The government has pledged over $800m to fight natural disasters. It could be revolutionary — if done right

Paul Barnes, UNSWTo help Australia adapt to climate change and manage the disasters that come with it, the federal government this week pledged A$600 million towards establishing the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, and $210 million for the Australian Climate Service initiative.

The sizeable investments make sense, as Australia’s threat landscape has changed. Climate change, drought, land clearing, urban growth and other activities have significantly increased the chances of natural hazards and disasters Australia-wide. All of which are costly to recover from.

The new organisations could deliver revolutionary benefits to Australia by better aligning policy and practice in a more agile way that matches the complex set of threats we face.

There are, however, issues that warrant attention. It’s not yet clear how the government plans to bring together Australia’s best experts — including policy thinkers, emergency managers, researchers and practitioners — to address the complex, evolving threats. Currently, it seems the role of universities has not been adequately defined.

Australia’s recent disasters

The 2019-20 bushfire season was arguably the most extreme in living memory. It started earlier than what might normally have been expected and made history for its severity and widespread damage to life, property and the environment.

Bushfires weren’t the only natural hazard Australia dealt with during this period. Insurance claims from hailstorms, flooding and bushfire damage for the 2019-20 period exceeded $5.19 billion.

A man and woman use a kayak to travel up a flooded street. — The March floods in western Sydney peaked at a staggering 12.9 metres.
Shutterstock

Then came the severe flooding across New South Wales in March, which peaked at 12.9 metres. As of March 23, policyholders had lodged up to 11,700 insurance claims associated with these storms.

While these recent disasters were unprecedented in their scale and impact, we can expect disasters in the future to worsen due to climate change, from longer heatwaves to intensifying cyclones and a range of cascading and cumulative impacts on society.

This is why the federal government’s announcement this week is extremely important.

So what will these initiatives do?

The new organisations are in response to recommendations from the recent bushfire royal commission, and as part of next week’s federal budget.

The National Recovery and Resilience Agency will be led by former Northern Territory chief minister Shane Stone, and brings together the responsibilities of the national agencies in charge of flood and bushfire recovery.

Its job is to oversee $600 million that will go towards new programs for disaster preparation and mitigation. It’ll focus on minimising disruptive impacts on communities and assist in making them ready to face future disasters. It will also administer the $2 billion National Bushfire Recovery Fund on an ongoing basis.

A key enabler of this is the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, which is currently getting updated after its first release in 2015. The new strategy will be released later this year, and should be vital in underpinning the direction of the new agency.

The government must ensure the strategy provides guidance that matches the goals of the new agency – in particular that of building resilience. It’s important to recognise that while disaster response is generally similar across the board, the effects of disasters vary depending on the community, urban and physical features, as well as socioeconomic levels and access to services.

And the Australian Climate Service initiative will, according to Environment Minister Sussan Ley:

help provide an environmental road map in our planning for infrastructure, housing and basic services like power, telecommunications, and water [and in] anticipating and adapting to the impacts of [a] changing climate.

Together, the benefits of both new organisations have the potential to be revolutionary.

They — along with a new national research centre focused on hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction (announced in July last year) — may be the largest realignments in disaster management policy and practice for a generation.

But how they’re implemented and coordinated will, ultimately, determine this.

There’s more to do

A potential issue with the Australian Climate Service Initiative that might limit its effectiveness is its emphasis on the roles of the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia.

This collaboration means the initiative has access to huge amounts of data, information resources, and links to the National Environmental Science Program and Great Barrier Reef Restoration and Adaptation initiatives.

But we shouldn’t forget many Australian universities have considerable relevant expertise at their disposal, too. Not including the network of expertise and experience of universities means we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.

What’s more, the National Recovery and Resilience Agency intends to provide accredited training for people working in disaster recovery. The deep training and development expertise of universities is a perfect fit for this goal.

To really embed the benefits, we need to break down historical silos between national, state and local agencies. On-the-ground efforts for disaster risk reduction, emergency management and response, and the broad social aspects of recovery are largely state and local government responsibilities.

Crisis response planning and action is a team-based sport, so getting the federal, state and local governments — and the private sector — involved will help streamline the application of the new disaster policies and protocols embodied in the announced changes across the continent.

We saw this type of team-based effort at a national level when the emergency national cabinet was established to oversee collaborative decision-making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s joined-up thinking that enables rapid and more complete decision- making.

