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A salty problem that won't go away

By Corey Watts - posted Thursday, 31 May 2001


"There was nothing down there. Dead trees arched along the dry river-bed and, in the long-abandoned irrigation canals, frosty salt crystals climbed in towers and minarets. The ruined western highway crumbled at its edges and the helicopter blades whisked more bits of it back to dust."

– Gabrielle Lord, Salt (1990)

Earlier this year, the Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000 was released as part of the National Land and Water Resources Audit. The assessment shows a spreading salt plague breathtaking in its extent and sobering in its potential to literally change the face of the nation. Next to land clearing and climate change, it is the greatest environmental challenge facing Australian civilisation this century.

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The full consequences of this national emergency are yet to be fully realised by key decision-makers. Indeed, most Australians remain unaware of just how bad we have let the situation become – or how much worse it will get without major changes. Nearly six million hectares of land are already salt damaged, and many rivers and streams are highly loaded with salt. The monetary cost to farming and damage to built infrastructure are estimated to be up to $2 billion annually and rising fast.

Not a State or Territory in the country is left unaffected, and the myth that Queensland – where land clearing, the primary cause of salinity, continues apace – will be left unscathed has been totally dispelled.

Salt scalds are popping up in Sydney’s western suburbs too, while taxpayers in Wagga Wagga are already forking out more than $3million a year to repair and replace salt-damaged buildings, playgrounds, gardens, footpaths, pipes, and industrial equipment.

By the time the landscape reaches equilibrium, more than 17 million hectares will have succumbed to the salt – an area more than twice the size of Tasmania. The assessment is a wake-up call to all Australians.

Salinity Threatens Whole Ecosystems

Native bushland, national parks, reserves, wetlands and wildlife are often not accounted for in the litany of salinity damage. Ecologists are concerned that salinisation is not yet recognised as a key threat to species survival and ecosystem health.

A string of more than 200 wetlands lie in the path of the crisis. Within only a few years, for example, the Macquarie Marshes, wetlands of international significance, are set to become a saline wasteland, and at least half the native vegetation in South Australia’s Chowilla wetlands will be lost.

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A recent biological survey of Western Australia’s wheatbelt by the Department of Conservation and Land Management indicates that some 450 plant species endemic to the region (ie. found nowhere else on Earth), are at risk of extinction in the next 25 years as a result salinisation. Hundreds more are subject to ‘genetic erosion’ as local populations are destroyed – bringing them closer to the edge of extinction, perhaps to be tipped over by climate change.

Salt damage to their habitat might see only 16 of the region’s 60-plus waterbird species persist in the years to come. Overall, the richness of animal species in the wheatbelt will be reduced by a third.

In most parts of the country, however, the full impact on our native plants and animals remains largely unknown. We do know that even quite low salinity levels can have a detrimental effect on freshwater communities. Moreover, salinity may be affecting ecological communities in ways that are not immediately obvious.

Despite the knowledge gaps, we can be sure to see the West Australian pattern being repeated across the country with more than 2 million hectares of native vegetation at high risk of salt damage nationwide. The greatest challenge for natural resource managers and policy makers is to keep the total, complex picture in view and to work with scientists and the community to continue to reduce the areas of uncertainty.

It is clear that salinity is but one more way by which humanity is inadvertently unravelling the fragile web of life. At least until we know more, a precautionary approach is essential. This means preventative action in the first instance, coupled with the prudent setting of salt reduction targets.

Australia is a Naturally Salty Place

Beneath the surface, Australia is a naturally salty country. Over the ages, sediments and salts have accumulated between the soil and deeper rock layers, and also in groundwater and some wetlands. These widely distributed salt stores have their origins in the long, steady spray of seawater, in the rains and the erosion of rocks.

Additionally, the distinctive flatness of much of the landscape, together with relatively low rainfall and high evaporation rates, means that our waterways are slow to flush the country clean of salt.

Many native plants have adapted to the dryness and relative infertility of the place by means of deep, thick roots, and are thus very effective groundwater pumps. Left standing, they tend to strike a balance between rainwater leaching downwards through the soil and groundwater transpired back up into the air through their foliage.

Prior to the coming of European agriculture the salt tended to stay underground. We have stripped much of the land bare – as much as 95% in some cases – replacing the original vegetation cover with shallow-rooted annual crops and pastures, as well as roads and roofs.

Inadvertently, we have stopped a natural water-balancing service across vast areas of the country.

Depending on the climate, soil and lie of the land, much more rainwater (‘recharge’) now makes its way underground, below the root zone, raising the level of the groundwater, waterlogging the soil and bringing the ancient salt with it.

The salt typically discharges into the lower-lying parts of the landscape first, ie. rivers, wetlands, or a neighbour’s property down the way. Such discharge sites can be at quite some remove from the cleared recharge zone.

Astoundingly – given what we now know – native vegetation is still being destroyed, predominantly in Queensland and New South Wales. Ours is the sixth worst clearing nation on Earth and the highest in the ‘developed’ world! It is as though we have learned nothing.

