Climate Change is on every rural community's lips, as the news of vast crop failure throughout the country has become nightly news in the metro media as well. The impact of the drought will be felt everywhere through increased prices of produce. 89% of NSW is now drought declared, August was been the driest in 100 years and was the warmest since 1950. The Murray River system is near collapse and water quotas are being cut to irrigators. Livestock prices have already fallen significantly.
Braidwood's weatherman Roger Hosking has been recording the weather for many years and says that "climate change is clearly evident and has accelerated over the past ten years. The declining rainfall, rising maximum temperatures and evaporation has meant declining runoff and declining productivity of pastures," he says.
Roger has graphed (below) the soil dryness index which is an ongoing continuous index, providing a snapshot at any particular time. The graph provides a basis to calculate runoff from pasture paddocks, showing that runoff as flow in the Shoalhaven is declining, long term over 20 years. Runoff is also declining as a proportion of rainfall.
Another effect of the continuing dry, is the lack of moisture in trees, which could be disastrous in trying to control bushfires this summer.
More in thie week's Braidwood Times
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