In short, we need better collaboration. How we can work together and utilise all our capabilities and capacities are questions that need to be at the forefront of national thinking.

This story is part of a series The Conversation is running on the nexus between disaster, disadvantage and resilience. You can read the rest of the stories here.

Paul Barnes, Research Fellow (Disaster & Urban Resilience), UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Mining companies are required to return quarried sites to their ‘natural character’. But is that enough?

Shaun Rosier, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

New Zealand has more than 1,100 registered quarries. Some of these mined sites are small, rural operations, but a significant number are large and complex, and within a city’s urban boundaries.

As part of the resource consent application for a mining project, quarry operators are usually issued with a quarry management plan, which outlines what needs to happen to the landscape once mining has finished.

Most local government bodies require quarry operators to do little more than smooth the altered landscape, redistribute topsoil across these slopes, plant some new vegetation, and manage any onsite waterways to prevent surface erosion.

But restoring the ecology of an extracted site isn’t enough any more.

My research at the Horokiwi Quarry in Wellington explores how design-led remediation projects can restore the ecology of a mined landscape as well as creating new public landscapes that can be used for recreation.

An open quarry site — The southern half of the Horokiwi Quarry has been reshaped and the massive bench to the left entirely removed.
Author provided

Conditions of remediation

Quarry management plans currently pay attention to returning the topography of a mined site to a “natural” condition during the remediation. Quarries and mines extract material from the earth, and by necessity alter the surface dramatically.

Often a large amount of material has to be removed first to access the desired aggregate material or rare mineral. Once remediation begins, this material is spread across the site to create a natural appearance, suitable for revegetation. The landscape is smoothed over, pits filled in, and topsoil distributed.

Likewise, the revegetation strategy remains relatively simple. Most remediation projects rely on spraying a seed-fertiliser-mulch mix over these freshly contoured slopes. In difficult conditions, this is often paired with manual planting to establish cover for pioneer species.

These strategies typically use regionally specific plants, ideally sourcing the seed stock from the area to help establish a robust and appropriate ecology.

Nature and culture

These processes are all used to restore a site back to a “natural character”, but what this means is left undefined. The Resource Management Act (RMA), under which mining resource consent applications have to be made, says miners have:

…a duty to avoid, remedy or mitigate any adverse effect on the environment arising from an activity.

While the RMA does not define this natural character condition that is to be preserved or restored, it provides some guidance in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.

Here, natural character is determined to be underpinned by natural processes, elements and patterns. But as some planners and designers have made clear, this is still an unclear position.

It relies on a problematic distinction between nature and culture, where nature is something different and unaltered from humans. Or, as US environmental historian William Cronon writes:

The place where we are is the place where nature is not.

Problematic results

Most remedial works are successful from a biological point of view, leading to full or partial restoration of ecological processes. For example, the limestone quarry at Cape Foulwind has been relatively successful in its biophysical remediation. But the site is close to local communities and on a major tourist route, and could play a bigger role as a public space.

On the other hand, the remediation of the Mikonui Valley mine, on conservation land on the West Coast, has arguably been a failure, described as a “moonscape” by conservationists. The company paid a bond to the Department of Conservation to allow it to mine on public land, but it has not remediated the land to an acceptable degree, and likely never will.

Behind this is the larger issue that remediation was only seriously considered at the end of the extraction process. Doing so left little room for other design options.

Another approach to remediation

Recent research has called for a different approach, especially for quarries and mines within urban areas where landscape architects are involved throughout the entire extraction process.

Using their knowledge and skill sets could bring the extracted landscape significantly closer to a desirable outcome. It would also allow for new spaces, including parks, housing, recreation or ecological reserves.

A design plan for a remediation of the Horokiwi Quarry near Wellington — A proposal for the remediation of the Horokiwi Quarry would turn it into a regional park, connected to the surrounding suburbs and the cities of Wellington and Lower Hutt.
Author provided

This is an important shift for urban quarry sites. Establishing a design process that works in parallel with the extraction process would allow sites such as the Horokiwi Quarry to play a role in the public life of a city.

This large aggregate quarry has a remaining lifespan of 20-30 years, and presents an ideal case to develop remediation techniques that can bring the most out of this landscape.

The design proposal builds on the experience of a landscape of extreme scale and mass. Facilities such as sports fields, gathering spaces, relaxation and a mix of pathways all feed off the experience of the landscape.

