Cutting your losses

With drought one of the biggest concerns in terms of climate impacts, the world is in a good position to both adapt to and mitigate climate change, if it is able to reduce green house gas now. Australia is in a good position to help this issue because water has always been scarce that country.

By using water in different ways you can get a lot of outcomes from one bucket of water.
At the moment water is very cheap and there's a lot of it around, so farmers tend to let it drain through the soil profile, causing problems such as wetland salinity. Only 70% of irrigation supply makes it onto the farm, the rest seeps into the groundwater or evaporates.

What we need to do is reduce demand and increase efficiency, and there are a number of steps that can accommodate that. For example, automated water control systems, and improvements in weather forecasting could both reduce the amount of water being pumped around any country. On Australia's typically long flat rivers it takes about a week for water to get from a dam source to irrigators, and if it rains in region being irrigated in the meantime that rainwater water goes to waste. So an integrated view of weather prediction must be coupled with irrigation.

In urban areas, the energy impact of water can be decreased by a shift towards local supplies, reducing household demand (with water efficient shower heads and better appliances), recycling on site and pumping water less around cities.

Cities can be much more water efficient than they have been. For example you could be using wetlands to trap stormwater and pumping that back to houses for gardens as a second reticulation system. My earlier blog also covered some need inventions in Australia for reusing grey and black water.

Eventually countries need to find new water supply systems, and this is where R&D can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Desalination and recycling have high energy costs but new technologies are being developed that could reduce energy needs eight-fold, says Prosser. Nanotechnology being developed by CSIRO in Australia and local university scientists can improve the membranes used to remove salt or pollutants from desalinated or recycled water. The membrane massively increases throughput rate and reduces clogging, so less force is required to push water through the membrane.

Other options include storing water in aquifers or pumping out groundwater, (although this can have severe consequences for some ecosystems).

Australia has an unprecedented budget surplus from the commodity boom in Asia. This is where the spending should be reallocated from. Again in a brilliant political move the Australian Prime Minister John Howard funnels the money to households as increases in social spending to buy the voters at this years elections – rather than producing some research activity that will boost Australia’s position in fighting climate change. “Good on ya John” again like Bush, great demonstrations of leadership (not!).

While we're fitting new taps, cycling to work and switching to solar power the inevitable impacts of climate change will be landing heavily on those perhaps least equipped to change - the biological world around us.

Many climate impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation, but even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid further impacts of climate change in the next few decades.
In Australian some species are vulnerable to even moderate climate change. With a 1-2 degree rise 88% of butterfly core habitat is lost, and there would be a 40% drop in total Eucalyptus species numbers. With catastrophic climate change - when temperatures rise over 5 degrees C - 90-100% of core habitat is lost for most of our native species. So, we are in a critical situation in Australia that will be impacted. Overseas in some countries this will even be greater.

Here’s some interesting links (all thanks to the ABC):
Climate impact in Australia: More bushfires, worse droughts and the death of the Great Barrier Reef. These are just some of the impacts predicted for Australia in the latest UN Climate Change report.
The Road to 2050: Never before has climate change been such a hot topic for the public. ABC Science series of features on what the science says we should be doing, what the policy makers and industry leaders are doing, and what we ourselves can do to cut greenhouse emissions.
Council House Two - the eco-office block of the future: Council House Two, or CH2 as its known, is quite possibly the eco-office block of the future – many of its design principles have been taken from nature.
Climate change quiz: Climate change is one of the biggest and most controversial issues facing humanity today, but with information exceeding action it can be hard to see the wood for the trees. Take the quiz to find out what you know.
Greenhouse calculator: Are you a greenhouse pig? Maybe you're an environmental Ghandi. Try this 5 minute greenhouse calculator.
It's easy being greener: Climate change is big news at the moment. If you're inspired to do something about it then making a few simple changes where it counts can have a big impact.
Ask an expert - Climate change: Climate change is one of the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century. Here are the answers from some of Australia's top climate change experts.