"We never know the worth of water until the well is dry," said Charles Sturt University agriculture's Emeritus Professor Jim Pratley, who has advocated sharing far more of Australia's abundant coastal rainfall with inland communities and river systems.

That included getting serious about piping schemes to help manage drought risks, and potentially drawing water south from northern Australia.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Desalination strategies should be mainstream across the country, too, as should wastewater recycling, particularly in major cities such as Sydney which currently pumped treated water out to sea.

A major change of mindset was required to address the nation's water sustainability need, because doing nothing was no longer an option.

"Most of our rainfall goes out to sea rather than inland, which seems an enormous waste of a scarce resource," he said.

Despite recent weeks of drenching rainfall and extensive coastal region flooding, Professor Pratley said Australia's highly variable water supply was growing even more variable and severe droughts were more frequent.

Another big dry would likely hit within two or three years.

Our coast-based policy makers and voting majority needed to recognise the damage their "out of sight, out of mind" attitudes on water sharing were doing to inland communities, the national economy and taxpayers in general.

"South-eastern Australia has suffered about eight drought years since 2000 - double the incidence of drought experienced in the decades before," he said.

"In NSW alone the gross value of production fell 50 per cent or more in these years, and there were legacy losses for one to three years following."

Given a "normal" year in that state alone would generate about $12 billion, foregoing half its agriculture productivity over eight drought years since 2000 probably cost it close to $50b.

"Is this really something we can ignore?" questioned Professor Pratley, a prominent agricultural education identity for more than 40 years and research chief at CSU's Wagga Wagga School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences.

"We need strategic vision focused on water sustainability for our communities."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: