Old, faulty bores jeopardize Australia's water

Australians. It is a lot harder to know what you’ve got in the underground water bank than in a river or a dam, where you can see the level daily.

“Our front line of defense against groundwater running out consists of thousands of monitors, most of which were installed during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s — and are now well past their ‘use-by’ dates.”

The release notes that groundwater is an important water supply in many remote and rural regions but urban groundwater use is expected to grow. Professor Simmons says that although only Perth among Australia’s major cities relies extensively on groundwater, most were now starting to think about how groundwater might augment water supplies as their populations grew, surface resources became strained and the cost of building dams became prohibitive. Adelaide, for example, had previously used groundwater as an emergency drought water supply in the 1970s and there was no reason why the same idea would not be revisited in times of severe drought.

“However, it is no good planning to use groundwater if you don’t know how much you’ve got, or its rate of use and recharge.

“And it’s not just what comes from the tap that’s at stake. Water supplies for drinking (including bottled spring and mineral water which is sourced from groundwater), irrigation, agriculture, mining and important environmental flows are all critically affected,” he says.

Another dimension of the issue is that, because most of the water in Australia’s rivers is actually groundwater that has trickled in from underneath and the sides, understanding the groundwater cycle is also essential for managing major river systems and keeping them in good health, as is the case in the Murray-Darling Basin.

“We’re seeing more and more disputes over groundwater, between farmers and coal-seam gas miners for example: these are an indication that Australia’s total water supplies are becoming tight and under pressure and the basis for public concern. We simply have to have a better handle on the national water balance, surface and sub-surface, how groundwater systems work and their role in environmental water flows and other pressing groundwater related processes, such as mining and coal seam gas.”

Prof. Simmons says that, despite nationwide complacency since the breaking of the last drought “the next drought is already on the way”. The last 200 years have taught us major droughts can be expected several times a century.

Climate change is also linked to an increasing number of droughts around the world: there has been drought in a major grain-growing region in each of the last seven years, driving high food prices.

“It’s essential that as Australians, living in a dry continent, we don’t get taken by surprise by the next drought — or the ones that come after it. Part of our strategy for avoiding severe stress on domestic water, the food supply and our native landscape is to monitor and measure underground water.

“At the moment we are like the driver of a car with an increasingly faulty speedo — racing towards the unknown without having much idea how fast we are going. It is time that everyone — governments, industry, municipalities and the community generally began to take this issue a lot more seriously.”

The National Center for Groundwater Research and Training is an Australian Government initiative, supported by the Australian Research Council and the National Water Commission.

— Read more in An assessment of groundwater management and monitoring costs in Australia: Waterlines report No. 90 (September 2012)