Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth with highly variable rainfall, yet is also one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters with over A$38 billion in exports in 2012/13. Much of Australian agriculture occurs in inland areas of high evaporation and low rainfall relying upon water from large river systems with extremely variable flow rates.  As a result, the ability to store water in reservoirs from periods of high river levels is crucial to the viability of local agriculture.

 

Australia has over 85,000 GL of water storage capacity, much of it located in agricultural areas where evaporation causes losses of 2-3 meters of water per year.