'Triple whammy': drought, fires and floods push Australian rivers into crisis
Australia’s rivers are being hit by a “triple whammy” of impacts that will have serious and long-term effects on species and could push some to extinction, according to experts.
Drought, bushfires in river catchments and now widespread heavy rain in the east of the country have created a cascade of impacts on fish, invertebrates and platypus.
Prof Ross Thompson, a freshwater ecologist at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Applied Ecology, said: “There’s a real risk of losing species that we have not even gotten around to describing yet.”
In New South Wales, thousands of fish have died in recent weeks in the Murray-Darling Basin and in coastal areas. Some of the mass fish kills were likely caused by the drought, while in other parts of the state ash flowing into rivers from bushfire areas has been blamed.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/triple-whammy-hits-push-australian-rivers-crisis
Drought, bushfires in river catchments and now widespread heavy rain in the east of the country have created a cascade of impacts on fish, invertebrates and platypus.
Prof Ross Thompson, a freshwater ecologist at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Applied Ecology, said: “There’s a real risk of losing species that we have not even gotten around to describing yet.”
In New South Wales, thousands of fish have died in recent weeks in the Murray-Darling Basin and in coastal areas. Some of the mass fish kills were likely caused by the drought, while in other parts of the state ash flowing into rivers from bushfire areas has been blamed.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/triple-whammy-hits-push-australian-rivers-crisis
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