Att. blackhawks - Thanks to heavy rain, Australia’s environment scores a 7 out of 10 – but the future remains bleak
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Published: March 17, 2022 6.28am AEDT
Authors Albert Van Dijk Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Shoshana Rapley Research assistant, Australian National University
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After the devastating floods, it’s hard to imagine only two years earlier many hard-hit communities suffered extreme heat, drought and unprecedented bushfires. Yet our report .. https://www.wenfo.org/aer/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2021-AusEnvReport-160322.pdf , released today, shows Australia’s environment has recovered dramatically since then.
The improvement is largely thanks to two years of plentiful rains that helped Australia’s forests, pastures and farmland recover well.
But as the rains only increased in 2022, inundating many parts of southeast Australia, you may well be wondering: can there be too much rain for our environment? And what might this all mean for the coming bushfire seasons?
First, let’s look back at 2021
We assessed Australia’s environment using 15 key indicators, such as water availability, bushfire, population pressures and vegetation health. Combined, these help determine the overall “environmental condition score”.
On our website .. https://www.wenfo.org/aer/ , you can also find regional scores for your state or territory, local government area, catchment and electorate. Unusually, scores improved almost everywhere.
Floodwaters reached a staggering 14 metres high in Lismore, NSW. AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi
We confirmed that rainfall was near or above average nearly everywhere, thanks to back-to-back La Niña events – a natural climate phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean associated with wetter weather.
Here are a few ways all this rain benefited Australia’s environment:
* it replenished parched soils that missed rainfall in 2020, and improved growing conditions in both natural and managed landscapes such as farms and plantation forests.
* compared to 2020, drought conditions eased across previously drought-ravaged areas of inland northern Australia
* river flows across Australia increased by 75% on 2020 figures, and urban water supplies increased for all capital cities
* wetlands swelled to their greatest total extent since 2016 (although still 9% below the 20-year average), with no major algal blooms or fish kills
* growth conditions in Australia’s cropping, grazing and irrigation lands were well above average and the best since 2000 in all major regions except South Australia and inland Western Australia.
Australia also experienced less population growth and carbon emissions in 2021, mainly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, translating to a slower increase of the pressure on our environment.
Another 34 species were added to Australia’s list of threatened species, eight of which are birds from Kangaroo Island, which suffered extensive and severe bushfires in early 2020.
Kangaroo Island suffered extensive damage after the horror bushfire season of 2019-2020. AAP Image/Supplied by RSPCA SA
Some hard coral in the Great Barrier Reef recovered in 2021 after suffering three mass bleaching events. Jumbo Aerial Photography/Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority via AP
Does Australia’s environment still benefit from so much rain? Mostly, it can.
Our ecosystems are generally better adapted to wild climate swings, shedding excess water efficiently and recovering quickly from damage.
In normally dry regions, more rain means more vegetation growth and uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – although much of it will be released again during droughts or fires.
River flooding is a source of life in inland Australia, which may mitigate some of the damage done by the diversion and over-extraction of floodwaters.
The consequences of extreme rainfall for invasive plants and animals are poorly understood but probably very diverse. Invasive species less adapted to drought may spread faster.
But the biggest environmental impacts are where natural vegetation was cleared for farming, housing or mining. Unprotected, bare soil soaks up less excess rainfall, and the rain and runoff can loosen up more sediment.
This erosion degrades farmland, cuts away riverbanks and the washed-out sediment and nutrients end up in rivers and the sea, where it can smother marine life and encourages outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that attack coral reefs.
Greater vegetation growth means bushfires have more to burn. AAP Image/Supplied by DFES, Evan Collis
What does this mean for bushfires?
The Bureau of Meteorology expects .. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ .. that La Niña conditions reached their peak and rainfall conditions may normalise soon. Some of the excess heat stored in the ocean will be released, causing air temperatures to quickly resume their warming trend.
Combined with the booming growth of vegetation, the extent of bushfires will likely pick up again next fire season: more vegetation means more fuel for fire. And it only takes a few hot and dry weeks for these conditions to increase fire activity.
Unfortunately, the pressures of vegetation destruction, invasive species and climate change will degrade our agriculture and ecosystems for decades to come. Incisive reductions in carbon emissions and more careful ecosystem management can avoid these impacts worsening.
Both are within reach, but require the sort of consensus and resolve shown in response to COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion. Our environmental crisis is no less severe.
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