The lessons we need to learn to deal with the ‘creeping disaster’ of drought

Droughts are an understood and
accepted part of the Australian
condition, but the recent decade-long
'big dry' was surely a wake-up call.
 

Droughts are a natural feature of the Australian environment. But the Millennium drought (or “Big Dry”), which ran from 1997 to 2010, was a wake-up call even by our parched standards.

The Millennium drought had major social, economic and environmental impacts. It triggered water restrictions in major cities, and prompted severe reductions in irrigation allocations throughout the vast Murray-Darling Basin.

The Millennium drought also highlighted that, compared to the rest of the world, the impacts of drought on Australia’s society and economy are particularly severe. This is mainly because our water storage and supply systems were originally designed by European settlers who failed to plan for the huge variability in Australia’s climate.

Read the piece on The Conversation by an Associate Professor of Hydroclimatology at the University of Newcastle, Anthony Kiem; a Senior Lecturer at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Fiona Johnson; and an Associate Professor with the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Seth Westra - “The lessons we need to learn to deal with the ‘creeping disaster’ of drought.”