At the same time, new ecological sites are established where appropriate to create a different relationship between visitors and the landscape.

A quarry near Wellington — Pathways are designed to give visitors a sense of the scale of the quarried site.
Author provided

Turning post-extraction landscapes such as the Horokiwi Quarry into public spaces confronts us with their scale and otherworldliness. It can change how we relate to the environment.

We have to remediate these sites in a way that moves us to recognise our relationship with extraction and consumption. This might not be pretty, but it is necessary.

Shaun Rosier, Practice-based PhD Researcher in Landscape Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The bushfires are horrendous, but expect cyclones, floods and heatwaves too

Bushfires are not the only weather and climate events set to ravage Australia in coming months.
Dave Hunt/AAP

Neville Nicholls, Monash University

Public attention on the disastrous bushfire crisis in Australia will rightly continue for weeks to come. But as we direct resources to coping and recovery, we should not forget other weather and climate challenges looming this summer.

The peak time for heatwaves in southern Australia has not yet arrived. Many parts of Australia can expect heavy rains and flooding. And northern Australia’s cyclone season is just gearing up.

The events will stretch the ability of emergency services and the broader community to cope. The best way to prepare for these events is to keep an eye on Bureau of Meteorology forecasts.

Fires and other extreme events will test emergency services this summer.
Darren Pateman/AAP

Let it rain

2019 was Australia’s driest year on record. Since early winter the Bureau of Meteorology has correctly predicted the development of these widespread dry conditions.

But relief may be coming. The latest bureau outlooks suggest more normal summer conditions from February to April. If it eventuates, this would include more rain.

The arrival of drought-breaking rains is notoriously hard to predict – in the past, they have come any time between January and May. Global warming is also complicating seasonal climate predictions.

We all hope the rain arrives sooner rather than later, and eases the fire situation. But rain will bring other risks.

Continental-scale droughts such as that experienced over the past few years are often broken by widespread heavy rains, leading to an increased risk of flooding including potentially lethal flash floods. The decade-long Millenium drought that ended in 2009 was followed by two extremely wet years with serious flooding.

A similar situation was seen in Indonesia in recent days when very heavy rains after a prolonged drought produced disastrous floods and landslides.

Indonesian rescuers searching for missing people after a landslide in West Java, Indonesia, triggered by heavy rain.
EPA

The flood risk is exacerbated by the bare soil and lack of vegetation caused by drought, and by bushfires that destroy forest and grassland.

Australia’s north may be particularly hard hit. The onset of the tropical wet season has been very much delayed, as the bureau predicted. Over the last three months, some parts of the Australian tropics had their lowest ever October-December rainfall. But there are some suggestions widespread rain may be on its way.

Further south, drought-breaking rains can also be heavy and widespread, leading to increased flood risk. So even when the drought breaks and rains quell the fires, there will likely still be bouts of extreme weather, and high demand for emergency services.

Cyclones and heatwaves

The tropical cyclone season has been much delayed, as predicted by the bureau, although there are now signs of cyclonic activity in the near future.

Cyclones often bring welcome rains to drought-affected communities. But we should not overlook the serious damage these systems may bring such as coastal flooding and wind damage – again requiring intervention from emergency services.

And we are still a month away from the riskiest time for heatwaves in southern Australia. We’ve already had some severe heatwaves this summer. However they usually peak in the middle and end of summer, so the worst may be yet to come.

Lives have undoubtedly been saved this summer by improved forecasting of high temperatures and better dissemination of heatwave information by state and local governments. But after an already devastating early summer of fires and heat, warning fatigue may set in amongst both warning providers and the public. We must ensure heatwave warnings continue to be disseminated to populations at risk, and are acted on.

Shop staff clean up storm waters after Cyclone Debbie hit iQueensland in 2017.
AAP

Be thankful for weather forecasters

The recent experience of farmers, fire fighters, water resource managers and communities illustrate the value of the service provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. Greatly improved weather and climate forecasting developed over the past few decades means communities can plan for and deal with our highly variable weather and climate far better than in the past.

Recent drought, fires and heatwaves – exacerbated by global warming – have been devastating. But imagine if we only had the limited weather forecast capabilities of even a few decades ago, without today’s high-speed computers to run weather forecast models, and satellites to feed in enormous amounts of data. How much worse would the impacts have been?

These forecasts have allowed heat alerts to be disseminated to vulnerable communities. Detailed information on weather conducive to fire spread has helped fire agencies provide more targeted warnings and direct resources appropriately.

