Threats to our water environments

Water quality links:

Home

What is water quality?

Direct to data

Monitoring program & assessments

Major threats & issues

Legislation & programs

Other resources & initiatives

Publications

Glossary

Clearing vegetation

Native vegetation clearance has wide-ranging effects on water quality, habitats and biodiversity. Clearing the landscape of trees and shrubs changes the direction and rate of rain runoff, and increases erosion. This means more sediment, nutrients, salt, pesticides and other toxicants are transported into rivers and streams.

Towns and cities increase the volume of stormwater due to their large area of impervious surfaces (roads, roofs, footpaths, carparks) compared with well-vegetated catchments.

The National Land and Water Resources Audit recently found that, of the river length assessed in South Australia, 95% had water with elevated loads of suspended solids, total phosphorus and total nitrogen.

This page was last modified 02-10-2008