AUSTRALIA: September 24, 2008


CANBERRA - Farmers in Australia's food bowl Murray-Darling river basin need to adapt to ongoing water shortages as climate change prolongs the worst drought in a century, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday.


The basin, which covers an area the size of France and Germany, accounts for 41 percent of Australia's agriculture and provides A$21 billion (US$17.6 billion) of food exports.

"We can and must adjust for a future where there is likely to be less water," Wong told Reuters in an interview.

Record low inflows have forced the government to cut water allocations to irrigators and buy water from farmers to make sure enough flows through the ailing Murray River, which runs across three states in Australia's south east.

Some farmers, particularly rice growers in New South Wales state, have had no water allocation from the river system for the past three years in a clear sign of the growing impact of climate change, Wong said.

"For them, this climate change, this drought, is not a theoretical issue, this is a here and now issue," she said.

The problem is worse in Wong's home state of South Australia, where two vast lakes near the river mouth are at their lowest recorded water level, currently about 40 centimetres (16 inches) below sea level.

The government is weighing up whether it can find enough water to save the lower lakes, or whether it should open barrages near the river mouth and allow the lakes to flood with sea water -- a move green groups say would be an environmental disaster.

The government has earmarked A$3.1 billion (US$2.6 billion) to buy irrigation water back from farmers to boost environmental flows.

Earlier this month, the government paid almost US$19 million to buy a cotton farm larger than Singapore, so it could release 20 gigalitres of water, enough to fill 20,000 Olympic swimming pools, back into the river system.

Scientists say water use along the river needs to be cut by up to 53 percent to keep the river healthy, with 4,000 gigalitres of water needed for the river and up to 400 gigalitres extra to save the lower lakes.

Wong said Australia still had a good chance of saving the river system, and the lower lakes.

"We do have the capacity to reform," she said. "In terms of the lower lakes, there is no doubt that the ongoing reduced amount of water available does create real challenges.

"We've got to go through the process we are going through, which is doing what we can as a nation to reduce our extraction from these over-allocated rivers." (US$1=A$1.19) (Additional reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Alex Richardson)


Story by James Grubel


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE