Up to 1 trillion litres of floodwater may hit outback's Menindee Lakes
By Bill Ormonde

As a mass of water makes its way down from Queensland, the Menindee Lakes in outback New South Wales could be the beneficiary. Having slowly dried up for months, the fortunes of the bird and fish sanctuary may be about to change.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-15/trillion-litres-water-heading-to-menindee-lakes-after-qld-flood/105162606

#Water #MurrayDarlingBasin #Rivers #Floods #RegionalCommunities #BillOrmonde

Quintessentially Australian:

"Bulldozers made quick work of the Murray Darling Basin landscape."
"Bulldozers flattened trees and grasses which were then burned"
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https://au.news.yahoo.com/satellite-photos-reveal-disturbing-change-to-iconic-aussie-landscape-065657701.html
#biodiversity #EPBCAct #nature #conservation #LandClearing #MurrayDarlingBasin #agribusinesses #PropertyDevelopers #governance #destruction #NSW #Australia #climate #incineration

WETLANDS IN A DRY LAND
More-than-Human Histories of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, Emily O'Gorman

"What counts as a wetland, especially in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth? In the name of agriculture, urban growth and disease control, humans have drained, filled or otherwise destroyed nearly 87 percent of the world's wetlands over the past three centuries. Only recently have wetlands been widely recognised as worth preserving for their diverse plants, animals, insects, and their human histories."

"Situating Australia's history within global environmental humanities conversations, O'Gorman argues that we need to understand wetlands as socioecological landscapes that transcend the nature-culture divide and to embrace non-Western ways of knowing and being. Only then can we begin to create sustainable relationships with, and futures for, the wetlands."
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https://www.mup.com.au/books/wetlands-in-a-dry-land-paperback-softback
#wetlands #RAMSAR #rivers #MurrayDarlingBasin #MDB #environment #biodiversity #SocioecologicalLandscapes #Book #EnvironmentalHistory #destruction

NSW ecosystem degradation and science suppression
Mass fish kills as “natural events”.

The government is “elected to bring better decision-making and transparency to government in this state and that is what we are delivering across primary industries and regional development” Tara Moriarty, spokesperson for the NSW agriculture minister

“The public gets to hear the messages the department wants to tell them...There’s still a really strong culture of suppressing science and limited sharing of information within the public service."

"Even though scientists are supposed to be independent, there’s often pressure to stay silent on some research results...They "use PR narratives to shape the message into something they believe is palatable”.

“The environment would be much better off and our democracy would be stronger if we were able to share information about the state of our environment freely. Then people can vote after being fully informed about how government is managing the environment.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/21/murray-darling-basin-fishing-degradation

The ESA documents science suppression in Australia
https://www.ecolsoc.org.au/science-suppression/

Consequences of information suppression in ecological and conservation sciences
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/conl.12757

#NSW #governance #PR #rivers #degradation #science #ScienceSuppression #ecology #conservation #silence #MurrayDarlingBasin #FishKill #NaturalEvents #NSWLogging #RemnantVegetation #StopNativeForestLogging #democracy #Australia

Waterbird survey of the Murray-Darling basin
"Since the surveys started in 1983, Kingsford says they have seen declines of up to 70% in bird numbers, particularly over the Murray-Darling basin...We have fundamentally changed these rivers and we don’t seem to be learning from our mistakes.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/23/ive-got-the-best-job-in-the-world-prestigious-eureka-prize-winner-says
#birds #waterbirds #ecology #rivers #conservation #MurrayDarlingBasin

Waterholes are in danger of filling up with eroded soil from farms. This is putting a big squeeze on life in the river.

https://theconversation.com/soil-erosion-is-filling-vital-inland-river-waterholes-putting-the-squeeze-on-fish-turtles-and-crayfish-207155
#aquatic #wildlife #LandClearing #cattle #erosion #MurrayDarlingBasin

Australia in 2022: record rain, flooding and heat in a LaNina year. Summary

* background heating from climate change has elevated average Australian temperatures by more than 1.47C since 1910, says BoM.

* The third La Nina event in a row meant new records for rainfall and record flood events, while there was also new maximum daily temperatures for some sites over 50C.

* at least 10 sites that recorded more than half a metre of rain in a day

* #Sydney set a new rain record for the year of 2,536.6mm (Centennial Park site). previous record of 2,194mm set in 1950 (Observatory Hill)

* New Spring record rainfall for Murray-Darling Basin agriculture zone: average rainfall total of just over 295mm more than double the previous spring average of about 120mm exceeding previous record of 251mm set in 2011.

* Late February high rainfall and flood events in #Brisbane, Northern NSW (#Lismore) highlighted with many multi-day rainfall records broken and multiple sites recording more than a metre of rain. Rainfall totals for last week of February in the region were at least 2.5X to 5X the long-term average.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/30/australias-ninth-wettest-and-20th-hottest-year-looking-back-at-the-weather-in-2022

#ClimateChange #Flooding #ExtremeHeat #TorrentialRain #LaNina #Australia #ClimateImpacts #MurrayDarlingBasin #Anthropocene