National Land and Water Resources Audit
Assessing the Impacts of Dryland Salinity on South Australia's Water Resources
CSIRO Land and Water
South Australian Department for Water Resources
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Summary
Low and highly variable winter rainfall, combined with long, hot and dry summers, means that South Australia has relatively small harvestable surface water resources. One of the most significant threats to these resources is deterioration of water quality, in particular salinity. The Australian guideline for human drinking water is based on taste, and requires that the Total Dissolved Solids should not exceed 500 mg/L (833 EC units, µS/cm). The salinity of the River Murray at Morgan (the benchmark station for water quality in the lower River Murray, and a major off-take point for a large portion of South Australia?s water supply) exceeded this value approximately 23% of the time during the period 1968-94. With widespread development of dryland (non-irrigated) salinity in the agricultural areas of South Australia, there is a concern that this will lead to salinisation of current and future surface and groundwater resources. The total area of land affected by dryland salinity has clearly increased over the last 20 years. The earliest estimate is from the late 1970?s when it was reported that the total area affected was only 55,000 ha. By the late 1980?s this estimate had increased to around 225,000 ha, and by the mid 1990?s was 393,000 ha.
In this report we describe the results of a brief reconnaissance study of the likely impacts of dryland salinity on South Australia?s water resources.
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