“Nice hydrographs! Can you now compare your model to ‘that other hydrology groups model’?” The phd student suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Her supervisor is asking her to go back into code-hell. That other model is […]
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The deaths of a million of fish in the lower Darling River system over the past few weeks should come as no surprise. Quite apart from specific warnings given to the NSW government by their own specialists in […]
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A million fish have died in the Murray Darling basin, as oxygen levels plummet due to major algal blooms. Experts have warned we could see more mass deaths this week. Fingers have been pointed at poor water management […]
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A New South Wales government agency says it is in uncharted territory regarding management of the state’s water supply because of the drought. Water New South Wales said in previous years it had relied on modelling from past […]
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The widespread deaths of fish in the Darling River – with more predicted to come – has raised serious questions about the allocation of water between agriculture and the environment. Water-hungry crops like cotton and rice are also […]
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NSW National Parks staff are preparing to rally outside NSW parliament over job losses in the parks service The quality of Sydney’s water supply could be put at risk by a decision to axe a specialist team of […]
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The droughts of past decades have burnt the term El Nino into the Australian vocabulary, but after the drought of 2018, perhaps the IOD — short for Indian Ocean Dipole — might also become a household name. A […]
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There have been positive changes to Australian water management in past decades, but new challenges have emerged that require a refreshed national water reform agenda. This was one of the main themes of the 2018 Peter Cullen Lecture, […]
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The CSIRO has found serious flaws in Adani’s key water management plan to protect an ancient springs complex near its proposed Carmichael coal mine, threatening to further delay the controversial project. The ABC can reveal Australia’s peak scientific […]
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Opponents of plan to dump waste from coal seam gas mining celebrate court decision Controversial plans to dump up to 15m tonnes of salt and other waste near a creek in drought-stricken Queensland have hit an unexpected roadblock […]
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A controversial coal mine planned for the Southern Highlands has hit a major hurdle with the government finding groundwater effects “would be the most significant for any mining project that has ever been assessed in NSW”. The damning […]
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Delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been secured with state and federal governments agreeing to terms about how environmental water will be returned to rivers. Up to 450 gigalitres will be returned to the environment, provided it […]
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New present-day and projected future global Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at a 1 km resolution are now freely available via http://www.gloh2o.org/koppen/. The present-day (1980–2016) map uses topographically corrected climatic maps as input. The projected future conditions (2071–2100) are […]
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Australian native plants show that leaf traits can be predicted from the growth environment, but that models should incorporate intra-specific variation. Vegetation models are used to help us understand observed vegetation patterns across the world and the underlying […]
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The height of individual tree crowns near Alice Springs derived from TERN’s airborne lidar collection. The sheer abundance of data on Australia’s natural environment means that the data cannot be easily explored and analysed by non-expert users. To […]
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Water is essential for life. It shapes where and how we live, determines the availability of food and other services that underpin human well-being and is crucial for healthy natural ecosystems. Yet in Australia and globally the water […]
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Clearfell logging in the Thomson Catchment with the Thomson Reservoir in the background. (Source: Chris Taylor) Continued logging in Melbourne’s water catchments could reduce the city’s water supply by the equivalent of 600,000 people’s annual water use every […]
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Rain of biblical proportions, heatwaves, tornadoes and bushfires — extreme weather events happen around the world on a regular basis and Australian scientists are hoping to improve their forecasting with the help of citizen scientists. A new app […]
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Less than 1% of global river flows is used for irrigation, and only 1% of that occurs in Australia. That is the result of a high-resolution global model-data analysis we published recently. The importance of evaporation from wetlands, […]
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It has been well established that rising temperatures are increasing precipitation extremes. It is natural to hence assume that the risk of flooding will also increase. However, contrary to this popular belief most published literature finds more evidence […]
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