The draining of swamps on the coast has mobilised toxic acids with dire consequences, and pollution from chemicals is never far away from industry and intensive agriculture. All this makes life hard for the biodiversity of our rivers, thousands of plant, animal and microbe species that call the river home. Most of these organisms live in wetlands and floodplains that thrive when a river floods. Eucalypts such as red gums and coolibah get their feet wet and grow. Water-holding frogs emerge from underground cocoons.
Native fish stream onto the floodplains to breed.
In March last year on Cooper Creek in central Australia, fish numbers increased from about 10 to 20 tonnes in their waterholes to 11,000 to 15,000 tonnes when the flood covered 6,000 square kilometres. More than 40,000 ibis, egrets and herons bred when the Macquarie Marshes flooded late last year. Wetlands are the major casualties of water resource development. Their water is captured by our dams and diverted. The world over, rivers and their wetlands are turning to drylands.