Monday 23 September 2019

Building new dams

There is a hue and cry That Australia needs  more dams in regional Australia to 'drought proof' the land.

Now I googled up filling dams and found THIS.

It is short but instructive.
In all the talk about building dams in Regional Australia I have not heard where the original water is to come from to initially fill the dam.

In short it can only come from diverting water from rivers or river. This is bad for river quality as it will increase the salinity in the water.

You then have to hope you get rain after the dam's construction  so the dam starts to fill up. Of course diverting river water is part of filling a dam as well.

Herein lies two problems. Will there be enough rain over the long term to ensure the dam has enough water and how much river water will be diverted into the dam. We have seen enough of the problems with the Murray/Darling rivers.

It does seem there little thinking has gone into the subject of building more dams.
The assumption is we can keep on increasing the population and there will be sufficient water to cater for them.
It is ironic that recycled water has been ruled out when it could well be one of the solutions.

John Williams weighs in

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