The Salinity Crisis by Quentin Beresford and others. This is about dryland salinity which (oversimplifying drastically) occurs when trees are cleared and saline water tables rise to the surface. It’s less well known than the salinity problems that arise in irrigation systems like the Murray-Darling, but equally significant and apparently more intractable. The only clear solution is to replant trees, but the area that has to be planted is so great and the time to fix the problem so long that, in a lot of cases, it appears not be economically feasible.

One topic mentioned in passing, and in which I’m interested is that of amateur vs expert science. In the dryland salinity context, the amateur/community science viewpoint is that of Harry Whittington and his Whittington Interceptor Banks. Whittington, a farmer, proposed a kind of drainage that was rejected as unsound by the hydrologists who had studied the problem, giving rise to a debate that went on for decades. Although debate still continues, belief in Whittington’s approach seems to have dwindled.

I’m of the view that the experts are usually right in this kind of dispute, but their are undoubtedly cases where a particular viewpoint or group interest dominates the expert view to the exclusion of all others.