Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 1

DustWatch Report June 2019 Dust activity Lower than May 2019 Wind strength Average for the month of May Groundcover Improving but very little biomass in most areas Rainfall Much below average for the month of June Land management Crops emerging in some areas

Dust activity Groundcover has improved slightly from May 2019 (Figure 2 and Table 1). There has been minimal dust activity with only minor dust recorded around 12 May and 29 May 2019. The area between Broken Hill and Mildura that missed out on the April and May 2019 rain events is showing the highest dust activity across New South Wales.

Areas in the north east such as the Local Land Services North West and Central West Regions did not receive any substantial rain and groundcover remains very low. These areas could become dust sources with the onset of warmer weather and stronger winds in the coming months.

Figure 1 Hours of dust activity (number in brackets) at each DustWatch site in June 2019

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 2

Groundcover The area with less than 50% groundcover (Table 1 and red and yellow colours in Figure 2) has decreased further following the good rainfall across central NSW in April 2019 and May 2019. The area west of Menindee Lakes in western NSW that missed out on the recent rainfall events is still showing very low groundcover.

Figure 2 Groundcover for June 2019 as determined from MODIS by CSIRO

Table 1 Percentage of each NRM (natural resource management area) with cover >50% for June 2018 to June 2019

Date Central West

Mallee Murray North Central

North West

Riverina SA MDB

Western Central Tablelands

June 2018 95 98 100 100 95 99 95 66 100

July 2018 94 98 100 100 94 99 93 62 100

Aug 2018 90 98 99 100 93 98 91 53 100

Sept 2018 85 95 98 100 91 94 84 43 100

Oct 2018 79 89 96 100 89 91 75 39 100

Nov 2018 69 78 90 98 84 78 66 31 100

Dec 2018 59 62 79 92 81 64 56 24 99

Jan 2019 57 57 76 88 82 64 56 26 99

Feb 2019 56 64 77 89 83 62 58 27 99

Mar 2019 64 71 78 92 88 66 65 30 99

Apr 2019 67 76 81 94 87 72 65 34 100

May 2019 79 88 96 99 91 96 79 63 100 Jun 2019 87 94 99 100 84 99 89 68 100

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 3

Groundcover change The groundcover change map (Figure 3) highlights the areas with substantial groundcover improvement over the past three months. Rainfall events in April and May 2019 increased groundcover in the grazing areas of western NSW and emerging crops increased cover in the southern wheat/sheep belt. Both improvements need to be carefully looked at as they by no means indicate that the drought is broken. Rangeland cover is still very low and consists mainly of annual herbs and grasses that will disappear with the onset of warmer weather.

Pasture biomass is also very low (AussieGRASS). Some crops in the south are already showing signs of water stress and will need further rain to develop.

Figure 3 Groundcover change between March 2019 and June 2019 as determined from MODIS

Figure 4 Percentage area of NRM with more than 50% cover since June 2005 as determined from

MODIS

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Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 4

Rainfall Only minor falls below 10 millimetres were recorded across western NSW in June 2019 (Figure 5). The only exception is an area east of Ivanhoe and south of Cobar that received up to 50 millimetres.

Most of New South Wales received below average rainfall for the month of June (Figure 6a), pushing the region further into severe drought, especially when looking at the 18-month decile map (Figure 6b).

Updates on the latest drought status across the state can be found on the Department of Primary Industries website at: Latest NSW Drought maps.

Figure 5 Rainfall totals for June 2019 (source: Bureau of Meteorology)

Figure 6 Rainfall deciles for June 2019 (a) and 1 January 2018 to 30 June 2019 (18 month - b)

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 5

VIIRS fires and MODIS satellite image Fire numbers (375m pixel with temperature anomalies – Figure 7) in June 2019 (3264) were lower than May 2019 (4062) but higher than expected for the month of June; especially in the Local Land Services Central West region. The local dust activity that occurred on 12 and 29 June 2019 was covered by cloud and not visible on any of the satellite images.

Figure 7 Pixels (375m) with active burning fires in June 2019 as determined from VIIRS satellite

Figure 8 Number of 375 m pixels with active burning fires between January 2016 and June 2019.

The DustWatch team Contact us at dustwatch@environment.nsw.gov.au Dust data supplied by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment Rural Air Quality network. The MODIS image is courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC; the VIIRS fire data is courtesy of the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) and the rainfall maps are from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. This project would not be possible without funding from: The National Landcare Programme, Western and Murray Local Land Services (LLS) in NSW; the NSW EPA, the Mallee and North Central CMAs in Victoria and Murray Darling Basin NRM in South Australian, CSIRO, TERN and the Australian National University. We particularly thank our many DustWatch volunteers who provide observations and help maintain the instruments.

ISSN – 2206-3161

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