weather Indices from 1982 to 2010: 24th February 2010
http://www.holtonweather.com/articleindices.htm

Cheers

check out the latest gfs run, this would create some serious inflows into the murray darling, especialy considering there are still many rivers in flood

looks good, upwards of 300mm progged in the upper parts now. surely would bring a lot of water down the murray

The Paroo:

It doesn't normally flow to the Darling does it? What stops it?

Surely with a flood earlier this year, a wet catchment and now a second flood in just a couple of months, whatever normally prevents the flow down the Paroo entering the Darling is full/can't divert the flows any more?

Im pretty sure the paroo flows into a system of lakes/wetlands. Only in the big floods will the lakes over flow into the darling

Just been looking into it a bit more

Heres a good picture which shows the paroo wetlands. I never realised how many lakes were out there. No wonder it doesnt usually flow to the darling

Tilpa is on the darling

Paroo River Link

That's a pretty incredible landscape - no wonder the Paroo doesn't normally run to the Darling.

But as I said, surely after the floods earlier this year/late last year and the semi-regular rain since, these floods will just pass through the system, albeit slowly, and into the Darling?

Yes, if I was a betting man I would be offering very short odds that the Paroo will reach the Darling. I find those catchments out there very interesting especially the Paroo as it splits all funny well north of Tilpa, and what you would assume is the stronger half of the split (the W part) has to travel longer before reaching the Darling! Would love to go for a drive out there and explore those places one day!

The paroo should reach the darling no worries since it is possibly the biggest flood on record. A Modis Sat photo from mid feb already shows the wetlands full of water with another moderate flood upstream and that was before last rain

A NEW ARTICLE on my website for your interest:
WHAT IS THE MAIN FACTOR CONTROLLING THE MURRAY DARLING BASIN SYSTEM RAINFALL (SOUTH QLD-NEW SOUTH WALES-VICTORIA & SOUTH AUSTRALIA AREAS)?....... AND WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE RAINFALL OF THE VAST MURRAY DARLING BASIN SYSTEM?
Friday 5th March 2010
http://www.holtonweather.com/article2.htm
Cheers

Barwon R at Mogil gaining strongly!

Latest flood warning going for moderate to Major flooding for the Darling.

RENEWAL
MINOR TO MODERATE FLOOD WARNING
FOR THE BARWON DARLING RIVER
Issued at 10:31 AM on Thursday the 11th of March 2010

Flood Warning Number: 6

The Barwon River at Mungindi was 6.39 metres and still near its peak on Thursday
morning causing some minor flooding.

The Moonie River peak is expected at Gundablouie on Thursday. This Moonie River
peak is expected to arrive at Mogil Mogil this Sunday.

Major flooding in the Culgoa, Moonie, Warrego and Paroo river systems is
expected to cause moderate flooding along the Barwon Darling River at Bourke and
downstream from mid March onwards into April.



Predicted River Heights/Flows:

Mungindi - remain near 6.3 to 6.4 metres for another day or so with minor
flooding before falling slightly
- remain near minor flood level (6.1 metres) until later next week

Mogil Mogil - peak near 7.9 metres around 14/3/10 with minor flooding


Below are preliminary forecasts which will be updated as upstream peaks are
observed. They are also subject to change with any further heavy rainfall events
over the next 2 months.

Collarenebri - peak near 5.2 metres which is below minor flood level
around 17/3/10

Walgett - peak near 10.2 metres which is below minor flood level
around 22/3/10

Brewarrina - peak near 4.5 metres which is below minor flood level
around 2/4/10

Bourke - peak near 11.5 metres around 12/4/10 with moderate flooding

Louth - peak near 11.5 metres 3rd week April with major rural flooding

Tilpa - peak near 12 metres late April with major rural flooding flooding

Wilcannia - Reach 9.8 metres 2nd week of May with moderate flooding
- Possible further rises to about 11 metres later in May if the
Paroo overflow reaches the Darling River with similar flows
to those recorded in May 1990


FloodSafe advice is available at www.ses.nsw.gov.au

For emergency assistance call the SES on telephone number 132 500.
For life threatening emergencies, call 000 immediately.



Weather Forecast:
For the latest weather forecast see www.bom.gov.au/weather/nsw

Next Issue:
The next warning will be issued by 11am Friday 12/3/2010

Latest River Heights:
Barwon R at Mungindi 6.39m steady 09:00 AM THU 11/03/10
Barwon R at Mogil Mogil 7.31m rising 10:00 AM THU 11/03/10
Barwon R at Collarenebri 3.13m rising 07:30 AM THU 11/03/10
Barwon R at Walgett 5.04m rising 08:45 AM THU 11/03/10
Barwon R at Brewarrina 2.41m rising 07:40 AM THU 11/03/10
Darling R at Bourke 4.79m rising 07:00 AM THU 11/03/10

Yesterdays news artical sujests that a hell of a lot of water is being harvested so this Darling flood may not be all that big ...

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/dam...0-1225839297996

I geuss we will just have too wait it out and see how much the cotton industry leaves for the river..

cheers

Just when you think everything is all quiet along comes the possibilty of another tropical system perhaps even a cyclone from the Coral sea moveing towards the Queensland coast then inland into the top part of the Murray Darling basin.. If this latest EC sceanrio were to occur I would hate to think what would happen considering there is already so much water about up there.

Certainly a possibility of it now, with both GFS and EC producing a TC in the Coral Sea. Will certainly watch with interest!

Have a go at this sat image from Modis Aqua:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realt...042500.500m.jpg

You can see there's a lot of water yet to come down into the Darling...

