Disaster in the making? Conflicts over water use are already happening and Australia has already had a taste of what the future holds. Recently Adani 's Carmichael coalmine - the largest in Australia, was granted a licence to take 12.5 billion litres of water from the the Suttor River in the Burdekin Basin by the Queensland government, despite already being granted unlimited access to ground water from Australia's Great Artesian Basin for 60 years , over the objections of farmers and farming communities in our arid interior, who rely on the Artesian Basin as their primary and most reliable source of water. As yet no comprehensive studies on the extent of the Basin have been done, though wells already have to be drilled deeper and deeper. At the same time, in NSW, on the already very stressed Murray -Darling Basin , a massive 270 km long pipeline is being built to transfer water from it to the town of Broken Hill. Half this water will also be ...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people