The third and final stage of the G-FLOWS research program included targeted drilling to secure water supplies. “People have known about these valleys for a long time but knowing precisely where they are has been more difficult.” Refining the discovery of an ancient water source For the last 5 million years they have been filled up with sediments and wind-blown sand and hidden from view,” Munday added. “These valleys started to erode and form about 60 million years ago. “This work is a big step forward and was supported by an 11 well drilling program, which provided critical insight into the palaeovalleys as a potential water resource.” “The G-FLOWS team has now created the most detailed and refined information on palaeovalleys across the whole APY region,” Gilfedder says. The project, which included three stages and took place over a decade, investigated the role large buried palaeovalley systems can play as a potential groundwater resource for community and enterprises such as mining and grazing and with the support of the local community and the APY Executive Board.ĬSIRO’s Dr Tim Munday Research Director of CSIRO’s Deep Earth Imaging Future Science Platform and Dr Mat Gilfedder a Senior Research Scientist with CSIRO Land and Water joined forces to lead the research investigations with Flinders University for the project known as the Goyder Institute’s G-FLOWS – aimed at finding long-term outback water solutions. A hidden resource revealedĪ collaboration between CSIRO, Flinders University and the South Australian Government, under the auspices of the Goyder Institute for Water Research, has unearthed water-bearing palaeovalleys systems below the surface, which are tens of millions of years old. Held under title by Traditional Owners, the landscape is as beautiful as it is harsh but as CSIRO has discovered…it is also deceiving. The Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (or APY lands) is a large, sparsely populated area where summer temperatures soar high into the 40s and rainfall averages about 230mm per year. Standing on the red dusty earth in the middle of the arid lands of northwest South Australia, it becomes glaringly obvious just how important water is for these remote communities. The dry Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (or APY lands) in South Australia
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