Is Australia Facing Overpopulation and Dwindling Resources?

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In summary, the drought in Australia is causing some members of the environmental movement to advocate for environmental action, including "The Big Switch" campaign. The Optimum Population Trust supports the view that Australia is overpopulated and believes that to maintain the current standard of living in Australia, the optimum population is 10 million (rather than the present 20.86 million), or 21 million with a reduced standard of living.
  • #1
wolram
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia

Some members of the Australian environmental movement, notably the organisation Sustainable Population Australia, believe that as the driest inhabited continent, Australia cannot continue to sustain its current rate of population growth without becoming overpopulated. SPA also argues that climate change will lead to a deterioration of natural ecosystems through increased temperatures, extreme weather events and less rainfall in the southern part of the continent, thus reducing its capacity to sustain a large population even further.[27] In response to this, there are several movements and campaigns around the country which are advocating for environmental action. One such campaign is "The Big Switch", claimed as Australia's largest community climate change campaign. [28]

The UK-based Optimum Population Trust supports the view that Australia is overpopulated, and believes that to maintain the current standard of living in Australia, the optimum population is 10 million (rather than the present 20.86 million), or 21 million with a reduced standard of living.

10.86 million to many people living in Australia, well they can not move to the UK we are sinking in migrants.
 
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  • #2
Not surprising since near all the world is overpopulated...
 
  • #3
I would call into question your conclusion. Visit Arizona, USA sometime, tour around, and come to your own conclusions as to whether is is overpopulated or sustainable. Then compare it to Australia. Arizona has 6 million people and an area of 300,000 sq km and is land-locked. The majority of the state has a very arid climate and high temperatures in the most populated areas are above 37 C for about 4 months per year. Australia has an area of 7,600,000 sq km and is surrounded by ocean.

Also, since water is the vital resource for population sustenance, wouldn't desalination technology be of any value to Australia?
 
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  • #4
sysreset said:
Also, since water is the vital resource for population sustenance, wouldn't desalination technology be of any value to Australia?
Water? I thought in australia's case the limit was brewing capacity?
 
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  • #5
sysreset said:
I would call into question your conclusion. Visit Arizona, USA sometime, tour around, and come to your own conclusions as to whether is is overpopulated or sustainable. Then compare it to Australia. Arizona has 6 million people and an area of 300,000 sq km and is land-locked. The majority of the state has a very arid climate and high temperatures in the most populated areas are above 37 C for about 4 months per year. Australia has an area of 7,600,000 sq km and is surrounded by ocean.

Also, since water is the vital resource for population sustenance, wouldn't desalination technology be of any value to Australia?

Arizona's large population is a temporary thing. We are pumping ground water like crazy. In a hundred years Arizona will be filled with ghost cities -- empty and silent. Arizona's population is way over carrying capacity of the land unless your future horizon is only a few decades.
 
  • #6
Arizona also has the advantage of a large river connected to the Canadian icefields at the other end. If Australia had say the Ganges flowing into it they would be better off.
 
  • #7
wildman said:
Arizona's large population is a temporary thing. We are pumping ground water like crazy. In a hundred years Arizona will be filled with ghost cities -- empty and silent. Arizona's population is way over carrying capacity of the land unless your future horizon is only a few decades.
Unlikely. See this "www.cabq.gov/progress/pdf/per-capita-water.pdf"[/URL] chart, showing usage dropped to ~190 gal/person/day by 2003, or 63% of 1989 levels in Albuquerque. The water delivery system in Phoenix has grown quite sophisticated, the control center looks like something from a Nuclear power plant. I believe Phoenix is now below 160 gallons/person/day.
 
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  • #8
mheslep said:
Unlikely. See this "www.cabq.gov/progress/pdf/per-capita-water.pdf"[/URL] chart, showing usage dropped to ~190 gal/person/day by 2003, or 63% of 1989 levels in Albuquerque. The water delivery system in Phoenix has grown quite sophisticated, the control center looks like something from a Nuclear power plant. I believe Phoenix is now below 160 gallons/person/day.[/QUOTE]

You are right. Phoenix will do all right and so will Tucson since they have access to surface water (the Colorado for Tucson and the Colorado and the Salt for Phoenix). However the rest of the state will be ghost towns in a 100 years unless something changes. Phoenix and Tucson growth will soak up the water and that will be it for the rest of the state. Most of the state depends on ground water and it will disappear shortly. And as mgb said, Australia doesn't have the Colorado.
 
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  • #9
Looking at the drought monitor it seem several areas of the US are suffering

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

http://www.usda.gov/oce/weather/DroughtMonitor/index.htm

Drought is the leading hazard in economic losses each year in the United States. In the summer of 1999, a monitoring tool known as the Drought Monitor was developed to help assess U.S. drought conditions. The Drought Monitor is a collaborative effort between Federal and academic partners, including the University of Nebraska-Lincoln National Drought Mitigation Center, the USDA/OCE/WAOB/Joint Agricultural Weather Facility, the NOAA/NWS/NCEP/CPC, and the NOAA/NESDIS/National Climatic Data Center. Produced on a weekly basis, the Drought Monitor is a synthesis of multiple indices, outlooks, and impacts depicted on a map and in narrative form. The Drought Monitor is released each Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
 
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  • #10
wildman said:
You are right. Phoenix will do all right and so will Tucson since they have access to surface water (the Colorado for Tucson and the Colorado and the Salt for Phoenix). However the rest of the state will be ghost towns in a 100 years unless something changes. Phoenix and Tucson growth will soak up the water and that will be it for the rest of the state. Most of the state depends on ground water and it will disappear shortly.
No, no ghost towns. You missed the point. Water usage efficiency is improving dramatically throughout Az. Put down the Erlich and go read some http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Resourceful_Earth&action=edit"
 
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  • #11
mheslep said:
No, no ghost towns. You missed the point. Water usage efficiency is improving dramatically throughout Az. Put down the Erlich and go read some http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Resourceful_Earth&action=edit"

Then why is the San Pedro drying up? There is only so much ground water. When it is used up it is used up and it doesn't matter how efficient the water usage is. As long as the water use is greater than the recharge rate (which is very low in most of Arizona), the ground water will run out and hello ghost towns.
 
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  • #12
wildman said:
Then why is the San Pedro drying up? There is only so much ground water. When it is used up it is used up and it doesn't matter how efficient the water usage is. As long as the water use is greater than the recharge rate (which is very low in most of Arizona), the ground water will run out and hello ghost towns.
Drought? Over use? I don't know. In any case, though the rive flow varies from year to year, the water never 'runs out' like it was a mined out gold shaft. People will learn to use the water more efficiently, or pipe some in from other sources, or tear up the golf courses, or switch from agriculture to other industries, or start capping new residents, whatever, ... Tucson probably actually could afford to have the San Pedro just vanish. (Not suggesting it be allowed to happen). Instead Tucson could pipe sea water the ~120mi from the Gulf and desalinate cheaply w/ solar or that 4GW of nuclear coming out of Palo Verde (largest nuke in the US).

The point of the above posts was that as long as there are good economic reasons for a town to exist and people enjoy the way of life there then it is not going to become a ghost town.
 
  • #13
I guess you are right from strictkly a human point of view. I guess its kind of a personal thing for me. I love the lush forests of the San Pedro and upper Santa Cruz rivers and it is depressing for me to see the attitude of the developers who desire to destroy them.
 
  • #14
If you read the Wikipedia article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Considerations_and_criticism" you can see that desalinization is not expensive for personal use. The article includes information about the cost ($0.5-$1 per cubic meter) and the plants installed for Australian cities.

The cost of desalinization has halved in the last decade, making it seem that it will decrease further. Of course the cost effectiveness of desalination for irrigation is different from personal use, since much more is used. So perhaps an argument can be made about the population that can be fed in Australia (if they would rather starve than rely on algae, rabbits, or gruel :p ).
 
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  • #17
mgb_phys said:
Arizona also has the advantage of a large river connected to the Canadian icefields at the other end. If Australia had say the Ganges flowing into it they would be better off.

What river is that?? The Colorado River's highest source is in southwestern Wyoming.http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/contracts/watersource.html
 
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  • #18
Does anyone here remember the Weekly Reader?

