Water Shortage In Australia

Improved Essays
Water shortages and droughts have been huge social, economic, and political issues in Australia. As the world’s driest habitable continent, Australia’s water use and management has and will continue to be among the most contentious issues facing the federal and state governments, as well as the public. Research indicates that Australians are, per capita, the biggest consumers of water in the world. When discussing water usage in Australia, one also has to consider the related issue of water rights. Sometimes water is considered to be the property of water users, while at other points, the government owns them. As a result, there are major differences in the way that water is managed and distributed across the nation.
There are two major debates
…show more content…
Such a region is called an aquifer if it contains a useable quantity of water. The depth at which the soil spaces become saturated with water is known as the water table.
Potable Water: Water that can be consumed by humans without risk of immediate or long-term harm.
Soil Salinity: There are two forms of soil salinity: dryland salinity (occurs on un-irrigated land) and irrigated land salinity. Both occur as a result of massive tree clearing, which raises the water table with the subsequent dissolving and moving of the salt from deep in the earth upwards, where it causes decreasing yield and eventually complete commercial and environmental loss of the land.
Surface Water: Water that collects on the ground in rivers, streams, wetlands, and lakes. Typically surface water is replenished through rainfall and lost naturally through evaporation and seepage into the ground water.
Water Entitlements: These provide the user with the guaranteed right to certain degrees of water consumption. Depending on the state, these entitlements can be bought, sold or traded. States such as Victoria and New South Wales actually pay farmers not to extract water, giving precedence to environmental flows and compensating farmers for the loss of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Australia went from a drought that was deadly to a flood that killed not only a mother and son but also others. Robin Kundis Craig, the author of the article “Water Supply, Desalination, Climate Change, and Energy Policy”, she describes, “Various regions in Australia have been suffering from severe drought and water shortages in the twenty-first century, prompting Perth, in Western Australia, to turn to desalination” (244). Craig is stating that because of the drought that happened in Australia, the people of Australia are beginning to depend on desalination to provide clean water for their communities. This matters because Australia…

    • 1658 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nt1330 Unit 1 Term Paper

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    According to “A Guide to Use of Biota, Sediments and Water in Environment Monitoring” by J. Chilton, in the USA where groundwater is important in all climatic regions, it accounts for about 50 percent of livestock and irrigation water use, and just fewer than 40 percent of public water supplies (Chilton J, 1996). However, the areas that have adequate supplies are generally wealthier countries such as Japan, Western European countries and the US. Areas facing a chronic shortage of water supply would be developing countries such as North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the sub- Saharan (Friis, 2012, pg. 215). “In Saudi Arabia, for example, the supplies of so-called fossil groundwater that exist in aquifers are being rapidly depleted” (Friis, 2012, pg.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hernando De Soto Analysis

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hernando de Soto stated that capital is like energy and that it is a dormant value. However, we know how to create energy like burning wood in stove produces energy in the form of heat to cook food, boil water, or warm a home. The same cannot be said with capital. We have a pretty good idea what it is, but we are not as good at turning capital into economic potential. De Soto also defines capital as the parallel life of an asset.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Agree or disagree with the proposition that our national water supply is safe. Use one short quote from Joy Horowitz's "Parkinson's Alley" as one means of development and support in your essay. Your name Professor 23 April 2016 Water is a vital element in the life of every human being. Not only is it essential to our health, but also for use in numerous household tasks.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most people do not realize how much water is wasted each year. Even though there is plenty of water to go around for everyone and everything at this moment, there will come a time when humans will need to make serious adjustments in the way they use water. Anita Hamilton, Sandra Postel, and Maude Barlow demonstrate in their articles that they are concerned about water management. They also give examples of how our water is wasted. While Hamilton assumes humans are the only lives on earth that need it to survive, Postel argues that humans should consider water rights for other species on the planet.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sociopolitical factors such as race and economic class heavily impact access to safe and affordable drinking water. While infrastructural differences appear to be the cause of the water disparities, discriminatory housing policies, land use practices, and zoning laws caused low-income communities and communities of color to form on unwanted and unincorporated land and underlie the inequalities in water access and quality. When well-represented cities grew, they annexed land around unincorporated areas, which they often saw as transient and undesirable. The discriminatory expansion of cities left unincorporated communities under-resourced, and as a result, their infrastructure suffered, including infrastructure that would have provided access to potable water, leaving them ill-suited to combat both drought and pollution from various industries.…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The demise of the Mayan civilization parallels the threats that America and other nations experience today in several different ways. Geopolitical tensions, water scarcity, and a worldwide pandemic all parallel the Mayan demise with threats in America and other nations today. Most people wouldn’t be able to make the connection that the demise of the Mayan civilization shares similarities with America and other nations today. Geopolitical tensions have existed between nations for decades, and they will continue to occur. In the movie Apocalypto, a Mayan civilization attacked another Mayan civilization.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    AHCSOL303 Assignment 3- soil amelioration report 1.i have a soil that does not absorb water, and when i water it the water pools on the surface and does not infiltrate. What is wrong with my soil? The soil could either be hydrophobic or heavily compacted. Hydrophobic soil is where the surface tension does not allow for infiltration of water because of a waxy layer, which cause the water to form into little beads and can form a pool on the surface. Heavily compacted soil is soil that has been compacted and has little to no space between the pores of the soil which does not allow for capillary action.…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The water table represents the surface of the saturated zone and the separation of the saturated zone, in which all the rock openings are loaded with water, to the unsaturated zone. The water table is not in fixed position. 2. Lens formed aquitards that exist in the subsurface. They prevent downward penetration to the regional water tab.…

