Abstract
THE water supplies of certain parts of Australia, and the occurrence of periodic drought, are the subject of comment by Dr. J. P. Thomson in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of January 12. As a result of observations ranging over half a century, Dr. Thomson believes that there are unmistakable signs of desiccation and he advocates the immediate necessity of measures to preserve the water supplies and to resist the ill-effect of droughts. He points to observations on Lake George and various lagoons in the eastern part of New South Wales as well as Lake Eyre as showing rapid deterioration in humidity. The wells of the great artesian basin, according to him, are showing signs of decreased flow which he attributes to the plutonic and therefore limited supply of the water. He points also to the decreased flow in many water courses and the serious loss of water by excessive evaporation in the dry atmosphere. Dr. Thomson would like to see every effort to conserve water by preventing waste of flood water and checking the number of wells, and he favours also the preservation of fodder against times of stress. He points also to the urgent need of better weather forecasts, which he thinks must come from the antarctic, in order to give the farmer warning of any surplus or deficiency in rainfall. Measures such as these might go hand in hand with more land settlement and production for wider markets.
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Australian Water Supply. Nature 131, 797 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131797a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131797a0