Professor Richard Kingsford of the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, first began surveying water bird populations more than 25-years ago. He found that pelicans, ducks, swans, ibis, egrets and other birds gathered in huge numbers after rains, feeding and breeding in more than 2,000 marshes, swamps, lakes, billabongs, estuaries and other wetlands across Eastern Australia.

Water issues are prominent in Australia with many river and wetland systems under threat. Plants and animals living in wetlands, estuaries and floodplains depend on natural river flows to survive.

However in 2007, he found most of these birds had disappeared. In 1980, Professor Kingsford could count on seeing 20,000 waterbirds from more than 20 species. In the 1990s, that figure had dropped to 5,000 birds from 13 species. In the last seven years, he has only seen around 600 birds from just nine species. The birds have not gone elsewhere; they have just gone. This is affecting major wetland areas on the East Coast of Australia including the Macquarie Marshes, the Menindee lakes and the Gwydir Wetlands.

As a result of climate change, in 50 years’ time, Australia’s trees will be growing in a hotter world with higher carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and under significantly different rainfall patterns. Professors Ross McMurtrie and Mark Adams are part of an international research team who have planted gum trees an environment to simulate the climate of the future.

Called the Hawkesbury Forest Experiment, the heart of the project is 12 large chambers that can house 10-metre high trees in a sealed environment. This unique facility represents the first large-scale field experiment on the impact of CO2 and water supply on eucalypts.

Rising CO2 should stimulate forest growth. However, the increase in productivity may be smaller than expected because of the nutrient-poor soils in Australia’s forests. Because plants tend to use water more efficiently at high CO2, water flow to groundwater and streams and rivers may increase. On the other hand, tree canopies may be denser because of high CO2, which may increase tree water use.

The results of this project will enable the researchers to develop computer models that predict growth, carbon storage and water use of gum trees and forests living in a world affected by climate change.

For more information about UNSW research, please visit the UNSW Research website

Australia’s biodiversity reflects 300 million years of evolution in a land separated from the rest of the world. It has also been affected by 60,000 years of human occupation, and the massive impacts and achievements Australians have made in the country over the last 200 years. Source: State of the Environment Report 2006.