Geography of Australia

http://www.all-laptopfan.com/,http://www.all-keyboard.com/ The geography of Australia encompasses a wide variety of biogeographic regions being the world's smallest continentbut the sixth-largest country in the world. The population of Australia is concentrated along the eastern and southeastern coasts. The geography of the country is extremely diverse, ranging from the snow-capped mountains of theAustralian Alps and Tasmania to large deserts, tropical and temperate forests. ACER Aspire 3003LCi CPU Fan Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatuand the French dependency of New Caledonia to the east, and New Zealand to the southeast. Australia is a country, and an island. It is located in Oceania between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. It is the sixth largest country in the world with a total area of 7,686,850 square kilometers (2,967,909 sq. mi) HP Pavilion dv7-6187cl CPU Fan (including Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island), making it slightly smaller than the 48 states of the contiguous United States and 31.5 times larger than the United Kingdom. The Australian mainland has a total coastline length of 35,876 km (22,292 mi) with an additional 23,859 km (14,825 mi) of island coastlines.^[1] There are 758 estuaries around the country with most located in the tropical and sub-tropical zones.^[2] HP Pavilion dv7-1128ca CPU Fan Australia claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,057 sq. mi). This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. Australia has the largest area of ocean jurisdiction of any country on earth.^[3] It has no land borders. The northernmost points of the country are the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland and the Top End of the Northern Territory. HP Pavilion dv6-3216us CPU Fan The western half of Australia consists of the Western Plateau, which rises to mountain heights near the west coast and falls to lower elevations near the continental centre. The Western Plateau region is generally flat, though broken by various mountain ranges such as the Hamersley Range, the MacDonnell Ranges, and the Musgrave Range. Surface water is generally lacking in the Western Plateau, HP Pavilion dv6565el CPU Fan although there are several larger rivers in the west and north, such as the Murchison,Ashburton, and Victoria river. The Eastern Highlands, or Great Dividing Range, lie near the eastern coast of Australia, separating the relatively narrow eastern coastal plain from the rest of the continent. These Eastern Australian temperate forests have the greatest relief, the most rainfall, the most abundant and varied flora and fauna, and the densest human settlement. DELL Latitude E6410 CPU Fan Between the Eastern Highlands and the Western Plateau, lie the Central Lowlands, which are made up of the Great Artesian Basin and Australia's largest river systems, Murray-Darling Basin and Lake Eyre Basin. Off the eastern coast of Australia is the world's largest coral reef complex, the Great Barrier Reef. The State of Tasmania, a large and mountainous island, resides in the south-eastern corner of Australia. HP Pavilion dv6-2066dx CPU Fan Australia is the lowest, flattest, and oldest continental landmass on Earth  and it has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Its highest peak is Mount Kosciuszko at 2,228 metres (7,310 ft), which is relatively low in comparison to the highest mountains on other continents. HP 610777-001 CPU Fan Erosion has heavily weathered Australia's surface. Australia is situated in the middle of the tectonic plate, and therefore currently has no active volcanism. Minor earthquakes which produce no damage occur regularly, while major earthquakes measuring greater than magnitude 6 occur on average every five years.^[4] Samsung MCF-913PAM05-40 CPU Fan The terrain is mostly low plateau with deserts, rangelands and a fertile plain in the southeast. Tasmania and the Australian Alps do not contain any permanent icefields or glaciers, although they may have existed in the past. The Great Barrier Reef, by far the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast. Because much of Australia's interior is arid, the low average annual rainfall means interior rivers are often dry and lakes empty.HP Pavilion dv7-2140eo CPU Fan The headwaters of some waterways are located in tropical regions where summer rains create a high rate of discharge. Flood events drastically alter the dry environment in which the ecology of central Australia has had to adapt to the boom and bust cycle. The Great Artesian Basin is an important source of water, the world's largest and deepest fresh water basin. HP Envy 15-1060ea CPU Fan Access to water from the basin has led to the expansion of grazing into areas that were previously far too dry for livestock. Towns and cities across the country sometimes face major water storage and usage crisis in which restrictions and other measures are implemented to reduce water consumption. Water restrictions are based on a gradient of activities that become progressively banned as the situation worsens. HP Pavilion dv4-2140us CPU Fan Billabong is the Australian name given to the oxbow lakes that can form along a meandering river's course. In a world-wide