An air tanker makes a pass to drop fire retardant on a bushfire in North Nowra, NSW, as fires spread rapidly.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Never before have weather forecasts been so readily available to the public. Here are ways you can use them to reduce risks to life and property during an extreme event:

Listen to ABC local radio for emergency updates and detailed Bureau of Meteorology forecasts
load your state fire service emergency app onto your phone and check it regularly. Or check out the information online, such as at the NSW Rural Fire Service’s Fires Near Me website
check the bureau’s website for climate and weather forecasts
download a short-range rainfall forecast app such as Rain Parrot onto your phone. These apps use the bureau’s radar data to make short-range forecasts of rainfall for your location, and notify you if rain is coming.

Global warming is already lengthening the fire season and making heatwaves more intense, more frequent, and longer. It is also increasing the likelihood of heavy rains, and making droughts worse.

We must keep adapting to these changing threats, and further improve our ability to forecast them. And the community must stay aware of the many weather and climate extremes that threaten lives and property.

Neville Nicholls, Professor emeritus, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Want to beat climate change? Protect our natural forests

Natural forest systems are far better at adapting to change conditions than young, degraded or plantation forests.
Shutterstock

Kate Dooley, University of Melbourne and Brendan Mackey, Griffith University

Tomorrow a special report on how land use affects climate change will be released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Land degradation, deforestation, and the expansion of our deserts, along with agriculture and the other ways people shape land, are all major contributors to global climate change.

Conversely, trees remove carbon dioxide and store it safely in their trunks, roots and branches. Research published in July estimated that planting a trillion trees could be a powerful tool against climate change.

However, planting new trees as a climate action pales in comparison to protecting existing forests. Restoring degraded forests and expanding them by 350 million hectares will store a comparable amount of carbon as 900 million hectares of new trees.

Natural climate solutions

Using ecological mechanisms for reducing and storing carbon is a growing field of study. Broadly known as “natural climate solutions”, carbon can be stored in wetlands, grasslands, natural forests and agriculture.

This is called “sequestration”, and the more diverse and longer-lived the ecosystem, the more it helps mitigate the effect of climate change.

Allowing trees to regenerate naturally is a more effective, immediate and low-cost method of removing and storing atmospheric carbon than planting new trees.
Shutterstock

Research has estimated these natural carbon sinks can provide 37% of the CO₂ reduction needed to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2℃.

But this research can be wrongly interpreted to imply that the priority is to plant young trees. In fact, the major climate solution is the protection and recovery of carbon-rich and long-lived ecosystems, especially natural forests.

With the imminent release of the new IPCC report, now is a good time to prioritise the protection and recovery of existing ecosystems over planting trees.

Forest ecosystems (including the soil) store more carbon than the atmosphere. Their loss would trigger emissions that would exceed the remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to less than the 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, let alone 1.5℃, threshold.

Natural forest systems, with their rich and complex biodiversity, the product of ecological and evolutionary processes, are stable, resilient, far better at adapting to changing conditions and store more carbon than young, degraded or plantation forests.

Protect existing trees

Forest degradation is caused by selective logging, temporary clearing, and other human land use. In some areas, emissions from degradation can exceed those of deforestation. Once damaged, natural ecosystems are more vulnerable to drought, fires and climate change.

Recently published research found helping natural forest regrow can have a globally significant effect on carbon dioxide levels. This approach – called proforestation – is a more effective, immediate and low-cost method for removing and storing atmospheric carbon in the long-term than tree planting. And it can be used across many different kinds of forests around the world.

Avoiding further loss and degradation of primary forests and intact forest landscapes, and allowing degraded forests to naturally regrow, would reduce global carbon emissions annually by about 1 gigatonnes (Gt), and reduce another 2-4 Gt of carbon emissions just through natural regrowth.

Research has predicted that protecting primary forests while allowing degraded forests to recover, along with limited expansion of natural forests, would remove 153 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere between now and 2150.

Every country with forests can contribute to this effort. In fact, research shows that community land management is the best way to improve natural forests and help trees recover from degradation.

By the numbers

Tree planting carries more limited climate benefits. The recent Science paper focused on mapping and quantifying increases in tree canopy cover in areas that naturally support trees. However, increasing canopy cover through natural forest regeneration can sequester 40 times more carbon over the course of the century than establishing new plantations.

We need to think very carefully about how we use land that has already been cleared: land is a finite resource, and we need to grow food and resources for a global population set to hit 9 billion by 2050.

We need to understand land as a finite resource and accomodate for a global population set to hit 9 billion by 2050.
Shutterstock

Any expansion of natural forest area is best achieved through allowing degraded forests to naturally recover. Allowing trees to regenerate naturally, using nearby remnants of primary forests and seed banks in the soil of recently cleared forests, is more likely to result in a resilient and diverse forest than planting massive numbers of seedlings.

Instead of planting entirely new areas, we should prioritise reconnecting forested areas and restoring the edges of forest, to protect their mature core. This means our carbon-storing forests will be more resilient and longer-lasting.

For forests to effectively help avert dangerous climate change, global and regional policies are needed to protect, restore and regenerate natural forests, alongside a carbon-zero energy economy.

A version of this article was co-published with Pursuit.

Kate Dooley, Research Fellow, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne and Brendan Mackey, Director of the Griffith Climate Change Response Program, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

China’s growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world

File 20171130 12035 1gkyop1.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — A Chinese road-building corporation felling rainforest in the Congo Basin.
Bill Laurance, Author provided

Bill Laurance, James Cook University

Many observers of China’s escalating global program of foreign investment and infrastructure development are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. In an ideal world, China’s unbridled ambitions will improve economic growth, food security and social development in many poor nations, as well as enriching itself.

Such hopes are certainly timely, given the isolationism of the US Trump
administration, which has created an international leadership vacuum that China is eager to fill.

But a close look reveals that China’s international agenda is far more exploitative than many realise, especially for the global environment. And the Chinese leadership’s claims to be embracing “green development” are in many cases more propaganda than fact.

To help steer through the maze, I provide here a snapshot of China’s present environmental impacts. Are China’s assertions reasoned and defensible, or something else altogether?

Predatory force?

For a start, China is overwhelmingly the world’s biggest consumer of illegally poached wildlife and wildlife products. From rhino horn, to pangolins, to shark fins, to a menagerie of wild bird species, Chinese consumption drives much of the global trade in wildlife exploitation and smuggling.

Over the past 15 years, China’s rapacious appetite for ivory has largely driven a global collapse of elephant populations. In response to growing international criticism, China promised to shut down its domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017.

The author examining a Forest Elephant gunned down by ivory poachers in central Africa.
Mahmoud Mahmoud

But even before China’s ban has taken full force, a black market for ivory is developing in neighbouring Laos. There, Chinese entrepreneurs are churning out great quantities of carved ivory products, specifically designed for Chinese tastes and openly sold to Chinese visitors.

China is also the world’s biggest importer of illegal timber, a trade that imperils forests while defrauding developing nations of billions of dollars each year in timber royalties.

China claims to be working to reduce its illegal timber imports, but its efforts are half-hearted at best, judging by the amount of illegal timber still flowing across its border with Myanmar.

A queue of logging trucks in Southeast Asia.
Jeff Vincent

Infrastructure tsunami

More damaging still are China’s plans for infrastructure expansion that will irreparably degrade much of the natural world.

China’s One Belt One Road initiative alone will carve massive arrays of new roads, railroads, ports, and extractive industries such as mining, logging, and oil and gas projects into at least 70 nations across Asia, Europe, and Africa.

A partial representation of China’s One Belt One Road scheme, circa 2015.
Mercator Institute for China Studies

Chinese President Xi Jinping promises that the Belt and Road initiative will be “green, low-carbon, circular and sustainable”, but such a claim is profoundly divorced from reality.

As my colleagues and I recently argued in Science and Current Biology, the modern infrastructure tsunami that is largely being driven by China will open a Pandora’s box of environmental crises, including large-scale deforestation, habitat fragmentation, wildlife poaching, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

China’s pursuit of natural resources is also escalating across Latin America. In the Amazon, for example, big mining projects – many of which are feeding Chinese industries – don’t just cause serious local degradation, but also promote widespread deforestation from the networks of roads bulldozed into remote areas to access the mines.

Why roads are so dangerous for nature.

Overall, China is the most aggressive consumer of minerals on the planet, and the biggest driver of tropical deforestation.

Beyond this, China is pushing to build a 5,000km railroad across South America, to make it cheaper for China to import timber, minerals, soy and other natural resources from ports along South America’s Pacific coast. If it proceeds, the number of critical ecosystems that would be impacted by this project is staggering.

