The project aims to go some way towards meeting this challenge by facilitating the development of a better informed and supported network of public and private sector extension providers throughout the Murray-Darling Basin.

Project Outputs

Salinity Tools Website

Project Summary

Throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, many catchment-based salinity management plans have been developed and implemented to varying degrees over the last decade. Nonetheless, through the experiences of community and landholder groups, it is becoming clear that our knowledge of salinity management is inadequate. We are only now beginning to fully realise just how difficult saline systems and groundwater processes are to control.

Many plans have adopted the most noble of strategies, seeking to design and promote farming systems based on perennial vegetation. They rely for their success on the effect of restoring deep-rooted plants to the landscape that will in turn redress the water imbalance in the landscape. Trees and perennial pastures and alternative cropping practices have all been a part of these strategies.

In the last few years, however, the results of contemporary groundwater modelling indicate that these measures alone will not be sufficient to manage the salinity issue. It seems that once elevated groundwaters are established in a catchment in many, or even most instances reducing recharge will not 'turn off the tap'. The strong convergence of groundwater flow to groundwater discharge areas continues regardless once the flow has commenced.

The challenge in front of us is that in the future we will need to face an increase in the incidence of salinity and we must simply find new, innovative and effective ways of dealing with it. Engineering works, new industries based on saline land and water resources as well as the continued development of 'water-absorbing' farming systems are likely to feature strongly in the resource management regimes of the future.

Funded by the National Dryland Salinity Program (NDSP) and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission  (MDBC), the project Tools to Investigate and Plan for Improved Management of Dryland Salinity aims to go some way towards meeting this challenge by facilitating the development of a better informed and supported network of public and private sector extension providers throughout the Basin.

The project, managed by PPK Environment & Infrastructure and led by Darrel Brewin and Associates, spans a two-year period to the end of 2001. During this time PPK will produce a number of products to benefit regional salinity networks and other business and community groups, including:

• a series of information and planning workshops providing access to up-to-date salinity knowledge
• a network of people accessible across the Basin who can offer professional salinity management advice or provide opportunities for collaborative local and regional planning
• a comprehensive package of information sheets, covering Basin-wide and regional salinity issues and management strategies

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