Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 1

DustWatch Report

January 2019 Dust activity Triple the dust activity of any other January since 2005 Wind strength 30% more hours of winds compared to 13-year average Groundcover Less than any other January since 2001 Rainfall Very little rainfall in inland New South Wales Land management Some paddock preparation for upcoming growing season

Dust activity January 2019 was the dustiest January in our records dating back to 2005. In fact, it was the dustiest month ever measured (Figure 1). This was caused by a combination of very low groundcover across both grazing and cropping country and increased hours of strong winds (> 40km/h).

Dust activity was spread across the entire month with widespread dust activity recorded every week of the month. Activity was higher in the north than in the south (Figure 2).

Figure 1 Area of Western Local Land Services with above 50% ground cover (orange line) and hours of dust (blue line) - January data only

Figure 2 Hours of dust activity (number in brackets) at each DustWatch site in January 2018

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Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 2

Groundcover The area with more than 50% groundcover has decreased slightly from last month across the various natural resource management areas (Figure 3 and Table 1). December and January are generally the lowest months for ground cover (Table 1). Large parts of the sheep-wheat belt and the pastoral lands of western NSW and South Australia are at risk of wind erosion.

Figure 3 Groundcover for January 2018 as determined from MODIS by CSIRO

Table 1 Percentage of each natural resource management (NRM) area with cover >50% for December 2017 to January 2018

Date Central West

Mallee Murray North Central

North West

Riverina SA MDB

Western Central Tablelands

Dec 2017 92 86 99 99 92 93 78 44 100 Jan 2018 90 90 99 100 92 92 81 44 100 Feb 2018 88 91 98 99 93 91 81 47 100 Mar 2018 89 92 98 99 93 92 83 49 100 Apr 2018 92 94 99 100 95 94 86 56 100 May 2018 94 95 99 99 95 98 91 62 100 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

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 3

Groundcover change The area above 50% cover has dropped between October 2018 and January 2019, especially in the Local Land Services Riverina and Murray regions (Figure 5) and across the border in the North Central and Mallee Catchment Management Areas where large areas have seen a decrease in ground cover of between 20 and 40% (orange colours in Figure 4). Overall groundcover values are comparable to the 2008 and 2009 drought years (Figure 5).

Figure 4 Groundcover change between October 2018 and January 2019 as determined from MODIS

Figure 5 Percentage area of NRM with more than 50% cover since January 2005 as determined from

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Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 4

Groundcover is much lower this January (2019) than in January 2018 (orange and red colours in Figure 6). When comparing January 2018 to January 2009, the year of the ‘Red Dawn’ dust storm, groundcover values this year are lower in the Local Land Services North West and Central West regions (red colours in Figure 7). Groundcover is better in southern NSW (green colours in Figure 7).

Figure 6 Groundcover change between January 2018 and January 2019 as determined from MODIS

Figure 7 Groundcover change between January 2009 and January 2018 as determined from MODIS

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 5

Rainfall January 2018 saw almost no rainfall in the western parts of New South Wales (Figure 8). In contrast, some of the eastern Local Land Services picked up more than 100mm for the month of January. These falls moved most of New South Wales into the average rainfall categories for the month of January (Figure 9a) but the 24-month decile map, in particular, is still painting a very grim picture with the eastern half of Australia predominantly in the driest 10% of Bureau of Meteorology records (Figure 9b). 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 8 Rainfall totals for January 2019 (source: Bureau of Meteorology)

Figure 9 Rainfall deciles for January 2018 (a) and 1 February 2017 to 30 January 2018 (24 month - b)

Community-based wind erosion monitoring across Australia 6

VIIRS fires and MODIS satellite image Fire numbers (375m pixel with temperature anomalies) have doubled from last month (1173 and 2466 pixels respectively – Figure 11). Some of the fires are likely caused by the dry thunderstorms that occurred throughout the month. The satellite image also shows a large dust storm that occurred on 26 January 2019 (Figure 10).

Figure 10 Pixels (375m) with active burning fires in January 2018 as determined from VIIRS satellite

Figure 11 Number of 375 m pixels with active burning fires between January 2016 and January 2018.

The DustWatch team Contact us at dustwatch@environment.nsw.gov.au Dust data supplied by the Office of Environment and Heritage 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, Riverina, Western, Central West, Central Tablelands 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 OEH2019/0001

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Number of 375m pixel detected by VIIRS instrument CentralTablelandsCentral West

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