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Salinity In Australia

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Salinity is the concentration of salt that has dissolved in water. It is present in water and in soil. Salinity is a major issue in Australia as it has damaging effects which include damage to infrastructure, agricultural production loss and environmental costs. The Australian soil contains salt naturally, it is salt that has accumulated over time and there are many possibilities such as the evaporation of seas that are inland, parent rocks that are weathered. The salt on the surface is absorbed by rainfall and is carried down to the subsoil and is then stored in soil that is unsaturated where it is mobilised again by rising water and ground water, the salt is brought up when the ground water goes closer to the surface.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A watershed is an area of land that separates water flowing to different rivers,basins, or seas. For example the Mississippi River watershed is an enormous watershed. ”Not only does water run into the streams and rivers from the surface of a watershed, but water also filters through the soil, and some of this water eventually drains into the same streams and rivers. ”Watersheds affect water quality, the Earth picks up water pollution and gets rid of the pollution in the water streams and rivers as it drains the watershed. Watershed is also known as “drainage”.…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Effects Of Water Scarcity

    • 1804 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The world is running out of water, 75% of the planet earth is covered with water out of that 97.5% is the ocean, 2.5% is freshwater but 70% of that is ice, 30% is groundwater and much of that is polluted. Which leaves only 1% safe water and out of that, 70% is used for irrigation, 22% for industry and 0.8% for domestic use that consists of basic tasks like sanitation, drinking etc (Heimbuch,2010). This issue is known as water scarcity it is the lack of sufficient water for daily needs, without water the humankind will die off eventually it is extremely important for survival. According to recent estimates from the International Water Clean “potable water is an essential ingredient of a healthy human life, but 1.2 billion people lack access…

    • 1804 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It often occurs where crops and pastures that use less water as they have shallow roots replace deep-rooted vegetation. This causes an increase in leakage to the groundwater system in which can lead to movement of salts stored in the soil in some areas. Saline groundwater could also rise to the surface in some low-lying areas, groundwater could also flow underground directly into streams and rivers. • Irrigation Salinity- irrigation salinity is the rise in saline groundwater and the build up of salt in the soil surface in irrigated areas.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, as discussed in Section 3.2, this argument could be limited in that it is not reasonable to expect unrestricted water access in a water scarce region, or for a government not to act when it is party to human rights treaties. Indeed, there could be criticism with applying the police power to a water grab because this would be placing the risks associated with water variability on the investor. However, section 4.3 will discuss that the contrary of having the state pay for a poorly managed investment would be more unfair, as environmental variability should be part of the investor’s risk assessment.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

     Land Runoff – when water infiltrates the soil to the maximum tolerance level & the excessive water from rain, flooding or melted ice flows into the ocean along with those impurities dissolved in them. It picks up the man – made, harmful contaminants polluting the ocean. These impurities are accounted for by the fertilizers, petroleum, pesticides and other soil contaminating chemicals. Dead zones are created by the inflow of fertilizers and wastes from land animals and humans too which are a huge detriment to the oceans.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays