Posted by sustain

10 Tips on Water Conservation

Photo credit: econaur

Ever looked at a running tap and considered how much water an average household uses every day? Would it surprise you to find out that according to coolaustralia.org, one person in Australia alone, can use as much as 340,000 litres a year! That’s over 930 litres per person per day. When you consider that an above ground pool 4.5 x 4.5 metres and 1.2 metres deep holds 16,000 litres of water, one person’s average water use per year is equilevant to over 21 swimming pools.

Water conservation and home sustainability is a vital practice that every Australian should take part of. The aim is to become a country with a more sustainable future, and for that to occur, we all need to do our part.

None of us really know when our rivers are at risk of running dry, or our lakes disappearing in a drought. With the recent bush fire disaster, it is more imperative than ever to become water conscious and start living a more sustainable life.

So what can you do to help? Here’s 10 ways you can help.

10 Tips Towards Better Water Sustainability

Check your showers, toilets and sinks for leaks
Take shorter showers or run small baths for the kids
Install water saving shower heads
Check your water meter outside when everything is turned off – great way to find if you have a plumbing problem
Turn taps off while shaving or brushing your teeth
Hand wash your dishes more often as dishwasher cycles waste water
Consider planting drought-resistant trees in your garden if you live in a drought prone area
Wash your car with a bucket rather than running the hose
Install a rainwater tank
Install a septic toilet or go one step further with a waterless toilet

 

Sustainability Matters Magazine – Bridge Hub

An interesting article, published in the Sustainability Matters magazine, talks about Bridge Hub and its quest to solve Australia’s water problems through the launch of their 2020 Water Challenge. The way it works, is that anyone participating has an opportunity to bring a water problem to their attention and submitting it for consideration to be solved. What a great way to bring a community together and work on sustainability.

Click to view online

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy also deserves a shout out. We should all model our values on this incredible organisation. One of their projects includes providing food and water sustainability to the Murray-Darling Basin, which is helping save certain wildlife in danger of extinction. Wildlife such as the Southern Bell Frog; which is one of Australia’s largest frog species. Bird species like the Australasian Bittern and Australian Painted Snipe are also thriving from their conservation work.

Southern Bell Frog

Photo credit: Museums Victoria Collections

Bridge Hub and The Nature Conservancy aren’t alone in the sustainability journey towards a more sustainable future in Australia. There are several organisations succeeding. Take a look at the Australian Water Association; Australia’s largest water network who promote sustainable water management by using three core principals. Recognition, information and networking.

Anything is possible if we put our mind to it and embrace nature’s gifts.

 

Seven of Australia’s most Sustainable National Parks

National Parks of Australia – Our Seven Wonders

When trying to live a sustainable life and doing the best for the future of our planet, there’s no better way to motivate yourself to stay on the path of conservation and sustainability, than to look directly into Australia’s back yard, and check out some of the National Parks we have. With such a vast land, we are lucky to live in a country that is still able to help sustain the majestic places our motherland has provided for us.

This week marks Parks Week 2020, so we thought we would remind you of how lucky we truly are, and introduce you to 7 of our top picks of Australia’s National Parks. What’s important is that we remember why it’s so imperative to conserve our country and its pure gifts she has given us, and these seven wonders are a great reminder for that.

CRADLE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK – TASMANIA

Photo credit: Get Your Guide

Not only is Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain beautiful to see, the fact that half its alpine flora is endemic and cannot grow anywhere else in the world is a wonder in itself. It’s no surprise why so many Australians travel to the area each year. If you plan to visit, check out TasWlk Co who have built 5 Sustainable Cradle Huts among the forest walk. They have been designed to be completely, ecologically sustainable by using unique waste management practices in these non-polluting and self-contained huts.

PORT CAMPBELL NATIONAL PARK – VICTORIA

Photo credit: Explore the Great Ocean Road

Earning a name like the Shipwreck Coast, Port Campbell National Park is one of the most pristine national parks in Australia. It has stunning coastline formations, and it’s marine and wildlife is present in abundance. If you take a walk at night, you might be lucky enough to see some penguins at dinner time. Don’t forget to explore the London Bridge and the Twelve Apostles.

KOSCIUSZKO NATIONAL PARK – NSW

Photo credit: Camper Mate

Regardless that Australia mostly has a subtropical climate, it also offers some of the best snowfields, caves, fishing spots and national park walks in the World.  Kosciuszko National Park would have to be one of Australia’s top rated ‘National Treasures’. With areas such as Thredo-Perisher, Lower Snowy River, Khancoban, Selwyn, Yarrangobilly, Tumut and High Plains, it’s a ‘must-see’ for any Aussie.

