The Murray-Darling Basin

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Murray River one of the ancient rivers. It's about 130M years old according to the time scale of geologists. At that time, Australia was under a shallow sea, therefore it appeared like a group of islands rather what looks like now. In that time, the whole land started to appear above the sea level (100M years ago). Murray river was born by flowing of Salt water away from the emerging land and back into the ocean. The character of the development of the river was affected by the major geological events.

What is salinity and how does it affect the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin?

Salinity in water is a major problem for South Australia’s water resources. The salinity in the murray river formed by a natural salt that builds up due to a dissolution of salts in water. These process is mainly driven by a natural mechanism such as weathering of rocks and wind and rainfall deposition of salt over millions of years along the river. Therefore, the excessive amount of salt in the water on the murray darling basin results in a bad affects on vegetation, ecosystem health, water supplies and it also damage the infrastructure closed by.
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As the salinity level in the murray darling basin is increasing it has one of the most greatest environmental impacts. According to the Australian State of the Environment, the murray river salinity will rise the from level of 590 in 1998 to 730 (EC units) in 2020 Electrical Conductivity Unit which is used to indicates the salinity of the water. It is estimated that the salinity levels in the murray river will exceed World Health Organisation drinking water limits which is recommended limit for safe drinking water is 800 (EC units), therefore it will be 870 (EC units) by 2050.

How do we test for

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