Very interesting Will...perhaps I should've harked back to my remote sensing studies in recent years to think of looking at images using different bands to find the water!

The most interesting part of that image for me is that it looks like the Paroo is already reaching the Darling from flooding earlier this year, does that look right to anyone else?

looks close Dave ,, can see the Balone split at Diranbandi clearly , the Paroo and that must be Coopers ck further west right ?? All looks good too see so much water out there after soo long ...
The best thing about the chance of another system is that with the catchments filling now any more will keep pushing south ..

Listening too the ABC @ lunch they were talking from Cubbie St ,, they recon they may not fill there storages from this flood , but will get pretty close .. they say they need about 12 days @ this level too fill up...

thanks big will , great shot ...
cheers

was expecting a downgrade from EC from yesterday but nope, still holding onto the scenario that itll cross and visit the inland once again, bring it on! what a year so far for SW qld

News this morning that water will be released into Lake Menindee for the first time in 8 years: Story

Also of interest will be the upcoming possible handover of Menindee to the MDBA when storages hit the threshold that trigger the handover from NSW Office of Water: Story

That threshold will be reached today from what I think I heard on the Country Hour at lunchtime!

Yes I just missed the bit on wether they thought it would be reached today or in the coming week.

My boss is off to Menindee this weekend (his daughter and SiL are teachers out there); hopefully he'll get some photos of the gates open.

Another fantastic sat image from Monday. The Paroo-Darling Junction is roughly middle image (you can see the narrow western branch and the widespread eastern branch before it reaches the Darling).

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realt...003500.500m.jpg

can't get your link working willy ... Great pics when they work though .. how do you get them ? is it a subscribe thing ??

The MODIS Rapid Response System is a public access system designed to allow the public to access the images from the TERRA and AQUA satellites.

MODIS home page

Real Time images from both the Terra and Aqua satellites.

The UTC time of the satellite passes over various points on the earth's surface can be found in the two small orbit track expandable maps at the top.
The images listed are daylight images only
There are no publicly available images from the TERRA and AQUA satellites in the Infrared and etc to give night time images available, at least on this site.
So there are quite large gaps in the grouping of the time stamps on the thumbnails during the time the satellites spend over the night time areas of the earth.

The expandable calendar allows access to archived images.
The satellite tracks slowly drift in longitude so depending on the longitude of the satellite track / pass for a particular day or time period you will get an excellent overhead view as Will has posted or a off to one side distorted view on a later or earlier pass.
Spectrum frequency selection, scale selection and earlier or later images are found in the left menu.

I have generally found that it is easier to recognise and select map areas from the thumbnail images rather chasing the satellite track and pass time maps for the image you want.
Also it often pays to use the calendar to check on archived images from a few days previously to find a pass that is overhead of an area that you might like to look at.

The Aqua 16 / 03 /10 04.40 UTC pass using the 7-2-1 band and the 500 metre pixels [ takes a while to load ] is also a very good view of the river systems and flooding in the northern areas north of Will's previous day's satellite pass and also shows the probable western edge of vegetation which I assume is in response to the very recent heavy rains and which has now shown up in these sat pics.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realt...044500.500m.jpg

thanks ROM...

MODIS view of Ului yesterday. "Aqua" time stamp 03 /16 / 10. 03:05 UTC

Thumbnails containing the above image ; http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/2010075/

Not the best of images for comparison purposes but she's big!

Linky works for me still?

Another one from yesterday showing Cubby beautifully surrounded by flood waters:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realt...002000.500m.jpg

It has been interesting watching the floodwaters approach, then surround Cubby and now moving further on down stream.

It must of only been my system Willy ,, it worked an hour or so later ...

Yes its been great too watch , I had never thought about sat images too watch floods befor , lol but I've worked it out now and saved the link ROM put up .. great stuff ...

I have worked on Cubbie , so its good knowing the lay off the land out there .. then checking the sat ..

Cheers

To add a bit more optimism for the MBD Basin future.......

My latest Research Study Web Paper for your interest:

"NEW: WHAT IS CONTROLLING GLOBAL, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, AUSTRALIAN & AUSTRALIAN SOUTHERN OCEAN TEMPERATURES?: WHAT TEMPERATURE CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED FROM 1900 TO 2009?...AND, WHAT ARE THE GLOBAL & AUSTRALIAN TEMPERATURE FORECASTS FOR THE FUTURE PERIOD 2010 TO 2030?" Issued Monday 22nd March 2010

http://www.holtonweather.com/article2.htm

Cheers

Was listening to a cocky from Angledool on ABC radio this morning and he was saying how this was the biggest flood on his property since 1956 (I think that was the year, definitely in the 50's).

Good to see it can still rain and flood in that part of the world!

Now to see the rest of the MDB get a good flood up it!

Naive Question Will but where exactly is Angledool?

Probably in the shire of Outer Woop Woop.

Seriously, it's in the far northwest of NSW, almost on the Qld border. I used to hear its name mentioned with Lightning Ridge, in the daily rainfall bulletins that used to be on the ABC Country Hour.

Yeah north of Lightning Ridge, between it and Hebel on the Culgoa floodplain (downstream of Cubby Station).

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&s...amp;t=h&z=8

Thanks guys. Good to hear of all the water up there. I Hope the Southern part of the MDB also cops a belting the rest of this year.

This is better alot better finally most of Eastern half of Australia has had some great rain for the first 3 months of 2010 hope this trend continues



http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/inde...3month&area=nat