A World Bank study of more than 3,000 overseas projects funded or operated by China revealed how it often treats poor nations as “pollution havens” – transferring its own environmental degradation to developing nations that are desperate for foreign investment.

Finally, much has been made of the fact that China is beginning to temper its appetite for domestic fossil-fuelled energy. It is now a leading investor in solar and wind energy, and recently delayed construction of more than 150 coal-fired electricity plants in China.

These are unquestionably pluses, but they need to be seen in their broad context. In terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, China has exploded past every other nation. It now produces more than twice the carbon emissions of the United States, the second-biggest polluter, following the greatest building spree of coal, nuclear, and large-scale hydro projects in human history.

Despite its new post-Trump role as the world’s de facto climate leader, China’s overall agenda could scarcely be described as green.

A tiger relaxes along a grassy bank.
Matt Gibson/Shutterstock

Iceberg ahead

Some would say it’s unfair to criticise China like this. They would argue that China is merely following a well-trodden path of exploitative development previously forged by other nations and colonial powers.

But China is not the same as any other nation. The astounding growth and size of its economy, its dangerously single-minded vision for exploiting natural resources and land internationally, its intolerance of internal and external criticism, and its increasingly closed media and official myopia all combine to make it unique.

President Xi admits that many Chinese corporations, investors and lenders operating overseas have often acted aggressively and even illegally overseas. But he says his government is powerless to do much about it. The most notable government response to date is a series of “green papers” containing guidelines that sound good in theory but are almost universally ignored by Chinese interests.

Indigenous forest people in the Congo Basin become increasingly poor and marginalised as foreign miners, loggers and poachers invade their lands.
Mahmoud Mahmoud

Are Xi’s assertions of powerlessness believable? He increasingly rules China with an iron hand. Is it really impossible for China to guide and control its overseas industries, or are they simply so profitable that the government doesn’t want to?

Of course, China’s huge international ambitions will have some positive effects, and could even be economically transformative for certain nations. But many other elements will benefit China while profoundly damaging our planet.

Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Sydney Barrier Reef: engineering a natural defence against future storms

Rob Roggema, University of Technology Sydney

The risk of more severe storms and cyclones in the highly urbanised coastal areas of Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong might not be acute, but it is a real future threat with the further warming of the southern Pacific Ocean. One day a major storm – whether an East Coast Low or even a cyclone – could hit Sydney.

With higher ocean temperatures killing and bleaching coral along the Great Barrier Reef to the north, we could also imagine where the right temperatures for a coral reef would be in a warmer climate. Most probably, this would be closer to the limits of the low latitudes, hence in front of the Sydney metro area.

We should then consider whether it is possible to help engineer a natural defence against storms, a barrier reef, should warming oceans make conditions suitable here.

Ocean warming trend is clear

The oceans are clearly warming at an alarming rate, with the unprecedented extent and intensity of coral bleaching events a marker of rising temperatures. After the 2016-2017 summer, coral bleaching affected two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef.

On the other side of the Pacific, sea surface temperatures off Peru’s northern coast have risen 5-6℃ degrees above normal. Beneath the ocean surface, the warming trend is consistent too.

The East Australian Current keeps the waters around Lord Howe Island warm enough to sustain Australia’s southernmost coral reef. The waters off Sydney are just a degree or two cooler.

With the East Australian Current now extending further south, the warming of these south-eastern coastal waters might be enough in a couple of decades for Nemo to swim in reality under Sydney Harbour Bridge.

This shift in ocean temperatures is expected to drive strong storms and inland floods, according to meteorologists.

On top of this, when we plot a series of maps since 1997 of cyclone tracks across the Pacific, it shows a slight shift to more southern routes. These cyclones occur only in the Tasman Sea and way out from the coast, but, still, there is a tendency to move further south. The northern part of New Zealand recently experienced the impacts this could have.

Think big to prepare for a big storm

If we would like to prevent what Sandy did to New York, we need to think big.

If we don’t want a storm surge entering Parramatta River, flooding the low-lying areas along the peninsulas, if we don’t want flash-flooding events as result of river discharges, if we don’t want our beaches to be washed away, if we want to keep our property along the water, and if we want to save lives, we’d better prepare to counter these potential events through anticipating their occurrence.

The coast is the first point where a storm impacts the city. Building higher and stronger dams have proven to be counterproductive. Once the dam breaks or overflows the damage is huge. Instead we should use the self-regenerating defensive powers nature offers us.

