The BrisScience lecture series is on again (Monday 15th at City Hall, 6:30 pm), and both the topic and speaker are closer to home than usual. The topic is Water in South East Queensland. The speaker, Professor Paul Greenfield, is about to become Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland.
More details here and over the fold
South east Queensland is currently suffering from its worst drought in the last century. In addition, its population has increased dramatically over the last 20 years and this trend looks like continuing. Part of the reason for the increased growth lies in the quality of the SEQ lifestyle, which in turn reflects the quality of SEQ’s environment, in particular the aquatic environment.
The talk will argue that, in going forward, we need to look at alternative water supplies, we need to remember that rivers need water flowing in them if they are to remain healthy and that we must manage our demands for water. The talk will aim to convey an understanding of our river and bay environments, where we might find our water supplies of the future and what this means for water treatment and on the links between water demand and the quality of our aquatic environments.
Title: Water in South East Queensland: Where does it come from? Where does it go? What can I do with it?
Speaker: Professor Paul Greenfield AO, FTSE
Date: 15 October 2007
Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
Venue: Ithaca Auditorium, Brisbane City Hall
Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Professor Greenfield will be available to answer any questions.
Questions? Contact Joel (0411 267 044 or joel@BrisScience.org) or Nelle (nelle@BrisScience.org).
URL: http://www.BrisScience.org
John Quiggin 
A hot topic all round by the looks of things
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22549348-2682,00.html?from=public_rss
will anyone say the simple observation: “instead of controlling water, we should control population,” or is that too lateral?
it’s quite easy, put up checkpoints at the border, sell day passes to visitors, levy spot-taxes on ‘mexican refugees’, throw a few, randomly selected, into preventive detention as suspected terrorists. presto! need less water, have more money.
“instead of controlling water, we should control population,..”
Why control water? There’s no shortage of it, just a shortage at the current price. I’ve also noticed, even with the worst drought in my memory, there’s no shortage of sausages or fillet steak in the shops. Plenty of bottled water too.
not enough to water my garden, wash my car, or take long showers. don’t know what price has to do with it, god only dumps a finite quantity, and has not heretofore responded to financial incentives.
al, the oceans are full of water and at the right price you wouldn’t need God to allow you to do all those things. Someone would play God for you. Mind you at the right price the Murray Darling would probably still be your most economical source, albeit you probably wouldn’t be wearing some of it on your back right now.
You can’t blame the pollies for giving the punter’s old wives tales a go now can you? No sooner had water Minister Maywald restricted garden watering to buckets only once a week, the urban myth began to spread in Adelaide that using drippers was equivalent to, or even more miserly than buckets and what about all those poor pensioner’s backs and the disabled? http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22561586-2682,00.html?from=public_rss
Sure cleared that urban myth up right away.
I recently had a complaint from a friend in Murwillumbah that SEQ’s water demands are affecting northern NSW – where there are plans to build dams to feed the SEQ lifestyle and also to take some of the population overflow.