comparison of height, Australia's waterfalls are relatively insignificant, with the longest drop ranked 135th according to the World Waterfall Database. Australia consists of six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. COMPAQ Presario F500 CPU Fan The states areNew South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. Western Australia is the largest state covering just under one third of the Australian landmass, followed by Queensland and New South Wales. Australia also has several minor territories; the federal government administers a separate area within New South Wales, the Jervis Bay Territory, as a naval base and sea port for the national capital. HP Pavilion dv2310ca CPU Fan In addition Australia has the following, inhabited, external territories: Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and several largely uninhabited external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands and the Australian Antarctic Territory. By far the largest part of Australia is arid or semi-arid. A total of 18% of Australia's mainland isdesert.^[7] Compaq Presario C554US CPU Fan Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the country has a tropical climate: part is tropical rainforests, part grasslands, and part desert. Rainfall is highly variable, with frequent droughts lasting several seasons thought to be caused in part by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. HP Pavilion dv9660ef CPU Fan Occasionally a dust storm will blanket a region or even several states and there are reports of the occasional large tornado. Rising levels of salinity and desertification in some areas is ravaging the landscape. Australia's tropical/subtropical location and cold waters off the western coast make most of western Australia a hot desert with aridity, a marked feature of the greater part of the continent. SONY UDQF2PH05-AS CPU Fan These cold waters produce little moisture needed on the mainland. A 2005 study by Australian and American researchers investigated the desertification of the interior, and suggested that one explanation was related to human settlers who arrived about 50,000 years ago. Regular burning by these settlers could have prevented monsoons from reaching interior Australia. The outback covers 70 percent of the continent. SONY Vaio VGN-A17CP CPU Fan Current environmental issues include: soil erosion from overgrazing, industrial development, urbanization, and poor farming practices; soil salinity rising due to the use of poor quality water; desertification (partly as a result of the introduction by European settlers of Rabbits); introduced pest species; clearing for agricultural purposes threatens the natural habitat of many unique animal and plant species; Toshiba G20 CPU Fan the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast, the largest coral reef in the world, is threatened by increased shipping and its popularity as a tourist site; limited natural fresh water resources; threats from invasive species. The geology of Australia includes virtually all known rock types and from all geological time periods spanning over 3.8 billion years of the Earth's history. DELL Vostro 1510 CPU Fan Australia's geology can be divided into several main sections; the Archaean cratonic shields, Proterozoic fold belts and sedimentary basins, Phanerozoicsedimentary basins, and Phanerozoic metamorphic and igneous rocks. Australia as a separate continent began to form after the breakup of Gondwana in the Permian, with the separation of the continental landmass from the African continent and Indian subcontinent. Australia rifted from Antarctica in the Cretaceous.ACER Aspire One A150-1249 CPU Fan The current Australian continental mass is composed of a thick subcontinental lithosphere, over 200 km thick in the western two thirds and 100 km thick in the younger eastern third. The Australian continental crust, excluding the thinned margins, has an average thickness of 38 km, with a range in thickness from 24 km to 59 km. The continental crust is composed primarily of Archaean, Proterozoic and some Palaeozoic granites and gneisses. A thin veneer of mainly Phanerozoic sedimentary basins cover much of the Australian landmass (these are up to 7 km thick). HP Pavilion dv9766ez CPU Fan These in turn are currently undergoing erosion by a combination of aeolian and fluvial processes, forming extensive sand dune systems, deep and prolonged development of laterite and saprolite profiles, and development of playa lakes, salt lakes and ephemeral drainage. The geologic history of the Australian continental mass is extremely prolonged and involved, continuing from the Archaean to the recent. Dell Vostro 3400 CPU Fan In a gross pattern, continental Australia grew from west to east, with Archean rocks mostly in the west, Proterozoic rocks in the centre, and Phanerozoic rocks in the east. Recent geologic events are confined to intraplate earthquakes, as the continent of Australia sits distant from the plate boundary. The Australian continent evolved in five broad but distinct time periods, namely: 3800–2100 Ma, 2100–1300 Ma, 1300–600 Ma, 600–160 Ma and 160 Ma to the present. SONY Vaio VGN-SZ4MRN/B CPU Fan The first period saw the growth of nuclei about which cratonic elements grew, whereas the latter