I remember reading about Australia's future water problem in the Weekly Reader, back around 1970. A proposal to build an artificial mountain range was discussed; this, to create a rain cycle. Funny enough, it [or a similar proposal] is still being kicked around.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/10/20/201207.htm
 
  • #19
Ivan Seeking said:
Does anyone here remember the Weekly Reader?

I remember reading about Australia's future water problem in the Weekly Reader, back around 1970. A proposal to build an artificial mountain range was discussed; this, to create a rain cycle. Funny enough, it [or a similar proposal] is still being kicked around.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/10/20/201207.htm

Where does all that dirt and rock come from? Would there be a 4km deep tench alongside the mountain range? Would the water run off into the tench? Would the tench hold the water or would it simply evaporate or be absorbed? In any case, it would be expensive to pump the water out of a 4km deep trench even if the water was 2km deep. What about the folks on leeward side of mountain? They'd get less rainfall. How about building a mountain out of trash and covering it with dirt and rock? We can call it Methane Mountain
 
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  • #20
SW VandeCarr said:
Where does all that dirt and rock come from? Would there be a 4km deep tench alongside the mountain range? Would the water run off into the tench? Would the tench hold the water or would it simply evaporate or be absorbed? In any case, it would be expensive to pump the water out of a 4km deep trench even if the water was 2km deep. What about the folks on leeward side of mountain? They'd get less rainfall. How about building a mountain out of trash and covering it with dirt and rock? We can call it Methane Mountain

I don't know that anyone has ever taken the idea seriously, but I do seem to recall that what we read about was a far more modest proposal. I even want to say it was more like a 1000 foot high hill, not a 4km high mountain.

Heh, the Weekly Reader is still around
http://www.weeklyreader.com/
 
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  • #21
Ivan Seeking said:
I don't know that anyone has ever taken the idea seriously, but I do seem to recall that what we read about was a far more modest proposal. I even want to say it was more like a 1000 foot high hill, not a 4km high mountain.

Heh, the Weekly Reader is still around
http://www.weeklyreader.com/

I think you'd need at least 2000 m (about 6500 ft)to do any good. Australia's Snowy Mts have peaks around that height, the highest being Mt Kosciuszko at a bit over 2200 meters. One thousand feet wouldn't do any good at all, especially in the drier areas where this crazy idea was proposed. You could build hundreds of desalination plants for a fraction of the cost of even a much reduced project, say 2km high and 100 km long. If the Aussies want to do it , maybe the US can send them its trash (300 million people make a lot of trash). Then the Aussies could get another rain/snow producing mountain range and a methane producing resource as well.

EDIT: In the future, think about the trash a fully developed China, with 1.5 billion people, could produce. Australia could radically transform its geography and be a water (and methane) exporter!
 
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  • #22
Ivan Seeking said:
I don't know that anyone has ever taken the idea seriously, but I do seem to recall that what we read about was a far more modest proposal. I even want to say it was more like a 1000 foot high hill, not a 4km high mountain.

Heh, the Weekly Reader is still around
http://www.weeklyreader.com/

How about instead of a mountain, we dig a 12 meter trench.

The first link when I google http://www.nmsu.edu/~ucomm/Releases/2007/may/desalination_project.htm" . Perfect! At high tide, a forest of tubes in our 12 meter trenches are filled to the top. At low tide, the pressure on the tops of the tubes drops to zero, effectively boiling the water for free. The fresh water is condensed in an adjacent tube, combined with the fresh water from it's neighboring tubes, and piped off to wherever.

Actually, you wouldn't even need to dig a trench. Just go out at low tide and plant your towers.
 
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  • #23
SW VandeCarr said:
(300 million people make a lot of trash).
Two very different scales. This mountain project would be on the order of tens, probably hundreds, of cubic miles of fill. One cubic mile size hole out in the desert somewhere could hold all of the US trash for a hundred years.
 
  • #24
mheslep said:
Two very different scales. This mountain project would be on the order of tens, probably hundreds, of cubic miles of fill. One cubic mile size hole out in the desert somewhere could hold all of the US trash for a hundred years.

Consider a cube 2km on each edge. Its volume is 8x10^9 cubic meters. This volume is equal to two pyramidal "mountains" 2km high on 2km square bases. I have no good estimate of the weight per m^3 of semi-compacted trash, but let's say between 500 and 1000 kg.

