Just a quick interjection on the economics of water use/economies of scale.
One "new" area of study within ecology is called ecosystem services (note,
the concept isn't new, just gaining more of a foothold). This is where the
services provided by the environment (i.e. water filtration, rain
"attractant" properties of forests, flood mitigation of wetlands, etc.) are
given a value economically. So if a developer bulldozes or in some other
way destroys a wetland, the cost of providing those services to the
community should be factored into the cost of the development (i.e. flood
mitigation devices, stormwater runoff and sedimentation control). Otherwise
the government and therefore the community at large have to pay for this,
which is mostly the way it's done now.
To extrapolate to our dam/water tank example, the cost of a dam is X million
dollars to build. But then factor in the cost of replacing the carbon
fixing properties of the forests that are cut down, the cost of treating the
water if it becomes eutrophic downstream and gets algal blooms, the cost of
lost fertility of soil because of changes of flooding regimes downstream,
the cost of dead wetlands that no longer get flooded, and of course the
hardest to quantify but the one we as birders are most concerned with, the
value of habitat lost to animals and to people who enjoy
bushwalking/birding. I'm sure there are more, these are some of the more
obvious ones (to me). Currently none of these factors are taken into
account financially when building a dam, or anything else, but we all pay
the cost of them eventually.
Of all the ecosystem services that are out there, the one I know of that is
most often given a value is tourism. Interestingly, in the case of the
Great Barrier Reef, the value of tourism outstripped the value of primary
industry by so much that a large marine park was created, and strong water
quality requirements were introduced on the rivers and creeks that feed into
the area. Hopefully one day it isn't just lost profits that are factored
in, but also the cost of undoing damage done as well. If developers had to
pay the real cost of their developments, I think there would be a lot less
new land being cleared, and more sensible usage of what's already been built
on.
I have to admit, I'm not sure what effect a million water tanks in Brisbane
or the Hunter would have, it's possible that this would significantly alter
urban water regimes, and possibly even damage local wetlands or even Moreton
Bay itself. Does anyone have any literature on this topic? It seems to me
that the way urban stormwater runoff is usually handled would be an
alteration of normal hydrology anyway (i.e. channelling it into a single
location), so perhaps catching it in tanks would see a return to more
natural hydrology anyway?
Regards,
Chris
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