It's pretty scary, we are witnessing before our eyes a "climate shift" - as much as i'm pro development, its hard to see if we even have the capacity to increase our states population above 2 million..People must cope with less water: expert
The Age - October 8, 2007 - 11:40AM
Southern Australia has become drier and people will have to learn to live with much less water, a University of Adelaide expert says.
Professor of Water Economics and Management, Mike Young, said it was now clear the reliability of Australia's water supplies had declined.
"The bad news is that the situation is worse than many realise," he said.
"We are now borrowing from the future and it is prudent to assume that we will have to live with much less water."
Professor Young, who will detail his concerns at a public lecture on Monday, said change in water use was urgently needed.
"The more we delay planning to live in this new regime, the greater the costs of changing will be," he said.
"We need to understand that the challenges go beyond the River Murray and include the southeast and water supply systems for Yorke Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island and the Outback."
Professor Young said South Australia had the opportunity to embrace this emerging reality and take a lead as Australia's most water savvy state.
But he said to emerge as an international leader in water management, the state and its businesses, researchers and communities would need to adopt a series of permanent policies including measures that provided incentives to reduce consumption and increase the effectiveness of water use and storage.
The State Government has been dragging it's feet on this issue, despite the fact that our state has the highest use of rainwater tanks in the nation, the rate has fallen over recent decades, our government should be promoting these issues more..