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2011-01-14

Comments on Barry York “Seeing red on dams, not green”, 14/01/2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/seeing-red-on-dams-not-green/story-e6frg6zo-1225987397128

Leaving Marx, left, the Greens and all ideologies aside, one question I'd ask is: Could weather forecast have been better, so that the Wivenhoe Dam could have released more water earlier and, firstly to increase its capacity to hold more water at flood peaks, and secondly to reduce the release of water around flood peak times?

How good is our weather forecast system and other related modelling?

From the fact that the Brisbane river did not peak at the predicted worst level of around 5.5 metres made at the time of the first peak at around 4.3 metres and just less than 24 hours before the events, it does not appear that the modelling result was good enough, although it is always good not to have the predicted worst peak reached.

Australia should strengthen its modelling and forecasting of natural disasters and rapid response system when they happen or are about to happen. China has reported that its fastest computers have been used in weather forecasting.

The dam seems to have played some useful role before, as the author indicates:

"The Wivenhoe Dam on the Brisbane River worked effectively in mitigating bad floods around Brisbane in 1999 but, alas, despite its 1.4 million megalitre flood mitigation capacity (on top of its water supply capacity of 1.1 million megalitres) it could not stop the extensive damage that occurred during the current floods."

So, while we need to learn lessons from these recent flood events, we need to learn them from both positive and negative sides. It would be wrong to ignore the positive contributions of the Wivenhoe Dam.

PS: It would have been better had the federal minister of transport and infrastructure focused more of his effort on these ongoing floods across eastern Australia, as my earlier comments post suggested.

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