And the just-released figure has sent shockwaves through southern States as politicians and media commentators attack what they describe as Queensland's "cowboy culture" irrigators.

The 1014GL extraction was also fuel for the Greens and South Australian Independent senator Nick Xenophon this week in their demand for a senate inquiry to locate all the water in the basin, in a bid to rescue the parched lower lakes in Sen Xenophon's home State.

Sen Xenophon has said there could be a need for compulsory acquisition of farmers' water if it would save the river system.

In worrying words for Queensland irrigators, he also alluded that water would be better spent on saving South Australian irrigators than on annual crops.

"It isn't a question of targeting any State, but finding out where the water is and how it can best be used and whether it is reasonable - given the crisis the lower lakes are facing - to be flood irrigating wheat or other annual crops when there is an imperative to avoid irreversible damage, not just to lower lakes, but also to the permanent plantings along the MDB," he said.

"I think it makes good economic and environmental sense to tackle those (issues) ahead of any annual crops."

But water experts and irrigators have dismissed the merit of a compulsory acquisition as being misguided and likewise the "cowboy" allegations.

Queensland Farmers' Federation water expert Ian Johnson said more than half of Queensland water did not rely on bulk storages and regular allocation, as is typically the case moving south.

This creates a vastly different system of water collection and use in Queensland.

"Hence those regimes are under more certain supply conditions in the south," Mr Johnson said.

"They look up at us and say, 'my god, they took 1000GL, which was a record'.

"But they don't consider that our average take is about 490GL per year for the 13 years on record."

* Extract from a special report in Queensland Country Life, August 28 edition.