This article explains why Australia’s real water crisis is not only drought, but salinity and soil sodification caused by how irrigation water is used and managed. Drawing on lessons from Ethiopia and global irrigation history, it shows why efficiency alone can worsen river flows, why flushing salt is essential, and why governments must lead adoption. It also outlines practical tools—simulation, monitoring, and Micro Flood—to improve farm outcomes while protecting rivers.
Introduction
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) was invited to attend a demonstration of the Micro Flood system in operation. After repeated requests, the Department declined. What follows explains why technology alone cannot fix Australia’s water problems unless it is supported by policy that reflects how water and salt actually behave in soils and rivers.
Environmental Lessons From Ethiopia
I returned from Ethiopia shortly before receiving your response. There I was working on chronic water issues, while my partner, Nance, assisted in hospitals with children suffering acute malnutrition. On an earlier visit, Micro Flood technology had been introduced to support sustenance food production. At that time crops had failed, but people were surviving without obvious starvation.
On the later visit the situation had deteriorated badly. Children were too weak to eat and were being kept alive with nasogastric feeding. At the same time, I visited a government-supported water-harvesting project. Desertification was advancing steadily as vegetation had been stripped by people and livestock struggling to survive. Bare soil reflected heat back into the atmosphere, weakening rain clouds. Locals reported that daytime rain used to be common; now rain often dissipates before falling.
This is an example of short-term survival destroying long-term resilience. While Australia is wealthier, the same pattern appears when immediate gain overrides environmental limits.
Salinity: Australia’s Quiet Crisis
The major environmental threat to Australian irrigation is salinity, or more precisely sodification. Unlike salt pans, sodification is slow and largely invisible. Yet it steadily destroys soil structure and productivity.
Irrigation water always contains salt. Water with 500 ppm salinity carries 500 kilograms of salt per megalitre. Over 20 years, this can mean around 100 tonnes of salt per hectare. Initially the salt remains dissolved, but over time it forms ionic bonds with soil particles, preventing nutrient uptake and damaging soil structure. Productivity declines gradually until land becomes uneconomic.
The danger is that cause and effect are separated in time. No single irrigation causes failure, just as no single tree cut causes desertification. The accumulation is easy to ignore.
Why Self-Interest Fails the Environment
Economic theory often assumes that individual self-interest leads to the best collective outcome. In environmental systems this assumption fails. When one irrigator flushes salt from their land, it often increases salinity downstream. When everyone acts to protect themselves, the shared system degrades.
This is not a moral judgement; it is a systems reality. Environmental protection requires rules and coordination. Governments already regulate dangerous behaviour in many areas of life. Water management deserves the same seriousness.
History’s Warning
History shows that most irrigation societies collapse after about 200 years due to salinity. Sandra Postel’s Pillars of Sand documents this from ancient Mesopotamia onward. Egypt is the main exception, thanks to the Nile’s natural flooding that flushed salt to the sea.
I have visited abandoned irrigation towns in the Middle East where modern pumps allowed expansion until groundwater became saline. The land remains, but the people have gone. Similar lessons exist in the United States. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, drainage projects were halted when selenium contamination caused deformities in wildlife. In the Imperial Valley, federal authorities were forced to cut irrigation supplies to protect the Colorado River system.
Salinity Can Be Managed
Salinity is not inevitable. It can be managed through two linked actions. First, irrigation must include sufficient flushing to remove salt from soils. Second, rivers must have enough flow to carry that salt to the sea.
I studied the Snake Valley in Idaho, a region once troubled by salinity. Through managed irrigation and river flows, salt is no longer a dominant problem. Australia’s situation is harder due to scale and climate, but the principle holds.
A Personal Response
Nearly a decade ago I asked what I, as an individual, could contribute. Governments and institutions already conduct extensive research. My conclusion was that I needed to do something different.
I previously founded Moldflow, a computational simulation company that became a leading exporter of technical software. Its success came from continuous long-term research and a willingness to take risks. After selling the company, I applied the same speculative approach to water.
I invested my own funds to assemble a team to explore irrigation problems without the constraints of short-term grants. The aim was not incremental improvement, but systems change.
Speculative Research and Hard Lessons
Our work examined irrigation systems worldwide. Most public research funding favours low-risk projects with defined milestones. That is understandable, but it limits breakthroughs.
We tested many ideas. Some were unconventional and failed. Others worked technically but failed commercially or socially. For example, devices to measure irrigation depth were effective, but farmers were unlikely to invest without incentives. This reinforced a key insight: individuals will not voluntarily bear costs for national environmental benefits.
Simulation of Irrigation and Salt Movement
Salinity lends itself to mathematical modelling. Together with mathematician Peter Grossman, we developed simulations describing how saline irrigation water replaces soil water and how salt moves during evapotranspiration and flushing.
These models allow irrigators and regulators to predict how much water is required to meet crop needs while flushing salt effectively. The results are confronting: sustainable irrigation requires planned flushing flows. Without them, salinity inevitably accumulates.
The Myth of Efficiency
Our work exposed a major misconception. Improving irrigation efficiency does not automatically benefit the environment. In some cases it worsens outcomes.
When “efficiency” means reducing deep drainage, it often reduces salt removal from the soil. Farmers typically use saved water to expand production or sell it, rather than returning it to the river. The same or greater volumes are extracted, but less water returns to flush salt downstream.
Efficiency must therefore be paired with policy that guarantees adequate flushing, both on farms and in rivers.
Technology Must Be Linked to Policy
Micro Flood, monitoring tools, and simulation models can support better outcomes, but only within a policy framework that recognises salt balance. Economic incentives alone are insufficient if they ignore physical reality.
Institutional Barriers
I was advised to contact regional offices in Mildura and Tatura. While some staff were helpful, there was also a lack of understanding of sodification. One comment suggested tile drainage meant salinity was not a problem, overlooking long-term soil chemistry.
Despite years of effort, millions of dollars of personal investment, and the creation of a demonstration site, there was little institutional engagement. The refusal to observe a working system was deeply discouraging.
Key Questions for Decision Makers
Do we accept the scientific evidence that salinity is accumulating and that current flows are insufficient to flush it? Are we prepared to act before productive land is lost? Do we agree that irrigation must be managed as a system, linking farm practices with river management?
Implementation and Fairness
Water rights are rights to use water productively, not to impose long-term costs on others. Controls are acceptable when they are applied consistently and protect everyone’s land. Farmers may accept regulation if it prevents damage from neighbouring actions.
A Practical Offer
My aim is to see this intellectual property used for public benefit. I am not seeking to manufacture or market systems. That role belongs elsewhere. What is needed is government willingness to understand the technologies, trial them properly, and integrate them into policy.
If Australia wishes to protect its soils, rivers, and food security, technology and policy must work together. Ignoring either will repeat the failures seen throughout irrigation history.
Contact: Colin Austin (details as per original correspondence).
Download “Water, Salinity and Irrigation Reform in Australia” (Full PDF)
“