four periods involved the amalgamation and dispersal of Nuna, Rodinia and Pangea, respectively. The Australian landmass has been part of all major supercontinents, but its association with Gondwana is especially notable as important correlations have been made geologically with the African continental mass and Antarctica. DELL Inspiron 1720 CPU Fan Australia separated from Antarctica over a prolonged period beginning in the Permian and continuing through to the Cretaceous(84 Ma).Continental Australia is unique among the continents in that the measured stress field is not parallel to the present day north–northeast directed plate motion. Most of the stress state in continental Australia is controlled by compression originating from the three main collision boundaries located in New Zealand, ASUS BFB0705HA CPU Fan Indonesia and New Guinea, and the Himalaya(transmitted through the Indian and Capricorn plates). South of latitude -30°, the stress trajectories are oriented east–west to northwest–southeast. North of this latitude, the stress trajectories are closer to the present day plate motion, being oriented east-northeast–west-southwest to northeast–southwest. HP G56-106EA CPU Fan Notably, the main stress trajectories diverge most markedly from one another in north–central New South Wales (east–southeast to north–northeast), although the area is not known historically for earthquake activity. Young mountain building (< 5 Ma) in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia is driven from plate convergence at the boundary in New Zealand. HP Pavilion dv7-1135nr CPU Fan There are three main cratonic shields of recognised Archaean age within the Australian landmass: The Yilgarn, the Pilbara and the Gawler cratons. Several other Archaean-Proterozoic orogenic belts exist, usually sandwiched around the edges of these major cratonic shields. The history of the Archaean cratons is extremely complex and protracted. Dell Latitude E6510 CPU Fan The cratons appear to have been assembled to form the greater Australian landmass in the late Archaean to mesoProterozoic, (~2400 Ma to 1,600 Ma). Chiefly the Capricorn Orogeny is partly responsible for the assembly of the West Australian landmass by joining the Yilgarn and Pilbara cratons. The Capricorn Orogeny is exposed in the rocks of the Bangemall Basin, DELL DC280005FF0 CPU Fan Gascoyne Complex granite-gneisses and the Glengarry, Yerrida and Padbury basins. Unknown Proterozoic orogenic belts, possibly similar to the Albany Complex in southern Western Australia and the Musgrave Block, represent the Proterozoic link between the Yilgarn and Gawler cratons, covered by the Proterozoic-Palaeozoic Officer and Amadeus basins. HP KSB0605HB CPU Fan\ The assembly of the Archaean Yilgarn and Pilbara cratons of Australia was initiated at ~2200 Ma during the first phases of the Capricorn orogen. The last stages of the 2770-2300 Ma Hamersley Basin on the southern margin of the Pilbara Craton are Palaeoproterozoic and record the last stable submarine-fluviatile environments between the two cratons prior to the rifting, HP 580696-001 CPU Fan contraction and assembly of the intracratonic ~1800 Ma Ashburton and Blair basins, the 1600-1070 Ma Edmund and Collier basins, the 1840-1620 Ma northern Gascoyne Complex, the 2000-1780 Ma Glenburgh Terrane in the southern Gascoyne Complex and the Errabiddy Shear Zone at the northwestern margin of the Yilgarn Craton. Between approximately 2000-1800 Ma, on the northern margin of the Yilgarn Craton, the c. HP Pavilion dv7-4014eo CPU Fan 1890 Ma Narracoota Volcanics of the Bryah Basin formed in a transverse back-arc rift sag basin during collision. Culmination of the cratonic collision resulted in the foreland sedimentary Padbury Basin. To the east the Yerrida and Eerarheedy Basins were passive margins along the Yilgarn's northern margin. The c. 1830 Ma phase of the Capricorn Orogeny in this section of the Pilbara-Yilgarn boundary resulted in deformation of the Bryah-Padbury Basin and the western fringe of the Yerrida Basin, along with flood basalts. DELL Studio 1555 CPU Fan The Yapungku Orogeny (~1790 Ma) formed the Stanley Fold Belt on the northern margin of the Eerarheedy Basin, via assembly of the Archaean-Proterozoic fold belts of Northern Australia. East Australian Events The Palaeoproterozoic in southeastern Australia is represented by the polydeformed high-grade gneiss terranes of the Willyama Supergroup, Olary Block and Broken Hill Block, in South Australia and New South Wales. HP G62-339WM CPU Fan The Palaeoproterozoic in the north of Australia is represented mostly by the Mount Isa Block and complex fold-thrust belts. These rocks, aside from suffering intense deformation, record a period of widespread platform cover sedimentation, ensialic rift-sag sedimentation including widespread dolomite platform cover, and extensive phosphorite deposition in the deeper sea beds.HP Pavilion dv5-1145ev CPU Fan HP F787 CPU Fan The Stavely Zone in Victoria is a boninite to MORB basalt terrane considered to have been connected with the boninites the Mount Read Volcanics of Northern Tasmania. In New South Wales, extensive deepwater sedimentation formed the Adaminaby Beds in Victoria and New South Wales. The Lachlan Fold Belt ophiolite sequences are considered