Have you ever wondered if we would be running out of water? Most people would answer no. Living in a developed country like Australia, we have the luxury of access to running water. All you need to do is to turn on the tap, and voilà you have fresh water! Not only is it convenient, we are also paying for water at a very low price and “we” includes industries like agriculture.
Agriculture is one of the main drivers in the Australian economy, the agriculture commodities contribute about 25% of Australia’s annual total export revenue, especially on grains(predominantly wheat and barley), meat and wool(Nationsencyclopedia.com, 2003). As of 2020, approximately 55% of Australian land was used for agriculture, and the water supply constitutes 25% of total water extractions(Agriculture.gov.au, 2021).
As one of the largest water consumers, farmers are encouraged to choose their water supply wisely. While rainfall is a free and green resource, it is not a reliable source through drier seasons. Thus, farmers have to come to other solutions like irrigation, groundwater or surface water (www.abs.gov.au, 2020).
Using the open data provided by Australian Bureau of Statistics, the following graph was plotted to show a breakdown of water source and usage in Australian farms in each state. The graph was plotted as Total volume of water used in Megalitres (y-axis) against each state (x-axis) as a bar chart, while each bar was further broken down into water sources. Hovering text over the cursor at each bar shows the amount of water used (ML) at each type of water source.
Due to geographical reasons, most Australian farms are located in Queensland, both crops and pasture farms. Naturally, Queensland farms have highest water usage at approximately 2Giga litres in total followed by Victorian farms at 1.5GL and New South Wales farms at 1.4GL in 2019-2020. Among the largest three water consumers, irrigation constitutes a big proportion in their water management strategy followed by pumping water from groundwater.
In Australia, irrigation is largely sourced from groundwater, drawn into water systems such as the two major basins supplies Murray-Darling Basin and Great Artesian Basin. If we assume 50% of irrigation as groundwater, the groundwater source collectively would have contributed half of water usage in Australian farms. The large scale in groundwater withdrawal leading to rapid decline of water table level (at 9.4mm per year) has been a big concern to the environment health(Eamus, 2015).
As a result, mound springs, paperbark swamps and wetlands have begun to dry up in Queensland and South Australia. Furthermore, Australia is facing a number of other environmental issues like declined annual rainfall of more than 10%, the Millennium Drought, and El Niño–Southern Oscillation hit(Heggie, 2015). Together, the drier ground surface poses a huge threat to prolonged forest fires during drought season. For instance, Australia experienced the most extreme wildfires in January 2020 which burnt through 1.2million hectares and affected more than a billion wildlifes.
To date, few alarms have been rung for water scarcity in Australia. However as the rate of replenishment is much lower than water usage, the pressure on Australia’s water system will no doubt grow as demand increases. Therefore, more awareness needs to be made to every water consumer, especially in agriculture and industry. We will need to make changes to our behavior for a more sustainable water supply.
Nationsencyclopedia.com. (2003). Australia Agriculture, Information about Agriculture in Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Australia-AGRICULTURE.html.
Agriculture.gov.au. (2021). Snapshot of Australian Agriculture 2021 - Department of Agriculture. [online] Available at: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snapshot-of-australian-agriculture-2021.
www.abs.gov.au. (2020). Water Use on Australian Farms, 2018-19 | Australian Bureau of Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/agriculture/water-use-australian-farms/latest-release.
Eamus, D. (2015). Declining groundwater is a big problem for Australia. ABC News. [online] 18 Jun. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-18/eamus-declining-groundwater-is-a-big-problem-for-australia/6556586.
Heggie, J. (2015). Failing Rains and Thirsty Cities: Australia’s Growing Water Problem. [online] Environment. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/partner-content-australia-water-problem.