Bulletin 125: Looking at the numbers

Lakes Hub Bulletin 125

Click the image to download (pdf)

Numbers can be bewildering sometimes, taking even the slightest peek back at my Year 12 Physics notes is enough to straighten my hair… Don’t panic, that’s not happening.

I do love a good number fact though, so let’s have a look at a few:

We all know our litres, so if you take 1 million (1,000,000) Litres you have a Megalitre.

1 Billion (1,000,000,000) Litres is a Gigalitre (GL), which we hear a lot about!

We know our metres and kilometres; if we take 1 square km, that equals 100 hectares (ha). Lake Alexandrina covers 64,950 ha (slightly bigger than Chicago at 58,820ha), and Lake Albert is 17,540ha (about the size of Washington, DC at 17,700ha)

The volume of water depends on the level… but at 0.75 metres AHD, Lake Alexandrina would hold approximately 1,610 GL, about three times the volume of Sydney Harbour. Lake Albert would hold 270GL, about half the volume of Sydney Harbour (being approx. 562 GL).

2 million tonnes of salt is said to come down the river system each year (which needs flushing out) equalling about one-third the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza, or to put that in a little perspective, 200 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower (at 10,100 tonnes).

So there you go, some staggering stats!

I’ve also included this week, on the Levels page, a table showing the Electrical Conductivity (“EC”, a measurement of salt) for various types of water, which gives the numbers on that page a little more context.

Have a great week,
Stuart Jones.

Highlights this week…

  • Looking at the numbers
  • Climate Change
  • Signal Point Riverine Environment Group AGM
  • One River
  • CLLMM Bird Monitoring
  • Up-Coming Events
  • Lake Levels & Salinity etc.
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