More children will drown in dams and other hazards without a big increase in spending on water awareness, drowning prevention campaigners say.
The body of a 22-month-old boy was retrieved from a dam at Cooroibah, on the Sunshine Coast, on Monday morning, after he disappeared from the family home 15 hours earlier, wearing only a nappy and a Wiggles singlet.
He is the third Queensland toddler to drown in a dam in a week.
On Friday, a two-year-old girl drowned on a rural property at Tallegalla, west of Brisbane.
Last Monday, a two-year-old boy drowned on a farm at Eidsvold, 400km northwest of Brisbane.
Drowning prevention group, Hannah's Foundation, says such deaths could be prevented if more money was spent on water awareness campaigns.
Funding for drowning prevention and support services for the bereaved families of drowning victims "is almost non-existent because there is no income derived from them", the foundation's Andrew Plint told AAP.
"The Australian government wants to see a 50 per cent reduction in the coming years, and to obtain this reduction they are going to have to double their spending to get the messages out there."
Mr Plint said parents needed to take extra care during the wet months.
"Parents need to constantly reassess risks around the house - buckets, or wheelbarrows that are filled with water, dams, creeks, and rivers - to make sure they are aware of the hazards that are nearby and make sure they educate the kids," he told AAP.
The foundation said there had been a heavy demand for support services over the summer, and drownings could be on the rise with more rain expected to fill creeks and dams.
Brisbane has had its wettest February in more than a decade, with 261mm of rain recorded so far - more than 100mm above the monthly average and beating the decade's previous monthly high of 244mm in 2003.
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