Thinking big, we could design a “Sydney Barrier Reef”, which allows nature to regenerate and create a strong and valuable coast.

The first 30-40 kilometres of the Pacific plateau is shallow enough to establish an artificial reef. The foundations of this new Sydney Barrier Reef could consist of a series of concrete, iron or wooden structures, placed on the continental shelf, just beneath the water surface. Intelligently composed to allow the ocean to bring plants, fish and sand to attach to those structures, it would then start to grow as the base for new coral.

This idea has not been tested for the Sydney continental flat yet. But in other parts of the world experiments with artificial reefs seem promising. At various sites, ships, metro carriages and trains seem to be working as the basis for marine life to create a new underworld habitat

The Sydney Barrier Reef will have the following advantages:

Over decades a natural reef will grow. Coral will develop and a new ecosystem will emerge.
This reef will protect the coast and create new sandbanks, shallow areas and eventually barrier islands, as the Great Barrier Reef has done.
It will increase the beach area, because the conditions behind the reef will allow sediments to settle.
It creates new surfing conditions as a result of the sandbanks.
It will protect Sydney from the most severe storm surges as it breaks the surge.
It will present a new tourist attraction of international allure.

Let’s create a pilot project as a test. Let’s start to design and model the pilot to investigate what happens in this particular location. Let’s simulate the increase of temperature over time and model the impact of a cyclone.

Let’s create, so when Sandy hits Sydney, we will be better protected.

Rob Roggema, Professor of Sustainable Urban Environments, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

What dragonflies say about our ignorance of the natural world

Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra, Stellenbosch University

Of the 8.7 million species of animals, plants and fungi thought to live on Earth, we have only named 1.2 million: 86% of the natural world is uncharted.

For most people, both this incredible richness and our ignorance are hard to fathom. Imagine that each of the 6.5 million species thought to live on land – the rest is marine – had an equal share of it. Each species’ plot – also that of the human species – would cover an area only one-quarter the size of Manhattan. Expressed this way, we as humans have not just far overstepped our bounds, but mapped only the equivalent of Europe, India and China, which make up about 14% of global land surface.

What’s worse, the habits and status of only 80,000 species are known well enough to really assess our impact on them. Of those, 29% risk extinction. So, returning to the metaphor, the species that we’re actually familiar with equal only the combined area of Spain, France and Turkey. And if 29% of all species died out, that would equate to the entire New World voided of life.

In other words: while we’ve had an apocalyptic impact on the biosphere already, it has been charted as well today as the globe was in Columbus’s day. This matters because knowing other species can provide a moral counterweight to life’s runaway exploitation: intact biodiversity is the undeniable proof that humans can inhabit Earth without destroying it.

That’s why naming species is important. Names harness the power of recognition. They acknowledge the other exists. They introduce familiarity. As someone once exclaimed to me, “you don’t notice species until you know they can have a name!”

In an era of extinction, there are no greater priorities than to uncover our millions of cohabitants and to share our knowledge of these species. This can be done through research, books, websites, Red Lists of threatened species, field courses, teaching materials and other media. But while every human relies on this knowledge, even if only by reaping the benefits of agriculture and medicine, few see its advance as their primary responsibility.

Few animals can raise that moral awareness of biodiversity better than dragonflies, literally rising from healthy freshwaters in colour and splendour.

Breaking the anonymity trap

Most of what is unknown is not just unseen, but not even being looked for.

There are 6,000 named dragonfly and damselfly species worldwide. These charismatic aquatic insects are regarded as well-known. But last December we published 60 new species in one article. This added one species to every 12 known ones in Africa.

Known from only one site near Cape Town, the endangered damselfly *Spesbona angusta* needs all the ‘Good Hope’ (*Spes Bona* in Latin) it can get.
Copyright Jens Kipping

Of course these species existed already, but were not noticed and documented before. Most unknown species may seem indistinct or concealed, requiring meticulous lab-work to uncover, but the 60 were found in accessible places all over Africa and are often recognisable even from a photo.

This May, English nature broadcaster Sir David Attenborough was given a new dragonfly species from Madagascar for his 90th birthday. In the scientific journal Nature I explain that both the dragonfly and Attenborough’s legacy stand for a selfless and unconditional love of nature.

