LitFuse

The Presentation by Rod Oliver is available as a podcast. You can also download a pdf version of his Powerpoint presentation.

The Water Research Cluster of the University of Adelaide hosted a public forum on the Future of Water in South Australia on 24 October 2007. I have created a more detailed blog on this event.

The presenters were:

• The Hon Karlene Maywald, Minister for Water Security and Minister for the River Murray
• Mr Chris Stathy, Managing Director of Philmac Pty Ltd
• Associate Professor David Paton, University of Adelaide
• Dr Rod Oliver, Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO

Rod Oliver gave a disturbing presentation on the ecological health of the River Murray. The Council of Australian Governments agreed to provide 500 GL pa of water for environmental flows in the River Murray system to protect six ecological systems along the River Murray that they call “icon” sites. The results of a thorough analysis by CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country shows that so far the governments of Australia have provide zero extra environmental flows for the river. Furthermore, while they have identified 380 GL pa that could be saved for environmental flows, this will not be enough to save ecological systems along the River. The CSIRO analysis found that 2,000 GL pa will be required to protect the six “icon” sites.This presentation is available on the LitFuse feed. You can register for the feed on your i-tunes: http://feeds.litfuse.com.au