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Researchers have collated measurements made by satellites, field sensors and people, to get a picture of the nature’s recovery while we’ve been in lockdown.
Peter Lorrimer/AAP
Downpours in eastern Australia this year have been good for crops and some dams. But when it comes to drought, Australia is not out of the woods yet.
A hot and dry spring is leading into a hot and dry summer.
AAP Image/Dylan Coker
Australia is heading into a scorching summer, but the factors causing the hot and dry weather are expected to ease later in the season.
Declining water levels in Warragamba Dam reflect generally falling national levels of stored water.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Australia’s capital cities have collectively lost 30% of their stored water over the last six years. But this loss is not evenly distributed across the country.
Multiple large, intense fires are stretching from Australia’s coast to the tablelands and parts of the interior.
AAP Image/Supplied, JPSS
They escaped to the coast for the quiet life, but now sea-changers are in the path of monster fires.
Detecting human fingerprints on complex events like droughts is not straightforward.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
Drought has both natural and human causes, but deep cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed, regardless.
Some towns in northern NSW are likely to see empty dams next year.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Once water is used in washing, cleaning or even sewerage it can be safely and reliably treated. The treated water is then safe to drink – identical to the original water.
Antarctic winds have a huge effect on weather in other places.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
Each spring, winds circling the South Pole weaken. If they weaken enough, they can actually reverse – causing rapid warming.
Sydney’s water levels have fallen below 50%, triggering Stage 1 water restrictions.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Dry and warm conditions in winter are set to continue into spring, and the likely culprit is the positive Indian Ocean Dipole
Sunburnt Victorian fields are set to become more common under climate change.
Fir0002/Flagstaffotos/Wikimedia Commons
Hitting the Paris targets will go a long way to securing Melbourne’s water supply against future pressure.
Too much water is going to irrigators along the Darling River.
DEAN LEWINS/AAP
Irrigators get too much water from the Barwon-Darling even when river levels are critically low, according to a NSW government review.
Inland towns need far more water storage.
Flickr/Mertie
Many rural town water supplies cannot weather even a single year of drought. This is a failure of planning and funding on a grand scale.
More efficient irrigation means less water can escape and make its way back into the Murray and Darling rivers.
DEAN LEWINS/AAP
A federal program to help the Murray-Darling environment accidentally lowered water levels – but not as much as previous reports had feared.
Sheep grazing on the Darling River bed.
D./Flickr
A decade of bipartisan research has provided plenty of answers to the problems plaguing the Darling River.
Puddles in the bed of the Darling River are a sign of an ecosystem in crisis.
Jeremy Buckingham/Flickr
Mass fish deaths are a blaring warning sign for the heath of the Murray Darling Basin, but just as worrying is the sight of dry areas in the Darling.
Queensland’s ‘unprecedented’ bushfires were part of a year of extremes.
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2018 was Australia’s third warmest year on record, as the NSW drought dragged into another year.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack visiting the Mulloon Creek Natural Farm.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The farming system, lauded as a solution to drought, involves slowing water flow in streams using ‘leaky weirs’.
Farmers who invested in natural assets during the Millennium Drought are coping better with lack of rain now.
AAP Image/Perry Duffin
Beyond trucking in hay and water, drought-stricken farmers need money and advice on improving the natural features of their land.
Healthy soils can hold water even during droughts.
Evie Shaffer/Unsplash
Adapting to climate change means improving soil health, so it can hold more water (even during droughts).
Maximum temperatures for January to September were the warmest on record for the Murray–Darling Basin and New South Wales.
DEAN LEWINS/AAP
After the warmest month on record, it looks like Australia will have an El Niño event – which means the drought is likely to continue.