I am often asked what the “use” of dragonflies is. They are not studied because they are not proxies of human psyche and society like ants and apes. They are not feared and persecuted like mosquitoes and snakes. They do not feed people like fish, nor pollinate crops like bees.

Rather, the beauty and sensitivity of these creatures – and so many others – stand for the state and needs of nature before our own. Like the instant sense of insignificance when counting stars, biodiversity stretches our perspective on life. Each species is a world parallel to our own, evoking a sense of being among equals.

What’s in a name

If species embody sustainability and names give them faces, those tags best be memorable. The sparklewing damselfly Umma gumma, named for the rock band Pink Floyd’s album “Ummagumma” (slang for making love), is a special favourite. The longleg dragonflies Notogomphus kimpavita and N. gorilla were named for the patron saint and conservation flagship of their Angolan and Ugandan regions respectively.

But who is out discovering species and introducing them to mankind? Nature is held hostage by humanity’s growing demands and so conservationists barely have time to find out who they really work for. Environmental consultancy is captive to the market. Many biologists have retreated into the lab. Without funds for discovery and disclosure, even natural history museums are giving up.

Only nine of our 60 new dragonflies were found while one of us worked for a university or museum. The other 33 were found while doing consultancy and 18 were found by a teacher. Much of the best biodiversity research and outreach now comes from devoted amateurs and academics working in their free time, showing how close biodiversity is to the human heart.

In a society governed by money, charity is what we do for others for free. But just as we cannot expect volunteers to protect the environment or eradicate poverty alone, we cannot continue life’s elementary and enlightening exploration without support. Nature needs more explorers.

Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra, Honorary research associate Naturalis Biodiversity Center and, Stellenbosch University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Polar Bear

The link below is to an article that looks at the natural history of the Polar Bear and a new book that does so.

For more visit:
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/08/exploring-the-natural-history-of-polar-bears/

Article: Environmental Wonders in Peril

The link below is to an article that looks at 10 wonders of our natural world in terrible peril.

For more visit:
http://www.takepart.com/photos/10-rapidly-vanishing-environmental-wonders

Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

Kevin's Daily Photo, Video, Quote or Link

ABOVE: The Southern Wetlands Boardwalk – Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

Late last week I decided I should do something with the final day of my annual leave that I had taken this time round, so I thought I’d pop into the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens near Raymond Terrace in New South Wales, Australia. I had been here before, but that was a long time ago. I wasn’t impressed on that first visit, so after more then a decade had it improved? Well that was the question I was keen to answer.

ABOVE: The Rotunda BELOW: Succulents Section

There was a $4.00 ‘escape’ fee, which would allow a token to be purchased and then the boom gate would rise once it was placed into the proper slot at the exit. So no entrance fee, just an exit fee. I was willing to pay this for a quick look and…

View original post 235 more words

Kevin's Walk on the Wild Side

Environment, Wildlife and Wilderness – Articles and News

Tag Archives for natural

The government has pledged over $800m to fight natural disasters. It could be revolutionary — if done right

Australia’s recent disasters

So what will these initiatives do?

There’s more to do

Mining companies are required to return quarried sites to their ‘natural character’. But is that enough?

Conditions of remediation

Nature and culture

Problematic results

Another approach to remediation

The bushfires are horrendous, but expect cyclones, floods and heatwaves too

Let it rain

Cyclones and heatwaves

Be thankful for weather forecasters

Want to beat climate change? Protect our natural forests

Natural climate solutions

Protect existing trees

By the numbers

China’s growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world

Predatory force?

Infrastructure tsunami

Iceberg ahead

The Sydney Barrier Reef: engineering a natural defence against future storms

Ocean warming trend is clear

Think big to prepare for a big storm

What dragonflies say about our ignorance of the natural world

Breaking the anonymity trap

What’s in a name

The Polar Bear

Article: Environmental Wonders in Peril

Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

Australia’s recent disasters

So what will these initiatives do?

There’s more to do

Share this:

Like this:

Conditions of remediation

Nature and culture

Problematic results

Another approach to remediation

Share this:

Like this:

Let it rain

Cyclones and heatwaves

Be thankful for weather forecasters

Share this:

Like this:

Natural climate solutions

Protect existing trees

By the numbers

Share this:

Like this:

Predatory force?

Infrastructure tsunami

Iceberg ahead

Share this:

Like this:

Ocean warming trend is clear

Think big to prepare for a big storm

Share this:

Like this:

Breaking the anonymity trap

What’s in a name

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: