The key to successful Australian water management planning, is accurately mapping and understanding current and past patterns of Australian rainfall so scientists can more clearly predict future rainfall cycles said ANSTO’s Dr Henk Heijnis, who will chair ANSTO’s first rainfall conference next week.
At the conference, ANSTO and other leading environmental scientists will share their most recent research with fellow researchers, water corporations, key weather bureau staff and government representatives to open discussion on ways to improve water management Australia-wide.
“ANSTO, together with colleagues from Newcastle University and the Australian National University, has been monitoring modern stalagmite formation in caves for the past three years to assess whether the chemistry from drip waters that create them, correlates with rainfall patterns supplied by weather bureau monitoring,” said Dr Heinjis.
“We will be revealing these and other important results and discuss how they can be used for water management purposes.
“If the stalagmite water drip factor is a mirror of modern rainfall monitoring, by carbon dating older stalagmites we will be able to map rainfall patterns over thousands of years and establish the big picture of past rainfall cycles to ultimately produce better rainfall predictions.”
Published: 16/01/2008