Jan 25 (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced a A$10 billion, 10-year plan on Thursday to save major rivers and reform water infrastructure, calling water management the country's biggest conservation challenge.

With Australia gripped by the worst drought in a century, polls show climate change and water management are key issues for voters in this election year.

Here are some facts on the plan and Australia's water use:

HOWARD'S WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN:

* The federal government is to take control of water in the nation's biggest river system, the drought-ravaged Murray-Darling basin, asking state governments to cede management.

* Cap bores in the underground Great Artesian Basin, the world's largest, holding 65 million megalitres and covering an area bigger than France, Spain and Germany.

* Line and pipe major irrigation channels at a cost of $6 billion ($4.6 billion) to target leaks and evaporation, saving 3,000 gigalitres, or 20 percent of the total used.

* Audit the nation's water resources through a new taskforce to look at shifting agriculture north to the rain-soaked tropics.

AUSTRALIA'S WATER USE:

* Water use is currently planned and governed separately by each of Australia's states, which have competing interests.

* The Murray-Darling basin covers one million square kilometres (386,000 square miles) and is home to two million people. It has 30,000 wetlands.

* Irrigated agriculture uses 70 percent of all water used in Australia, drawing 14,000 gigalitres a year. About 30 percent is lost in transport through open canals.

* The country's top science agency estimates that by 2020, annual river flows could decline by 15 percent because of climate change, bushfires and increased water use. Source: Reuters

AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit                                                                                  Permalink