Now estimates of trash production in the US vary, but a conservative estimate is 2x10^8 metric tonnes per year. That means that US production would create between one and two such pyramidal mountains in 40 years. I couldn't find reliable figures for world production. I saw figures as high as 5 billion tonnes per year, but I'll be very conservative and say its a about a billion tonnes per year. That would be reduce the time for up to two mountains to about 8-10 years. That figure could be halved as China ramps up its trash production.

It's still a long process, but the Aussies are up to it. I would still recommend desalination plants, but some people apparently like really big projects for the glory of it!http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_garbage_do_humans_make_a_year
 
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  • #25
SW VandeCarr said:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_garbage_do_humans_make_a_year
I have an educational video that I show my students that states on average Americans generate 4.3 pounds of trash per day.

A day! It takes me 2 months to generate that much garbage! Don't you people recycle?

Ok. I'll get back on topic.

Some people might say that an automated desalinization complex would alter the ecology of Australia and the surrounding ocean. And they of course would be correct. But I would counter that humanity may have had a hand in the desertification of certain regions of the world. Deforestation of nearly the whole planet, current deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. I'd say it's about time we reversed the trend. And Australia is nice and big and out of the way, so if we screw it up, the residents can always move to New Zealand.
 
  • #26
OmCheeto said:
A day! It takes me 2 months to generate that much garbage! Don't you people recycle?

Ok. I'll get back on topic.

Some people might say that an automated desalinization complex would alter the ecology of Australia and the surrounding ocean. And they of course would be correct. But I would counter that humanity may have had a hand in the desertification of certain regions of the world. Deforestation of nearly the whole planet, current deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. I'd say it's about time we reversed the trend. And Australia is nice and big and out of the way, so if we screw it up, the residents can always move to New Zealand.

Did I hear a solution there other than moving 30 million people to New Zealand? The deserts of Australia were not caused by humans unless you want to blame the indigenous people. They were largely caused by Australia's northward drift into the descending air of the atmospheric convection cells that define the world's desert belts ("trade wind" deserts).

Reforestation requires adequate rainfall. As far as desalination goes, the fresh water produced enters into the hydrological cycle which produces rain both over land and sea. Eventually, through run off and evaporation, nearly all the water returns to the sea once equilibrium is established. That is, when underground aquifers are fully recharged and stable. Just don't return the salt too quickly to the sea.
 
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  • #27
sysreset said:
Also, since water is the vital resource for population sustenance, wouldn't desalination technology be of any value to Australia?

I fully agree with this. Why can't Australia not adopt technology such as that proposed in DESERTEC ? Oceans around, deserts around, that simply asks for desalination, no ? Of course it means huge infrastructure, but it will be easier for a developed country like Australia to do so, than somewhere in Africa where there are much more social and economical barriers.

If 10% of Australian desert land is covered with CSP plants which at the same time produce electricity and can desalinate (sea) water, what's the problem ?
 
  • #28
OmCheeto said:
Some people might say that an automated desalinization complex would alter the ecology of Australia and the surrounding ocean.

But we don't care about that if it goes towards a better life, no ? Should Australia dry up because of some or other desert lizard ??
 
  • #29
vanesch said:
But we don't care about that if it goes towards a better life, no ? Should Australia dry up because of some or other desert lizard ??
Is is a better life if biodiversity has been decreased?
Is it a better life if ecosystems are rendered unstable?
Is it a better life for future generations if we focus solely on the well being of our generation?
 
  • #30
Ophiolite said:
Is is a better life if biodiversity has been decreased?
Is it a better life if ecosystems are rendered unstable?
Is it a better life for future generations if we focus solely on the well being of our generation?