to be of Cambrian age, and are obducted during the Lachlan Orogen. HP Pavilion dv7-3155eb CPU Fan The Petermann Orogeny in Central Australia, which started at the end of the Neoproterozoic, continued into the Cambrian, shedding a thick intracontinental sequence of fluvial sediments into the central Australian landmass. Marginal platforms and passive margin basins existed in South Australia - - formed in the foreland of the Delamerian Orogeny. Western Australian passive margin basins and platform cover begin at this stage. DELL Studio 1458 CPU Fan The extensive Antrim Plateau flood basalts, covering in excess of 12,000 square kilometres, erupt in the Cambrian of Western Australia, providing a useful chronostratigraphic marker. The late Cambrian to early Ordovician saw deepwater sedimentation of the St Arnaud and Castlemaine Group turbidites, which are now emplaced in the Stawell and Bendigo Zones. Toshiba Satellite A505-S6970 CPU Fan The middle Ordovician saw the deposition of the Sunbury Group in the Melbourne Zone, Bendoc Group and formation of the Molong Arc, a calc-alkaline volcanic arc which is related to the Kiandra Group turbidites. During the Silurian Period most of the Australian continent in the west and centre was dry land. However from Geraldton north to Exmouth Gulf along the far Western Australian coast a fluvial sediment basin existed. HP Pavilion dv6-3090si CPU Fan Near Kalbarri on the Murchison River the footprints of a giant water scorpion were found on land, the first animal to walk on the Australian continent. A gulf linked to the sea existed under what is now the Great Sandy Desert. Meanwhile in the east there were volcanic arcs in New England, also west of Townsville and Cairns, and in NSW and Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.HP G60-215EM CPU Fan Deep water sediments formed in the Cowra, Tumut and Hillend Troughs. The Yass Molong rise was a row of volcanoes. Granite intrusions formed in New South Wales and Victoria from 435 to 425 Mya, with the Bega batholith as young as 400 Mya. In NSW granites the distinction between I-type and S-type granites was discovered. During the Devonian Period conditions were warm in Australia. Toshiba Satellite A100-011 CPU Fan There was a large bay in the great Sandy Desert with reefs. The Calliope Arc went from the north of Rockhampton south to Grafton. Most of the centre and west of Australia was land mass. There were volcanic mountains off the current east coast supplying sediment into a basin on parts of the east. The basin contained limestone and river deposited sand. DELL XPS M1210 CPU Fan Andesite and Rhyolite volcanoes were found in central NSW, the Snowy Mountains, Eden, New England and near Clermont, Queensland. Baragwanathia longifolia was the first Australian land plant appearing at this time. The Tabberabberan Orogeny compressed the eastern seaboard in an east west direction, with Tasmania, Victoria and southern New South Wales folded 385 - 380 Mya. Northern NSW and Queensland was compressed 377 to 352 Mya.  HP G62-120SL CPU Fan A major river drained the continental interior and passed eastwards at Parkes. The Bungle Bungle Range sandstone was formed in Western Australia from river sands. More Granite was intruded in the Devonian. The Carboniferous Period saw the Eastern Highlands of Australia form as a result of its collision with what are now parts of South America (e.g. the Sierra de Cordoba) and New Zealand. HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo CPU Fan At the time they were formed they are believed to have been as high as any mountains on the planet today, but they have been almost completely eroded in the 280 million years since. Another notable feature of Carboniferous Australia was a major ice age which left over half of the continent glaciated. Evidence for the cold conditions can be seen not only in glacial features dating from this period but also in fossil Gelisols from as far north as the Hunter River basin. Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5950 CPU Fan he Permian to Triassic in Australia is dominated by subduction zones on the eastern margin of the landmass, part of the Hunter-Bowen Orogeny. This was a major arc-accretion, subduction and back-arc sedimentary basin forming event which persisted episodically from approximately late Carboniferous in its initial stages, through the Permian and terminated in the Middle Triassic at around 229Ma to 225Ma. SONY Vaio VGN-BZ11MN CPU Fan In Western and Central Australia the then-extensive central Australian mountain ranges such as the Petermann Ranges were eroded by the Permian glacial event, resulting in thick marine to fluvial glacial tillite and fossiliferous limestone deposits and extensive platform cover. Rifting of Australia from India and Africa began in the Permian, resulting in the production of a rift basin and half-grabens of the basal portions of the long-lived Perth Basin. SONY Vaio VGN-TX91S CPU Fan Petroleum was formed in the Swan Coastal Plain and Pilbara during this rifting, presumably in a rift valley lake where the bottom was deoxygenated (akin to Africa's Lake Tanganyika today). In the west of Australia the Jurassic was a tropical savannah to jungle environment, shown by advanced tropical weathering preserved in