The last few years provided plenty of data to help us reform our approach to floods. With devastating flooding in Queensland and Victoria in 2011 and 2013, we should have learned a great deal about which…
Natural disasters don’t just leave those affected rebuilding their lives but also struggling to find meaning behind the tragedy.
Facebook CFA Victoria/AAP
This summer another bout of floods, fires, and cyclones has struck, culminating most recently in out-of-control fires across Victoria in which at least one home was lost. When we see the loss of property…
A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and that can lead to more extreme rainfall.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Rainfall extremes are increasing around the world, and the increase is linked to the warming of the atmosphere which has taken place since pre-industrial times. This is the conclusion of a recent study…
Flooding risk is often used as an argument against greater environmental flows for the Murray-Darling, but graziers would benefit greatly from floods.
Richard Kingsford
The history of our development of the Murray-Darling Basin is one of constraining and constricting its rivers’ flows. Many of the basin’s floods are now captured in dams for later constrained release to…
We’re just coming to grips with Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, one of the many climate modes that cause Australia’s wide and wonderful range of climate variability.
mattharvey1/Flickr
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
The climate system operates with a range of discrete modes.
Patrick Hoesly
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
Scientists' job is to brief us on how future climate might affect our lives, even when all the data isn’t in.
Rae Allen
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
Rain’s coming: does that mean there’s no such thing as climate change?
Georgie Sharp
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
No matter how friendly your detergent is, it does damage.
NPS Photo/Neal Herbert
After the big wet, spare a thought for the health of your waterways and the substances that wash into them.
Bacteria are important to the health of the waterways running through our backyards. As decomposers…
How do farmers cope with the cycle of floods and droughts?
recoverling/Flickr
It has been a summer of flooding for farmers in northeast Victoria and NSW. Reporters talk about the effect on crops, pastures and yields. But what about the effect on farming households? How do they cope…
No one likes flooding, but removing trees isn’t the answer.
AAP
Clearing vegetation in Victoria’s waterways to reduce flood impacts is one of the more ludicrous proposals to emerge from any modern Australian government. On March 6 2012, the Hon. Peter Walsh, Minister…
No one said it was going to rain like this… or did they?
AAP
Recent wet weather and flooding across eastern Australia has caused many to ask, wasn’t climate change supposed to cause more droughts, not floods? Critics of climate change science have suggested that…
A memorial has been unveiled in flood-devastated Grantham as residents move to higher ground.
Today marks a year since flooding devastated south-east Queensland. Research has shown that some of the worst effects of the floods were due to poor land-use planning.
Since the floods, residents of the…
Australians willingly helped their neighbours when it was needed during the Queensland floods of 2011.
Flickr/RaeAllen
Neighbours are a source of growing aggravation in Australia and we are lodging more official complaints about each other than ever before. Excessive noise or odour, inadequate levels of property maintenance…
How does Queensland tourism recover after a cyclone and floods earlier this year?
AFP Photo/Paul Crcok
This year’s natural disasters have been an omnipresent and unwelcome theme impacting on tourism to Japan, New Zealand, Queensland and Thailand.
Long after the initial horror of a natural disaster, the…
When it comes to weather, scientists and the media have different understandings of risk.
Ameel Khan
The “reasonable person” would agree that disaster risk is best avoided. Under a changing climate, how exposed people are to risk and how socially and physically vulnerable they are affects how often disasters…
Organising the information gathered during crises is key to better responses.
Lindsay Hallam/AFP
With new technology comes new ways of communicating with one another in times of crisis. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow important information to be shared widely and instantaneously.
But…
Scientific debate isn’t about ‘if’, but about ‘when’ and ‘how much’.
Matti Mattila/Flickr
In 2100, will sea level be one metre higher than now, or only 50cm? The Thames Barrage is designed to protect London from flooding by storm surges in up to one in a thousand year events. With 50cm higher…
La Niña brings us rain – global warming makes it worse.
AAP
As six weeks’ rain gets dumped on Sydney in a single day and Queensland cleans up after shocking floods, it’s not surprising people ask if global warming is to blame for our weather woes.
But following…
Planning is the cheapest way of avoiding major flood damage.
AAP
The tragic events of last summer confirmed that floods are among the most costly and dangerous natural disasters Australians face.
Our response must start with a thorough examination of how we can better…
