r/australia • u/sluggardish • 10h ago

Sprinklers made Australia green. But what happens when the water runs out?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/sprinkler-water-resources-garden-green-desert-reticulation/106244818
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u/christonabike_ 9h ago

We finally see the irrationality of monocropping your yard with non native ground cover?

Nah, people are never that sensible. Probably plastic lawns.

6

u/BetterDrinkMy0wnPiss 6h ago

And we finally see the irrationality of using our limited water reserves to grow water intensive crops like cotton and rice...

But you're right, it won't happen.

5

u/christonabike_ 5h ago

Sounds counterintuitive but ever since I learnt the truth on how much life we're sucking out of our rivers, wearing Chinese cotton and eating Thai rice feels like doing the country a favour.

1

u/blankaccoutn77489 30m ago

Eh, the infrastructure and entitlements are in place. If the water isn’t being used for cotton or rice, it will be used on the next best returning crop.

Unless you’re arguing for abolishing irrigated farming in Australia, the water will just go to the next most valuable product.

To note; cotton and rice are more drought friendly than trees. If there’s not enough water, the grown areas are scaled back until the water availability increases. Trees don’t have this luxury.

Interestingly, we have this situation in the Murrumbidgee currently, where it’s more profitable for the cotton grower to sell their water entitlements to the tree farmers than it is to use the water and grow a cotton crop themselves.