Drought Cripples Southern Australia
Following record-breaking rainfalls in Queensland, large parts of southern Australia remain bone dry as drought conditions worsen.
Parts of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia have experienced lower than average rainfall for well over a year. The drought has had a devastating effect on the land and livestock, with farmers having to truck in water and feed as natural supply shrinks.
Have you ever seen the rain?
Some have already described it as the worst drought in decades and there seems no reprieve in sight with forecasts of a dry winter ahead. Further research and modelling predict southern Australia could experience longer and more frequent droughts due to a climactic shift in regional weather systems.
Australia depends on heavy rainfall caused by weather systems carrying evaporated moisture from the ocean overland. Drought occurs in the absence of these systems, which is what is happening down south. Instead, slow-moving, high-pressure systems are bringing warm and dry conditions.
A drought breaks when those rain-carrying systems return, but when that will happen is anyone’s guess. The Millenium Drought, which began in the late ‘90s, lasted a decade and spread across the country, decimating the landscape. The extremely dry conditions it created were directly linked with intensifying bushfires and causing the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009, one of the worst on record.
The socio-economic cost of prolonged drought is staggering.
For example, the Tinderbox Drought of 2017-19 is said to have cost the Australian economy $63 billion, and that doesn’t account for the loss of human life. Research shows the incidence of suicide in rural populations increases dramatically during periods of drought. For many, the pain caused by drought isn’t washed away when the rains return.
There is also an immediate impact on the national supply chain. Extended drought causes increased grocery prices for meat, dairy and fresh produce as available supply diminishes and farmers struggle to recoup their extra costs. Supply of some products becomes restricted, and consumers can expect to pay more for their weekly shop.
The drought-affected regions in southern Australia are home to a vast array of rich agricultural land. South Australia is the highest producer of grapes by volume, and Victoria is a leader in lamb and mutton. Western Australia is the country’s largest crop-producing region, exporting to more than 30 countries. Farmers in the Riverina (south-western New South Wales) are selling off stock in record numbers while others face the horrifying prospect of culling their herds.
According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australian agriculture accounted for 10.8% of goods and services exports ($71.5 billion in 2023–24), 2.4% of value added (GDP) in 2023–24, 5.9% of rural employment and 2.2% of national employment (315,600 people in 2023–24). These numbers pale in comparison to what drought costs us every year in economic and human losses.
A drought proof Australia?
Australian agricultural production is, and always has been, subject to the fickle whims of the weather. And if the present research into climate change is anything to go by, we can expect to experience increasingly extreme conditions caused by fluctuating weather patterns.
Responsible land and water management also plays a key role in safeguarding future supply. The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia’s largest river system, spanning a large area of southeastern Australia. It is also Australia’s most significant agricultural region, housing around 40% of the country’s farms that rely on the system to grow food and crops.
But the overall health and vitality of the fragile Murray-Darling ecosystem has been a matter of concern for years now in Australian politics, despite billion-dollar investment by successive governments to implement solutions without success. As recently as 2024, a peer-reviewed report found the $13b Murray-Darling Basin Plan had failed to improve the system’s health.
The Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is the world’s largest and deepest artesian basin, underlying 22% of Australia, including the northern Murray-Darling Basin where the Darling River and associated tributaries flow. The GAB extends below most of Queensland, the south-east corner of the Northern Territory, north-eastern South Australia, and northern New South Wales
The GAB holds approximately 65 million gigalitres of water across an area of 1.7 million square kilometres, providing the primary source of freshwater for inland Australia. The GAB is under threat from fracking for coal seam gas (CSG), potentially endangering the future livelihood of Australian agriculture.
To endure the droughts to come and maintain Australia’s hard-earned position as a leading global producer of high quality food, we must secure these precious water sources as a prized national commodity for generations to come. Our future depends on it.
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