the regolith of theYilgarn craton which is still preserved today. Toshiba Satellite A100-849 CPU Fan Australia began rifting away from Antarctica in the Jurassic, which formed the Gippsland, Bass and Otway Basins in Victoria and the offshore shelf basins of South Australia and Western Australia, all of which host significant oil and gas deposits. Jurassic coal-bearing basins were formed in north central Queensland, with significant marine platform cover extending across most of central Australia. Gateway MT6400 CPU Fan Continued passive-margin subsidence and marine transgressions in the Perth Basin of Western Australia continued, with the Jurassic Cattamarra Coal Measures a notable fluvial terrigenous formation of the Jurassic. The initial rifting of Australia and Antarctica in the Jurassic continued through the Cretaceous, with offshore development of a mid ocean ridge seafloor spreading centre. Toshiba Satellite A100-849 CPU Fan Tasmania was rifted off during this stage. Cretaceous volcanism in the offshore of Queensland was related to a minor episode of arc formation, typified by the Whitsunday Islands, followed by development of offshore coral platforms, passive margin basins and far-field volcanism throughout the quiet Hunter-Bowen orogenic belt. Cretaceous sedimentation continued in the Surat Basin. Dell Vostro 3350 CPU Fan Some small Cretaceous volcanism was present at the edges of basement highs in the Great Artesian Basin, resulting in some sparse volcanic plugs today. Water security in Australia has become a major concern over the course of the late 20th and early 21st century as a result of population growth, severedrought, fears of the effects of global warming on Australia, environmental degradation from reduced environmental flows, competition between competing interests such as grazing, irrigation and urban water supplies, and competition between upstream and downstream users. ACER Aspire 4733 CPU Fan Water reform was first placed on the national agenda at the 1994 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting when a strategic framework was devised.^[1] As the knowledge of surface and groundwater systems grew and the awareness of the significance of sustainable water markets increased, further water reform was agreed to at the 2004 COAG meeting, under a national blueprint known as the National Water Initiative (NWI). HP Pavilion dv8335ea CPU Fan Australia can be divided into 12 major drainage divisions. For example, the Murray-Darling drainage division consists of the Murray River basin and the Darling River basin. Three of these drainage division account for 87% of the water that Australia consumes – the North East Coast division, the South East Coast division, and the Murray-Darling. This means that the supply of water within Australia is highly concentrated, and any defect to one of these major water divisions can cause major water security issues. Dell Vostro 3400 CPU Fan Since the turn of the 21st century, there have been attempts to establish a privatised water market in Australia, with the state of Victoria acting as a model for other states. Many political parties, community groups, NGO's and other groups and people see the privatisation of water as a denial of basic human rights on behalf of State and Federal Governments. APPLE MG62090V1-Q020-S99 CPU Fan Water privatisation is a highly controversial topic and touches on the much broader arguments for and against the private control of formerly public services. A major boundary which affects effective water management is the highly variable precipitation levels of Australia – Australian rainfall is more variable than rainfall in rest of the world since it is driven by the Southern Oscillation rather than by seasonal changes.^[2] APPLE 15" Macbook Pro Unibody CPU Fan The result is that for the same level of reliability of supply, dams in Australia need to be six times as large as those in Europe and twice as large as the world average to ensure water sources do not run dry during dry seasons. In Australia there is competition for the resources of the Darling River system between Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Similarly there is competition for the resources of the Murray River between NSW, Gateway 6020GZ CPU Fan Victoria and South Australia. The South Australian government established a new ministerial portfolio of Water Security as the water security issues facing South Australia and the Lower Lakes and Coorong emerged.^[3] South Australia also has an Independent Commissioner for Water Security. The National Water Commission is an independent statutory body within the Department of Sustainability, Toshiba Satellite Pro M30-891 CPU Fan Environment, Water, Population and Communities that was established under the National Water Commission Act 2004 to implement the National Water Initiative and reform the broader national water agenda.^[1] The National Water Commission published a report on the future need for desalination technologies to play a role in securing Australia’s water supplies.