Chair John Lolicato said recent reports are highlighting the increased flood risk from climate change, but are ignoring another serious problem.
“We have more than 4600 gigalitres of environmental water, and this is being regularly increased with the Federal Government’s insatiable appetite for water buybacks,” Mr Lolicato said.
“The current government is targeting water buybacks that are stored in our major dams, increasing the flood risk, yet this is being ignored.”
A recent study by Climate Valuation has raised the alarm about flood risk from climate change.
“If climate change is creating considerable flood risk, and making houses in some towns ‘uninsurable’ as the report says, how serious must the problem be when we factor in the additional risk from changing water management behaviour, which is changing when water is stored, how much is stored and when it is used,” Mr Lolicato said.
Mr Lolicato said changes to water management were being ignored as a contributing factor to elevated flood risks.
“Water recovery under the [Murray-Darling] Basin Plan has had a massive impact on water management, storage and usage, especially along the Murray River and its tributaries.
“More than 80 per cent of water recovery has come from the southern basin, and it is being stored in our dams, thus increasing dam levels, while changing storage and usage behaviour.
“We have seen changes to environmental river flows, with increased volumes in spring.
“When floodplains are inundated during these times there is reduced capacity to absorb unexpected heavy rain events which are most common in mid to late spring.
“We saw this in 2016 and again in 2022, and the more water we store, reducing the capacity of authorities to manage extreme events and reduce flooding, the greater the risk will become.”
