00:00For the Aboriginal communities along the Roper, much of life revolves around the river.
00:07For people in Jilmingen, I would say the water is our life.
00:13The Mungerai people have been sounding the alarm about a system they say is changing.
00:18Most of our fishing spot, like our go-to fishing spot, has been dropping really low.
00:26Nowadays you can see the bank.
00:28Now, a study from Griffith University is validating their claims.
00:33We started to see that the recovery of the system from dry season conditions became slower and slower.
00:40Using satellite data that tracks changes in gravity across the Earth's surface,
00:44the team found evidence of groundwater depletion over the last decade.
00:49We might be actually, through that water extraction that's happening in the aquifer,
00:53sort of lessening the resilience of the aquifer and all its connected surface water systems
00:58to those drought periods in the future, making it more vulnerable.
01:02In the years since 1980, the most severe and widespread droughts have been in the mid-2000s.
01:11And yet satellite images show surface water across the area growing from 2003 to 2011,
01:17as strong wet seasons recharge the system.
01:20Then, in the more recent period from 2011 to 2022, surface water has been shrinking.
01:27In the last ten years, some of the surface water did not just shrink, some were actually permanently lost.
01:35The study stands in stark contrast with the rosy picture painted by the NT government's water science.
01:41The Department of Lands Planning and Environment told the ABC
01:44any suggestion of a link between reduced groundwater storage and extraction licences was false,
01:50and that groundwater storage remains strong.
01:53Maybe they can stop taking more water out of the country,
01:58and maybe actually come and see what they are damaging and destroying.
02:03A major new water licence for a cotton, melon and mango operation in the fields around Larimer
02:08was granted in recent months.
02:10No, this is at where the virus is from.
02:11The standard traffic is a transformer for few weeks.
02:12So it's a new water, which I don't want to stop the market in recent months.
02:13And the percussion's and mechanical system, I hope that the stream in the field
02:14is completely unwinded at the moment.
02:15And the thing about the sailing problem is, I don't want to stop the seas into the weather
02:16and all that happens in recent months.
02:17And the wind is that they are waterproof but they areAir and the air.
02:19The thing about the water, the wind is of the water, which is some of the air,
02:20and the air, and in the air that I do not力 is far enough.
02:21It's also a bit more uneasy because it's not pubic.
02:22A little bit of this plantains
02:33and adds a lot of the water that he has got that into space.
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