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In this section you will find detailed information, including national overviews and state and regional level assessments, from the 2000-2002 National Land and Water Resources Audit theme assessments.
National Land and Water Resources Audit
Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000 - Technical Overview
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Summary
Assessments by Australian States have estimated that approximately 5.7m hectares of Australia?s agricultural and pastoral zones have a high potential for developing dryland salinity through shallow watertables. Predictions based on groundwater trends, field surveys and landscape characteristics indicate that unless effective solutions are implemented, the area could increase to 17 million hectares by 2050. Serious impacts have been identified for agricultural land, important wetlands, other habitats, flora and fauna, quality of water resources, and farm and community infrastructure assets. The biggest areas of concern occur in the Western Australian agricultural zone, water resources of the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) ? especially with respect to South Australian water supplies, wetlands of the MDB and in south western Victoria. Assessments in Queensland highlight potential impacts within 3.1 million hectares considered to have a high salinity hazard.
The methods, scale and reliability of data underpinning the state assessments are varied, and comparisons across States are not valid. The more reliable estimates (from a scale and data coverage viewpoint) are from Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales).
The assessments have highlighted the need for a common framework, consistent methods and standards if future Audits are to provide a more accurate and useful assessment of land use impacts on dryland salinity. Monitoring systems need to be designed to answer the specific questions being asked by Governments, and to capture efficiencies of information flow across the States. R&D is required to improve the assessments of risk associated with land use system changes, particularly in assessing on-farm and in- catchment land use changes on salt loads to streams.
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