The Sunburnt Country
Melbourne is looking to enact permanent water restrictions, and I don’t imagine Sydney will be very far behind. Even though the El Niño system has dissipated for now, the effect won’t be truly felt for another year or more, after which we’ll be building towards the next one. Drought, it appears, is to be a constant. I’d venture to suggest, however, that drought can be managed in Australia, although it will take a significant and fairly long-term effort towards behavioral changes from city residents refraining from hosing the pavement, to suburbanites foregoing non-native lawns and shrubs, to farmers relinquishing the use of European traditional agricultural practices. I’d like to see apartment blocks, including mine, install a rainwater tank to support their fire suppression systems, for one example, but perhaps that’s the zealotry of the converted.