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CANBERRA - Just months after rain began washing away one of the worst droughts in Australian history, the world's driest inhabited continent is again plunging into crisis.
Vast tracts of farmland are again parched, the mighty Murray Darling river systems water flows have slowed to a trickle, farmers are preparing to quit the land, and weather forecasters are warning of another long, hot summer.
Yesterday, as the federal Government pumped another A$714 million ($839.30 million) into drought assistance, fire authorities in three eastern states were gearing up for an early bushfire season.
The renewed dehydration of Australia following earlier forecasts of good rain as the el Nino weather pattern disappeared has been caused by continued higher-than-average temperatures over parts of the tropical South Pacific and Indian oceans.
The Bureau of Meteorology's latest forecast predicts that up to 70 per cent of Tasmania and the southeastern coastal rim of the nation is likely to suffer below-average rainfall, and higher average temperatures, over the next four months. This includes most of Australia's food producing areas.
Already, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics has slashed its winter grains forecast from 37 million tonnes to 25.6 million tonnes, 27 per cent below the five-year average. Production on the nation's vineyards is now forecast to plunge from almost 2 million tonnes to as low as 800,000 tonnes.
A report on water flows in the Murray Darling system released by Howard makes grim reading.
The system supports major food producing areas, cities and towns, industries and businesses running down the eastern seaboard. At the end of last month the system's water supplies were less than a third of normal levels, pushing inflows and storages to record lows and forcing emergency measures, including dramatically reduced irrigation allocations and the isolation of wetlands from the system.
The report handed to PM John Howard last week says crops of citrus, fruit, nuts and grapes have already started to die, salinity levels are rising to threaten more large areas of farmland for years to come, and algal blooms and other problems are expected to decimate fish populations.
Large supplies of water may be needed to be set aside to ensure safe supplies for human consumption in Adelaide and other upstream towns.
