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The Big PicturevariabilityANNUAL RAINFALL IN mm3000250020001500100026 inches5000Melbourne88 inches95 inches67 inches48 inches31 inches22 inchesCairns Perth Sydney Darwin Adelaide Queenstown(TAS)SELECTED LOCATIONSCOEFFICIENT (%)20181614121086420Australia S.Africa Germany France NZ India UK Canada China USA RussiaCOUNTRYFigure 2. Rainfall variability in several countries including AustraliaThe height of each bar is a measure of variability. Australia’s variability is twice thatof the UK’s and nearly four times that of Russia.Source: G Love, Impacts of climate variability on regional Australia, paper presented at ABAREOutlook 2005 Conference, Canberra, 2005, Figure 1. Rainfall variation around AustraliaThe extreme nature of this rainfall variability becomes apparent if we compare long-term(80- to 100-year) rainfall records from various places around Australia. A consequenceof this variability is that our streams and rivers display huge variations in their naturalflow rates due to varying amounts of runoff – between winter and summer and alsofrom year to year.Source: Watermark Australia, session notes no. 2, Melbourne, 2005, .REFERENCEs1. W Craik, The drought along the Murray, ABC News Online, 18 December 2006,.2. Water and Rivers Commission Report to Environment Australia, Productivityand water flow regulation in the Ord River of north Western Australia, Department of theEnvironment and Water Resources, 2003, pp. xii–xiv, .3. C Miller, The Snowy River story, ABC Books & Audio, Sydney, 2005, p. 240.Some other useful sources• D Smith, Water in Australia, Oxford University Press, Australia, 1998, ch. 1.• M White, After the greening – the browning of Australia, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1994.20 Victorian Women’s Trust - Our Water Mark