Drought 'down under' by John Hammond
Yesterday I highlighted some contrasting areas stricken by flooding and drought across the globe. Another place where rain has been hard to come by recently is Australia. In fact the country has just experienced its driest four-month period on record.
Preliminary figures show that 147mm of rain fell between January and April - a millimetre less than the previous driest period in 1965. April 2005 has also been the warmest on record – nearly 3 Celsius above the long-term average.
This comes with farmers still reeling from the drought of 2002-03, dubbed ‘the big dry’. The dearth of rain then is thought to have been due to the El Nino weather cycle, which disrupts the circulation across the Pacific and fuels the supply of dry winds into Australia. According to experts there is an elevated risk of another El Nino developing – heightening fears that the current drought will worsen.
The last drought cost an estimated five billion Australian dollars in rural exports and cut Australia’s economic growth by about a third. But despite this, inhabitants of the world’s most arid populated continent have done little to curb their water usage.
However perhaps Australians are finally waking up to the long-term reality. The New South Wales Premier is this week considering a two-billion dollar desalination plant to convert sea water for household usage in Sydney. More strategies like this will be needed soon to cope with the possibility of a long-term decline in rainfall patterns across Australia.
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