Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Australia's Hidden Water

Did you know that Australia has enough water hidden in an
underground reservoir to meet Australians demands for the next 1500 years.
This underground water is called "The Great Artesian Basin". Its the largest underground water Basin
in the World, and underlies 1/5th of the Australian Continent, an area of over 1.7 million squ: Kilometers

In fact this huge underground basin, holds a huge volume of salt free water, estimated to be 65,000 million gigaliters
of water which means it would cover all of the Earth's land masses to a depth of 18 inches, were it to be pumped out.

Even if it did'nt rain for a thousand years, it is estimated
that this water source could be enough to meet Australia's
demands for the next 1,500 years

So since Australia is the largest, dryest, hottest, flattest continent in the world, and very short of water
...So why don't they start pumping up this precious water?

Well its not as easy as that, all this water is buried up to 1.2-2.0 miles deep underground,
and can only be extracted thru deep boreholes, using derricks.
The reservoir pressured water wants to help push the water up
and might able to be reached by digging a very deep well in a selected natural basin area.
But by drilling more than half-a-dozen boreholes or wells,
the pressure inside the aquifer will be released, so the water will not tend to rise up nearer the surface
but will stay down the whole two miles deep.

While there has been hundreds of shallow bore holes and wells drilled by/for the sheep farmers, along some edges of the underground basin where it reaches near the surface,
the water they seek is getting deeper and more difficult to extract,today.

Since you cannot suck up water more that 30 feet, to irrigate and green the whole of Australia
they they would have to go down prehaps a 1/4 mile deep and install some powerful pressure pumps to push some of the water to the surface.

http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/factsheets/pdf/water/w68.pdf

And:-

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Undergrou...es-100834.shtml

Sounds like a magnificent natural resource. Thank goodness it isn't oil, there'd be a rush on to drill, baby, drill it to extinction. It kind of reminds me of the West Texas-Eastern New Mexico region. When it was first settled, native grasses grew so tall it brushed the boots of a man on horseback. Then agriculture started, and the fields of grass gave way to potatoes and peanuts. The water table has since dropped until many of the natural springs no longer flow and you can only get scrubby grass to grow in unirrigated lands, leading to the pasturing of scrawny cattle and sheep which eat the grass down to the roots and contribute to erosion by wind and water. When the wind blows the earth moves with it. Sandstorms are common, and you can get your car sandblasted in the winds. I hope Australia uses its water more wisely than the people in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.

Very interesting article, Mike. But...


...where did that figure come from?

Nope that is correct. 30 feet is about all you can get. That is because it has to be pushed up by air pressure at 14.7 Lbs/Sq in. That pressure is enough to balance a column of water about 30 feet tall.

Bill Gill

the ( normal ) way that water is brought to the surface from
a well would be expensive , because high pressure pumps are needed.

2 mile depth = 4574.592 psi

but there is a cheaper way!

well theres 1 cubit!!

14 to go

1 cubit = 18 inches...

Noah's flood in the Bible

there's a good answer to where all the water went after the flood.


and what could cause the water to leave the basin?

Thank you for that information Bill.
I expect if you did try to suck more than 30ft of water up a tube, it would start bubbling and 'boiling'.
At about 30ft high, and some feet below?
Prehaps the amount of boiling/agitation might depend upon the condition of the water,
and the inside roughness of the tube? But I am not sure.

Well, I don't expect it would bubble too much. You can't really get a good vacuum that way, because evaporation from the water would keep it fairly humid in there. The last time I saw water boiling in a vacuum was when I was in high school physics lab. The instructor boiled water in a flask, then corked the flask and put it under running water. It dropped the pressure enough that the water started boiling again.

Mostly the water just wouldn't rise any more than that.

Bill Gill

What's been referred to above applies to shallow well pumping:
http://www.cyclestopvalves.com/csvbasicinfo_4.html

I don't pretend to know anything about this, but I have a pump in my backyard drawing water up from a 120 meters down. Anyone care to explain how it works.

Other info:
http://www.sunshineworks.com/stainless-steel-deep-well-hand-pump.htm

The one in the link works by actively lifting the water up the pipe. There are a series of "buckets" with flap valves. The one on the bottom goes down, the valve opens and it fills. As you lift it the water is pushed up one step higher through a flap valve in a fixed "bucket". So on each stroke of the handle one "bucket" of water is lifted one stroke higher.

If that is not what you have you may have a jet pump. It works by pumping water to the bottom of the well where it is forced int the up pipe through an upward pointing jet. The Bernoulli effect reduces the pressure and draws water into the pipe where it all comes back to the surface. Google "Jet Pump" and you should be able to find a better explanation.

The other type actually has a pump at the bottom of the well. It is usually an electric pump that forces the water up.

Bill Gill

We have talked about this before, and there is a problem.

Most of the water in the Australian Artesian Basin is non-potable. Some of it is not even suitable for stock and agriculture and it would require extensive treatment after pumping.

When the water is pumped out for farming, as it was in areas of South Australia and Victoria, the water table is raised and salinity is a problem. There is a large area of the former Irrigation Area that is now a salt pan. The salt actually lies on the surface of the ground in crystals. I have always supposed that this may be the result of inland Australia being an ocean years ago, but I'm probably wrong.

There is also the fact that this water has taken years to amass, and it does not refill regularly . We have potable aquifers supplying our drinking water where I live. We have reasonable rainfall when there is no drought, but there is some concern about depleting the resource.

Instead we are going the incredibly expensive path of desalination. Most of Australia,s population is close to the coast so access to sea-water is easy. For some reason we have not considered recycling water on any great scale-- but then we haven't been serious about solar energy either!

However I don't think the Artesian water is the no-brainer it seems at first glance.