02-10-2001

Australia's National Dryland Salinity Program (NDSP) national manager Richard Price has challenged communities across Australia to adopt outcomes of innovative research and development to help combat the growing risk of salinity to our vital water resources.

Mr Price said National Water Week, to be held between 14-20 October 2001, provided an ideal forum for communities concerned about the effects of dryland salinity on biodiversity and water quality to explore solutions emerging from NDSP research and development to manage the salinity risk in their region.

'Water Week 2001 provides communities, governments, businesses and individuals with a unique opportunity to better understand the health of their local catchment,' he said.

'Research is often an under-valued imperative essential to providing the knowledge base for sound decision making - particularly at a catchment or regional scale.'

Mr Price noted many regional communities currently developing integrated salinity management initiatives under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality were finding NDSP-funded research and development outcomes and recommendations extremely valuable for planning purposes.

'Dryland salinity is the major natural resource management issue facing both rural and urban Australia,' he said. 'Its impacts are enormous in terms of costs to our water quality, environmental heritage, biodiversity, agricultural productivity and urban and rural infrastructure.

'Significant research, development and extension is currently being undertaken in Australia by NDSP to help develop the most appropriate management decisions and solutions for dryland salinity.

'As Australia's lead knowledge broker of research, development and extension efforts to combat the risk of salinity to our land and water resources, the NDSP manages a number of investments to meet the future salinity management needs of both government and community.'

Mr Price said the NDSP supported a number of important projects of direct relevance to water quality and catchment management:

• Assessment of a system to predict the loss of aquatic biodiversity from changes in salinity
  Determines how much maximum salinity can rise from a natural value before unacceptable environmental impacts occur. It will examine if predicted changes will result in acceptable or unacceptable changes in aquatic biodiversity.
• Generation and delivery of salt and water to streams on a catchment scale
  Developing an understanding of landscape processes and ecosystems in areas affected by, or at risk from, dryland salinity.
• Regional case studies to assess water balance and management options
  Characterises the hydrology and water balance distribution relative to land use in identified catchments. Outcomes will include land-use scenarios to meet water balance targets.
• Predicting the combined environmental impact of catchment management regimes on dryland salinity
  Improves our understanding of the cumulative environmental impacts of dryland salinity on salt loads, water yield and flooding at the catchment scale. Aims to enhance understanding of predicting the impact of different management regimes on long-term average water yield.
• Tools for salinity management
  Provides extension material and skills for the management of dryland salinity throughout the Murray-Darling Basin through a toolkit available on the NDSP web site (http://www.ndsp.gov.au) and through the facilitation of a Basin-wide network.
• Evaluation of engineering options
  Collates and assesses information, literature and guidelines on engineering techniques to manage dryland salinity, and provides a decision support system to assist select appropriate options under different scenarios.
• Options for productive use of saline lands (OPUS)
  Identifies and assesses innovative approaches to the use of saline land and water with the aim of future development of potential industries that may turn the salinity problem into an economic opportunity.
• Determining the costs of dryland salinity
  Provides guidelines for identifying and valuing the full impacts of dryland salinity to regional communities.
  Mr Price said past research had provided the basic understanding of the scale, effects, causes and processes of salinity.

'Future research will focus on the management of options of reversing, containing or adapting to salinity in order to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits to the Australian community,' he explained.


ENDS

For further information please contact:

Please contact Land & Water Australia
Email: land&wateraustralia@lwa.gov.au
Phone: 02 6263 6000