Running on Empty: The Risk of Continuing to Dither While the Empty Light is Flashing
Professor Peter Cullen, AO, FTSE
South Australian Centre for Economic Studies
ISSN 1445-6826
Professor Peter Cullen has worked in the field of natural resource management for over 35 years. He was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Environmentalist of the Year in 2001 for his work on the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. Full Image (10.65K)
In this Issues Paper, Professor Peter Cullen argues that we need to take urgent action to address growing water shortages. A range of climatic data indicates that the Australian climate has been drying over the past decade. Rainfall over recent years in much of South Eastern Australia, Adelaide and Perth has been below average, while rainfall in large areas of south eastern Australia are currently at record lows. It appears that climatic change may be ontributing to the drier trend. In fact, fistorical data suggests that the period from 1960 to the 1990 may have been unusually wet in South Eastern Australia. It therefore seems prudent to assume that less rainfall is something we will need to learn to live with.
