The flooding in Australia is extreme and worsening. Rivers have o'er topped their banks and flushed huge areas of previously high and dry land with enormous quantities of water.
No one so far has asked the question that has been on my mind - how much Australian soil has left the country and washed out to sea?
My guess is that the amount will be enormous.
Can any country afford to lose topsoil in quantities like those I suspect are going off-shore from our big neighbour?
I doubt it very much.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
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12 comments:
I'm thinking land-bridge to Aotearoa
Happy birthday for tomorrow by the way Cr. Robert
Couldn't write about it, could you.
Oh wait, yeh you could..
"When our soils are gone, we too, must go unless we find some way to feed on raw rock".
Gives us some solid material for the Motueka event!
NZ rainforest can grow on rock. Just sayin'.
I'd love to know what Peter Andrews is making of the flooding.
Ah, here he is, only he was predicting this some time ago. And the journo is asking the same question as you Robert :-) Gushing blood is a potent phrase.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/floods-steal-precious-topsoil--and-future-goes-down-drain-20110109-19jrq.html
(hope that link makes it past your spam filter).
Your landbridge Bio, is becoming a reality (see latest post :-)
Thanks for the birthday wishes. So far, I'm being treated like a king!
Actually Robert it may actually help our environment problems. In the decarbonising of the pacific ocean. When another similar disaster last year of red dust storm which left the Australia land and finished in the sea. It was found in doing so it actually enriched and fertilised the sea. This helped to feed and enrich the plankton thus the the marine food chain was enriched which therefore helped the marine life in general to be enriched.
One of the nastiest problems with pollution of the environment is the carbonatization of our sea water. It is causing the sea to become acidified by the chemical reaction of increase carbon and H20 mixing. The consequences of this reation, is the plankton life is dying, and sea shells are melting on live sea life, thus important sea life is destroying with the increase of acid in our oceans to our planet. Not only is acidfying destroying marine life it is having a affect on the global currents in the Arctic and Antarctic circle ( where our weather patterns come from) This in it self is frightening, but also especially when it is considered that many of the global human and non human population rely on a healthy balance of the sea food chain.
Happy Birthday Robert and you can take the day of as many are using today for Anniversary Day :)
Hey thanks wildcrafty - you're pretty alert! I've dragged the article onto my blog and tacked your name to it. Thanks for that.
The soil issue in Australia is a major disaster and may, just may force a change of land management there ...
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! (wry, choked laughter)
Pauline - I will take the day off - thanks for the suggestion!
Your point about enriching the ocean with soil is a good one at one level. Feeding the fishes with farmland would benefit the fishes (perhaps) and the ph of the ocean (perhaps) but I just can't help but feel that us land-based creatures are going to suffer rather than benefit from the reallocation.
The whole 'smothering' effect of Australia being spread across the floor of the Pacific Ocean makes me feel a little anxious as well.
Nick - "Gives us some solid material for the Motueka event!"
Are you expecting that some of the silt will make it all the way across to Golden Bay? Yikes!
Pauline - the net effect of turbid, nutrient-filled waters gushing out towards the Great Barrier Reef is far from positive. I've seen it, having spent 4 years there during my undergraduate years. Whole coral marine ecosystems could collapse, hastening the ph-driven demise you speak of. Not to mention the 'smothering' of others like Robert suggests. Just 0.5-1mm of sediment is enough to suffocate light photosynthetic organisms such as algae, taking out the base of a now-very-fragile pyramid. A far too rapid process geologically speaking, one for which we are largely responsible. Maybe they can start farming cowpeas!
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