I grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York and have vivid memories of running behind the “fog trucks”. These trucks went through the neighbourhoods spraying DDT for mosquito control until it was banned in […]
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Winter hasn’t felt too wintry yet in much of Australia. Most of us have had more sunshine, higher temperatures, and less rainfall than is normal for the time of year. In fact, Australia just had its warmest average […]
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The New South Wales regional water minister, Niall Blair, has quietly granted himself the power to approve illegal floodplain works retrospectively. A Wentworth Group scientist, Jamie Pittock, has accused the NSW government of actively undermining the Murray-Darling basin […]
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A recent expose by the ABC’s Four Corners has alleged significant illegal extraction of water from the Barwon-Darling river system, one of the major tributaries of the Murray River. The revelations have triggered widespread condemnation of irrigators, the […]
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Extreme El Nino events will more than double in frequency, even with the most ambitious goals to curtail global warming, exposing large regions to severe droughts and placing coral reefs in peril, a team of scientists including Australians […]
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Land plants are absorbing 17% more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now than 30 years ago, our research published today shows. Equally extraordinarily, our study also shows that the vegetation is hardly using any extra water to do […]
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The discussion about which scale is the most relevant for water resources management is an increasingly important debate of hydrological modelling principles over the last decade. The session “(Ir‑)relevant scales in hydrology: Which scales matter for water resources […]
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One of the key questions about climate change is the strength of the greenhouse effect. In scientific terms this is described as “climate sensitivity”. It’s defined as the amount Earth’s average temperature will ultimately rise in response to […]
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This June was the seventh-warmest and second-driest on record for Australia. Parts of the southwest and southeast saw record dry conditions as frontal systems passed further south than normal and high pressure exerted its influence on the continent. […]
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There has been no overall improvement in the health of Australia’s biggest river system after five years of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP), scientists say. Key points: The MDBP governs the use of water from Australia’s largest […]
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The amount of water to be recovered under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan cold effectively be reduced by more than 600 gigalitres, following the recent Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial council meeting. Ministers have endorsed the final package of Sustainable Diversion […]
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Science and forecasting practice are the foundations of the HEPEX community. These are certainly the routine of many of us during our office hours and while spending time in front of your computers. But this community is also […]
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Over the past decade we have seen a substantial increase in our scientific understanding of how climate change affects extreme rainfall events. Not only do our climate models suggest that heavy rainfall events will intensify as the atmosphere […]
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Dr Marta Yebra received the inaugural 2017 Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award An inaugural award recognising scientific achievements has been presented to Australian National University researcher Dr Marta Yebra, who also co-leads the ‘Observational Data’ theme in […]
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KBDI and the rescaled JASMIN soil dryness for the State Mine fire in NSW, Oct 2013. New research that has developed a prototype, high-resolution soil-moisture analysis system called JASMIN, which is a significant improvement in accuracy compared to […]
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Research shows that the most common way people are killed during a flood is when they attempt to cross a bridge or flooded road. Photo: Dana Fairhead Fatalities from floods form a major proportion of natural hazard deaths […]
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Contributions to the rate of global sea-level rise increased by about half between 1993 and 2014, with much of the increase due to an increased contribution from Greenland’s ice, according to our new research. Our study, published in […]
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The Tropics are defined as the area of Earth where the Sun is directly overhead at least once a year — the zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. However, tropical climates occur within a larger area […]
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Australia is a land of extremes. We’ve experienced all manner of climate extremes over the past few years, from heatwaves (both on land and over the Great Barrier Reef), to droughts and flooding rains. We can already link […]
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2016-17 has been a great year for Australian farmers, with record production, exports and profits. These records have been driven largely by good weather, in particular a wet winter in 2016, which led to exceptional yields for major […]
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