08 November, 2010

Murray Darling Basin Plan

In my view the key characteristic of inland Australia is its massive rainfall variability. It really is a nonsense to talk about averages for flows, extractions etc. when there is such a huge spread around the average. According to the ABS, actual total extractions in the whole Basin were 3,142GL in 07/08 and 3,492GL in 08/09. In other words about the same as the 3/4000 GL they want to claw back! These figures compare with the average surface extractions of 13,700GL which they keep talking about.

The three conclusions I take from this are 1) We should be focusing on the highly variable Allocations not Licenses/Entitlements. 2)The seasonal allocation methodolgy seems to be working well-bugger all water/bugger all allocations. 3) It is a nonsense to talk in terms of absolute numbers in something which has such massive variability.

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