^[8] Toshiba Satellite Pro M30-782 CPU Fan It also publishes a biennial assessment of progress in implementation of the National Water Initiative, the latest being in October 2009. The 2009 assessment nominates areas of slow or inadequate reform and makes 68 recommendations for action over the next two years. Several major capital works are currently under construction in an effort to privatise the nation's water. HP Pavilion dv5-1050eo CPU Fan Water desalination has been introduced as a way of creating new water to increase the security of the supply of water, at huge financial costs, environmental losses and increased greenhouse gas emissions, while several pipelines are under construction in an effort to link regional systems to facilitate the trading of water.^[19] Price rises for consumers have been highest in Sydney where water deliveries are provided by Australia's largest utility, Sydney Water.^[20] SONY VGN-SZ220 CPU Fan The policies of several State Governments moves away from sustainable water management and divests themselves of their responsibilities to provide sustainable, just and affordable, potable water to their population. The Kurnell Desalination Plant constructed by the NSW Government at Kurnell near Botany Bay has commenced operations. The power usage is to be offset by a new wind farm. Sydney also draws water from the Shoalhaven River near Nowra. Dell Studio XPS 1645 CPU Fan Hunter Water Corporation proposes a dam, Tillegra Dam, on the Williams River in Dungog Shire in the Upper Hunter Region. When completed, the dam will hold 450 billion litres of water. The estimated cost of the dam is around $300 million ($477 Million as at April 2010). Included in the dam proposal is a hydro-power generation plant which will generate around 3,000 megawatt hours of energy each year. ACER eMachines 7230 CPU Fan Hunter Water is also proposing to plant 1.5 million trees as carbon offsets. The need for this dam is strongly disputed and subject to review by the NSW Government Department of Planning. Hunter Water claims the dam is required to "drought proof" Newcastle and the Central Coast.^[21] Opponents say the dam is grossly excessive for this need, will drown valuable agricultural land and greater water efficiency, demand management and recycling would eliminate the need for the dam. DELL Latitude E4300 CPU Fan The Victorian state government plans several major construction projects to be completed as Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs), in an effort to link state water supplies. These projects are designed to establish a state-wide water market in preparation of the privatisation of Victoria's water.^[19] The works include a $3.1 billion desalination plant to be built near Wonthaggi by the end of 2011,^[24] SONY Vaio VGN-A29LP CPU Fan the North-South pipeline to connect water supplies from the Goulburn Valley to Melbourne and Central Victoria, and an interconnector pipeline connecting the Geelong-Ballarat region. Many argue that in privatising Victoria's water resources and creating a market to trade water between regions, the State Government is divesting itself from its core human rights responsibilities to ensure potable water to the population it represents.^[19HP Pavilion dv7t-6100 CTO CPU Fan ^] This would come at great environmental cost, increase energy usage, decrease efficience, ignore sustainable water management options and increase end-user water costs, placing water privatisation as a high risk to water security in Victoria, despite its acceptance by the state government. On 24 October 2009 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Lachlan River would stop flowing west of Condoblin within weeks as flows are slashed to keep only part of the river flowing, HP Pavilion dv7-3163cl CPU Fan that the Wyangala Dam could be empty by mid summer (15 January 2010) and that thousands of households will need to have water trucked to them. This situation follows 8 years of drought. Farmers in the area of the Lachlan Valley where the river will not flow are deeply concerned for the viability of their farms. More than 100,000 people live in the total Lachlan catchment. HP Pavilion dv7-4140ed CPU Fan 14% of NSW agricultural production is generated in the region from a land area of approximately 10% of NSW. The states and mainland territories of the Commonwealth of Australia combine to make up the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Australia comprises six states and various territories; the Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories (including small, somewhat anomalous Jervis Bay), Compaq Presario CQ60-155ep CPU Fan with the sixth island state of Tasmania to the south of the mainland. In addition, there are six island territories, known as external territories, and Australian Antarctic Territory. All states and two of the three internal grounds have their own parliaments and administer themselves; all remaining territories are administered by the federal government, but with Norfolk Island having some degree of self-government. HP Mini 110-3000sd CPU Fan The states originated as separate British colonies prior to Federation (in 1901). The colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788 and originally comprised much of the Australian mainland, as well as Lord Howe Island, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Van Diemen's Land, in addition to the area currently referred to as the state of New South Wales. Compaq Presario CQ60-155ep CPU Fan