A continental scale assessment of Australia's potential for irrigation

Abstract

Debate about irrigation development of water resources in northern Australia has been hampered by a lack of quantitative information to enable accurate assessment of the volume of water that could potentially be regulated in the 'North' (north of the tropic of Capricorn). Too often the debate focuses solely on streamflow volumes and quantities of runoff. In this paper we present simple calculations to estimate a representative irrigation requirement and the potential exploitable yield in each of the 12 drainage divisions of Australia in order to more fully inform this on-going debate. Environmental, social, cultural and economic considerations are not examined. The results indicate that, des..