Since salinity is far easier to prevent than to remedy once it has taken hold, it is imperative we conserve remnant bushland.

Unfortunately, land clearing controls alone cannot stop the steady advance of salinity across our catchments already set in train decades ago. Nor are ‘technofixes’ - such as clever engineering schemes – feasible solutions beyond the short-term protection of important environmental, cultural and economic assets.

In order to begin to arrest the crisis we must strategically manage recharge across whole catchments. Given the extent of clearing, only a major broadscale revegetation effort has any hope of averting a catastrophe.

The big trick is going to be ensuring our solutions are effective in biophysical terms, as well as commercially viable and complementary to our other environmental management objectives. It will not be easy, but it must be done.

Sustainable Landscapes, Sustainable Livelihoods

No single land-use will solve the problem of salinity and halt loss of native biodiversity in our lands and waters. We need to develop and deploy a suite of novel land uses matched to the diverse climate, soils, and hydrological conditions of the continent. In combination, these will need to deliver leakage rates past the root zone that mimic those of the indigenous vegetation.

With the area of land affected by salinity set to increase no matter what we do, rehabilitation with salt-tolerant crops and pastures will be a useful tool in the minimisation of damage. However, although they are fashionable, saltland farming and other ideas for commercially using the salt ‘resource’ will make very little difference to rising watertables and the saline pollution of our inland waters.

Organic farming too, while good for the earth in so many ways, is not necessarily effective in managing salinity. Organic farmers, however, are often enthusiastic environmentalists, and this together with the increasing profitability of organic agriculture may result in the on-farm conservation efforts so critical to controlling recharge.

Preventing salinisation requires radical change to land use. The CSIRO’s A Revolution in Land Use published last year identifies a range of approaches.

Eventually, the land will look a lot different to the simple stands of grain and paddocks we have become accustomed to. The rural Australia of the future is likely to be a mosaic of conserved and restored native bush, agro-forestry enterprises, native trees, and perennial pastures grown for a range of commercial uses to stop the salt tide from rising.

The opportunities for innovation, improved efficiency and regional employment in the transition to sustainable land use are very promising. According to the Joint Venture Agroforestry Program, for instance, a national farm forestry industry would create up to 40,000 jobs, primarily in regional areas, to service a market worth around $20 billion annually.

Just as importantly as fostering new industries, we also need to start appropriately valuing the goods and services produced by healthy ecosystems. In permitting the destruction of our woodlands and forests, we have ignored the loss of natural amenities – such as water quality and climatic stability – which follow. Its full valuation might be a key means of protecting remnant bush and permitting ecological recovery in traditional farming areas.

The National Salinity Action Plan – Will it Work?

Recognising the national crisis, the Premiers and Prime Minister have agreed to a National Action Plan on Salinity and Water Quality, and committed $1.4 billion over seven years to enacting it. This is an important initiative – an essential first step.

The Plan commits States, Territories and the Commonwealth to investing in salinity and water quality improvement through regional catchment management authorities. This commitment to capacity building at the regional scale is crucial to the delivery of real change on the ground.

However, governments must commit to a sustained, more accountable programme of investment of a magnitude never previously contemplated in this country.

It is unclear whether the kind of political will needed to make the Plan work can be sustained to its conclusion and, critically, beyond.

In this our Centenary of Federation, it is timely to reflect on how well our system has served this ancient and fragile continent and its people. More importantly, how can federalism work better to ensure a clean and healthy country, the kind that we will want to hand on to our children?

A pivotal report – Co-ordinating Catchment Management – was recently released by the House of Representatives environment committee. Among many excellent recommendations was a call for a national environment levy and a thorough examination of public subsidies of environmentally damaging practices.

Last year, the NFF and ACF joined forces to launch the Repairing the Country document which, for the first time, costed the measures needed to begin to reverse Australia’s deteriorating natural capital base. The paper determined that an investment of public funds of around $3.7 billion a year for a decade is required, together with a giant stride forward – across State boundaries – in how we as a nation use and relate to the land.

An environment levy, similar in principle to the Medicare Levy, would go a long way to raising badly needed funds and focusing public attention on the plight of our lands and waters.

The Council of Australian Governments is the appropriate body to lead the collective response to this national crisis. As recommended in the parliamentary report, COAG needs to establish a properly funded and independent and expertise-based National Catchment Management Authority to advise on national targets, performance and payments for improving water quality, reducing salinity and conserving biodiversity.

Although the parliamentary report was prepared in a bipartisan spirit, it remains to be seen whether our political leaders will take to heart that spirit and the need for a fresh approach.

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This text is adapted from ‘Australia … A Salt of the Earth’, ACF Habitat Supplement, June 2001.



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About the Author

Corey Watts is Coordinator of the Salinity and Sustainable Agriculture Program at the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Related Links
Coordinating Catchment Management
Land and Water Repair (Repairing the Country)
Licking the Salt
National Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000
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