Australia’s complex and extensive inland rivers are among the most hydrologically variable in the world, and yet they are lifelines through dry landscapes that support a large and important agricultural industry and some of our most unique ecosystems. […]
Read more
A call from senior NSW Nationals for Commonwealth-owned environment water to be redirected to farmers is set to sink almost as quickly as it was floated with Victoria and South Australia opposing the move, and experts declaring it […]
Read more
Over half the world’s rivers- and over 70% of Australia’s rivers- go dry for part of each year. During these dry periods, pools of water along the river channels (also called billabongs, springs, or even wetlands) act as […]
Read more
Understanding how energy and water are distributed at the Earth’s surface is a key part of predicting climate extremes such as drought, heatwaves, and flooding. Depending on the landscape and prevailing conditions, rainfall might join rivers, get stored […]
Read more
Mick Keelty’s review urges governments to stop playing politics with the basin and calls for greater transparency on water sharing The amount of water in the Murray river system is now only about half of what it was […]
Read more
Water is a highly contested resource in this long, oppressive drought, and the coal industry is one of Australia’s biggest water users. Research released today, funded by the Australian Conservation Foundation, has identified how much water coal mining […]
Read more
The most recent generation of models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project better captures rainfall drivers, extreme heat events, and other facets of regional climate. On the heels of an unprecedented wildfire season, climate is yet again a […]
Read more
The world’s drinking water faces a new threat, with the largest study of its kind finding that climate change and increasing urbanisation are contaminating the aquifers that sustain more than half of the world’s population. A study led […]
Read more
It has been estimated that as the Earth warms the atmosphere will be able to hold around 7% more moisture for each degree of global warming. As a result, it is expected extreme precipitation events will vary in […]
Read more
The NSW government will not take into account the latest drought in calculating how much water should be available to irrigators under draft plans condemned by regional councils and a Nationals MP. While dams that supply some of […]
Read more
Dean Lewins/AAP The last bushfire season showed Australians they can no longer pretend climate change will not affect them. But there’s another climate change influence we must also face up to: increasingly scarce water on our continent. Under […]
Read more
A report outlining the current state of climate processes research in Australia was recently put together for the National Climate Science Advisory Committee. What follows is the Executive Summary – you can read the full report here. This […]
Read more
New international research has found a worrying change in the Indian Ocean’s surface temperatures that puts southeast Australia on course for increasingly hot and dry conditions. The work led by The Australian National University (ANU) and the ARC […]
Read more
After the intensely dry conditions of 2019, January and February have brought much-needed rain. Dams in many cities and towns were replenished and some farmers may be able to grow a crop for the first time in several […]
Read more
Throughout summer, Sydney’s water storage level fell alarmingly. Level 2 water restrictions were imposed and the New South Wales government prepared to double the capacity of its desalination plant. But then it began to rain, and rain. Sydney […]
Read more
Recent helpful rains dampened fire grounds and gave many farmers a reason to cheer. But much of southeast Australia remains in severe drought. Australia is no stranger to drought, but the current one stands out when looking at […]
Read more
The past Australian summer was a season of two contrasting halves. So did the midsummer weather change make a dent in the drought, and is it likely to continue through autumn? The first half of summer was exceptionally […]
Read more
Hydromorphological attributes such as river width, flow regime, water extent and gradient provide fundamental information for understanding river hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes in floodplain-river systems, identifying flooding-prone areas, assessing river conveyance capacity, estimating river depth and discharge, […]
Read more
Nonperennial rivers are a major—and growing—part of the global river network. New research and science-based policies are needed to ensure the sustainability of these important waterways. As we make our way into the age of big data, there […]
Read more
Jet stream appears to have stopped moving south and may be moving back towards normal International cooperation on ozone-depleting chemicals is helping to return the southern jet stream to a normal state after decades of human-caused disruption, a […]
Read more