This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Record heat and drought across Australia delivered the worst conditions in the country since at least 2000, with river flows, tree cover, and wildlife being hit on an “unprecedented scale,” according to a new report titled Australia’s Environment. The index of environmental conditions in Australia scored 2019 at 0.8 out of 10—the worst result across all the years analyzed from 2000 on.
The year delivered unprecedented bushfires, record heat, very low soil moisture, low vegetation growth, and 40 additions to the threatened species list.
The report’s lead author, Albert van Dijk of the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, told The Guardian that 2019 was “probably the worst in a century or more” for the environment in Australia.
“This is not the new normal—this is just getting worse and worse,” he said, adding that 2019 had seen a “continuing descent into an ever more dismal future. You start to see ecosystems fall apart and then struggle to recover before the next major disturbance.”
The report scored environmental conditions across seven indicators–inundation, streamflow, vegetation growth, leaf area, soil protection, tree cover, and the number of hot days. Across all years analyzed, 2005 was the next worst year, impacted by the millennium drought. The year 2010 was the best; it was also one of Australia’s wettest on record.
Van Dijk said th