Desalination is fairly intensive along the shores of the Persian Gulf which is normally hypersaline compared to the Arabian Sea. Hypersalinity is greatest in the northern Gulf off of Basra and decreases toward the Straits of Hormuz. The ecological dangers in this region are magnified by the enclosed nature of the Persian Gulf, its shallowness, and the present and planned number of desalination plants in all the Gulf States including Saudi Arabia and Iran.

http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr_22_2_13.pdf

I'm not taking sides here, but Australia's situation is different as it is surrounded by vast expanses of open water. Moreover, if some of the fresh water produced is used for reforestation, or starting new forests as in Israel, this may have the effect of producing more rainfall over the drought plagued areas in the eastern part of the continent. The ecology of the central and western deserts need not be disturbed. As I said earlier, the hydrological cycle will eventually restore an equilibrium which IMO is unlikely to have an a significant effect on the offshore salinity provided salt or brine is not dumped back into ocean. In any case, this can be monitored as desalination plants go into operation.

EDIT: The paper refers to the Persian Gulf and the "Arabian Gulf" which is the name used by the Arab states. However, as far as I know, the accepted historic and internationally recognized designation is still the "Persian Gulf".
 
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  • #31
Ophiolite said:
Is is a better life if biodiversity has been decreased?
Is it a better life if ecosystems are rendered unstable?
Is it a better life for future generations if we focus solely on the well being of our generation?

All this is a matter of pro and con evaluation of course. But I don't see how solar-driven desalination could ever be a problem, in de sense that what you pump out as fresh water this way is - I would think - a minuscule fraction compared to what evaporates naturally from the surface of the concerned waters, no ?

Because that is what a desalination plant actually does: extract some amount of fresh water from the sea. By "dumping" the salt back into the water, it keeps the amount of salt constant, while extracting fresh water. Exactly as does natural evaporation.
 
  • #32
vanesch said:
Because that is what a desalination plant actually does: extract some amount of fresh water from the sea. By "dumping" the salt back into the water, it keeps the amount of salt constant, while extracting fresh water. Exactly as does natural evaporation.

This is certainly not the case in enclosed waters. If you extract fresh water and return the salt to the source you will increase the salinity of the source. The degree of increase is a function of the mixing with water of "normal salinity". In largely enclosed waters, returning the salt to the source is will increase salinity. Natural evaporation tends to be ecologically stable. This is what the paper I posted is all about. With open water, mixing is more efficient but with large scale desalination operations local effects could still be significant. Careful monitoring of offshore salinity should be a guide to returning extracted salt to the sea.
 
  • #33
SW VandeCarr said:
Desalination is fairly intensive along the shores of the Persian Gulf which is normally hypersaline compared to the Arabian Sea. Hypersalinity is greatest in the northern Gulf off of Basra and decreases toward the Straits of Hormuz. The ecological dangers in this region are magnified by the enclosed nature of the Persian Gulf, its shallowness, and the present and planned number of desalination plants in all the Gulf States including Saudi Arabia and Iran.

http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr_22_2_13.pdf

Ok, this paper describes a local effect, near the desalination plant. That has to do with local brine injection at a point. Such things could be arranged eventually by spreading the brine over a larger area, to help the diffusion.

But the paper also makes my point in the previous message. Natural evaporation amounts to about 2 meters/yr for a surface of about 240 000 km^2 for the Persian Gulf. That is what the "natural desalination plant" called the sun does to it. It amounts to the extraction of 480x10^9 m^3 of fresh water per year.

Now, I couldn't find a sensible number for the world consumption of fresh water, but it must be a number of similar magnitude.
 
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  • #34
SW VandeCarr said:
This is certainly not the case in enclosed waters. If you extract fresh water and return the salt to the source you will increase the salinity of the source. The degree of increase is a function of the mixing with water of "normal salinity".

Yes, but that's just a matter of dispersion. Of course, near a "point source" you will find local peaking of salinity.

In largely enclosed waters, returning the salt to the source is will increase salinity. Natural evaporation tends to be ecologically stable.

Not really! Salinity of the oceans is ever-increasing, because of solar evaporation, since the origin of oceans. Also, a priori, the extracted water by desalination should eventually return to the sea (as waste water for instance).

This is what the paper I posted is all about. With open water, mixing is more efficient but with large scale desalination operations local effects could still be significant. Careful monitoring of offshore salinity should be a guide to returning extracted salt to the sea.

Yes, for big installations, one should disperse it somewhat.
 
  • #35
SW VandeCarr said:
returning the salt to the source is will increase salinity...
Is it necessary to return the salt to the ocean? Why not bury it or even pile it up somewhere? Then the ocean salinity could even decrease.
 

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