The greatest catastrophe in the Australian environment since European settlement has been the ongoing destruction of the floodplain system. This flat and dry continent had developed a unique ability to maximise every drop of rainfall.

Water travelled through the landscape slowly, with each floodplain section taking what it needed and passing the rest on down the system. This allowed for plant growth and fertility all along the interconnected floodplains, thereby minimising evaporation and instead, promoting a daily water cycle based on transpiration.

In a country where floods are a regular occurrence, it was the floodplain system that provided the flow moderation necessary to prevent the massive erosive destruction caused by raging floodwaters. Today, this erosion is all too evident in so many of our rivers and streams all around the country.

But wherever this ancient landscape hydration system is still working, or has been re-built, the elegance of the system is immediately apparent when the big floods occur. As the water flow increases in volume and velocity, it spills out onto the floodplain and as its surface area increases, its destructive and erosive power is moderated. Many rivers evolved with only a minimal flow in the stream-line, more like a chain of ponds, with the water continually flowing out into the surrounding landscape and then returning further downstream.

The tragedy of Australia’s vanishing wetlands is apparent to anyone who has driven on country roads. So many of our rivers and streams are deeply incised and more often than not, dry as a bone. They look like the drains they have become. While the streambed remains so much lower than the surrounding country, its role in the hydrology of the landscape through which it passes is seriously diminished. Vast quantities of topsoil fertility continue to be swept towards the sea each time the river floods.

Climate change is expected to intensify the pattern of drought to flood. Slowing the passage of water through the landscape is an urgent and appropriate priority.

The obvious, and often disastrous, effect of past land-management practices has imbued the current generation of land managers with a real desire for change. There is a great deal of goodwill in rural areas towards the implementation of land rehydration.

The Australian landscape has been suffering for well over a hundred years and there is no quick fix solution. It is though, in the national interest, to get land rehydration started right across the country as soon as possible.

Everybody wins:

Farmers benefit from increased fertility which leads to greater agricultural output and therefore a better return on investment.

The environment is vastly improved. The draining of topsoil fertility into the sea is slowed and eventually stopped, floods are moderated and the greatest amount of vegetation between droughts is preserved.

The Government wins in its efforts to reduce Australia’s net carbon emissions. We have the capacity to bring an enormous quantity of carbon down from the atmosphere and lock it up in agricultural products. Wherever it’s green, wherever the soil is fertile, it’s all locked-up carbon.