Abstract
This chapter attempts to shed light on the recent crisis by briefly examining how irrigation and climate have been thought about in Australia in the past and how this is likely to change in the future. The focus is the irrigation block and vineyard level of the South Australian Riverland. The chapter summarizes opportunities and limits to adaptation options, including further gains in efficiency, closer monitoring of water requirements, and the use of weather and climate forecasts. We conclude by observing the complexity of thinking about drought in a climate that is arid, variable, and changing. Irrigation in Australia was designed to turn arid regions into an oasis. A century later, drought has forced a major and unplanned restructure. Many irrigators hope that it is just a drought, some worry that rather than a cyclical drought, we are seeing manifestation of a drying, and that the real worry is an increasing aridity.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Water Science and Policy Center, University of California, Riverside, Jeff Conner, CSIRO for valuable discussion and references, and the South Australian Premier’s Science Research Funded project Climate Change and Communities for support. The author’s gratefully acknowledge the Yalumba Wine Company for the data used in Figs. 5.2 and 5.3, and the Riverland Viticultural Technical Group for participating in the survey and informed discussion on Table 5.2.
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Hayman, P., McCarthy, M. (2013). Irrigation and Drought in a Southern Australian Climate that is Arid, Variable, and Changing. In: Schwabe, K., Albiac, J., Connor, J., Hassan, R., Meza González, L. (eds) Drought in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6636-5_5
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