BLUE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK – NSW

Photo credit: Planet Ware

If Kosciuszko isn’t enough to boast about, we also have the Blue Mountain National Park. Consisting of 6 areas, including Katoomba, Blackheath, Glenbrook, Lower Gross Valley, Mount Wilson, and Southern Blue Mountains area, this national park has a very European feel to it. Probably why so many visit the forests the area offers year after year. Visiting The Three Sisters is worth the trip to Katoomba alone.

UNDARA VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK – QLD

Photo credit: Wikiwand

Many Australians don’t know that we have a volcanic national park in Australia, let alone that it contains one of the planet’s longest flows of lava, originating from a single volcano. Undara is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘long way’ and the name fits the part, since this lava tube cave system began about 190,000 years ago. The area is also very rich in volcanic basalt soils. Tours are only available through commercial tour organisations to protect the environment and sustain it for future generations.

KARIJINI NATIONAL PARK – WA

Photo credit: Ecoretreat 

This unspoiled, nature-based national park boasts a diverse landscape and is well known for its incredible gorges, that are up to 100 metres in depth. You can find this magical, almost untouched nature strip about 1400km north of Perth. Its majestic creeks are visited by tourists from all over the continent, but surprisingly enough, it is extremely well conserved. Karijini National Park is the second largest natural park in WA, and definitely one to add to your bucket list.

WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK – QLD

Photo credit: Australian Traveler

The Whitsundays. We’ve saved the best for last. This is by far Queensland’s most treasured destinations to visit. Offering the purest silica sand which is almost white in colour, it is home to the most vibrant underwater marine life, making it a popular snorkeling destination. It has crystal clear salt water, creating a translucent underwater heaven that we call the Great Barrier Reef. Don’t forget that humpback whales are also spotted here in abundance.

What’s your favourite wonder from our list?

How green is our infrastructure? Helping cities assess its value for long-term liveability.

The Conversation

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Australian cities score high in liveability awards. Melbourne has topped The Economist’s most liveable cities ranking five years in a row, with Adelaide, Sydney and Perth not far behind and Brisbane in the top 20. Australian cities rank well in other liveability surveys, too, if not so highly. Environment is one of the key factors that these surveys measure, but the data and methods being used are not very sophisticated.

Green infrastructure is a key contributor to these rankings. The networks of green and blue – taking in rivers and streams, parks, green wedges, gardens and tree-lined roads and rail – underpin urban liveability.

Yet, if we look at these valuable assets, they are mainly historical legacies of the 19th century. They include The Domain, Treasury-Fitzroy Gardens and Royal Park in Melbourne, Hyde and Centennial Parks in Sydney, King’s Park in Perth, the Adelaide Parklands and those in Brisbane, Hobart and Canberra.

Their creation was driven mainly by visions of what a city should look like and provide for its people. This was long before the invention of cost-benefit analysis and many of the other tools used to make the economic case for infrastructure.

Future-proofing urban environments

Today, if a key parcel of land is up for development, green infrastructure is often an afterthought, if considered at all. The recent reports that the former Victorian government rezoned Fishermans Bend, a former industrial site of 455 hectares, without proper regard for grey or green infrastructure are not unique.

In an area threatened by sea-level rise, increased flooding and heat island effects, to allow development that exacerbates these issues is extremely short-sighted.

But this is happening in many localities. Changing climate and the unintended consequences of small decisions, such as urban infilling, are making cities hotter, more prone to flash-flooding and less green. Rain gardens have aesthetic and practical value as they reduce urban flooding by slowing water run-off.

Local government authorities are on the front line with these issues. They carry the major burden of responsibility for developing and maintaining neighbourhood environments. Over the last few years, some councils have considerably increased spending on park renewal, rain gardens to slow runoff, water capture and recycling and urban forest strategies.

However, this is occurring in an economic environment where local government’s resources are limited and efficiency is emphasised at every turn. State governments run on a platform of capping rates, not considering whether those rates reinvested by council generate ongoing socially beneficial returns.

When communities are asked what they want councils to invest in, green infrastructure is usually high on the list. Local government has recognised these pressures, identifying the need to build better business cases for green infrastructure projects and programs in order to justify their expenditure.

Read more.

Do trees really help clear the air in our cities?

The Conversation

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It may sound like a no-brainer to say that trees improve air quality. After all, we know that trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂), and that their leaves can trap the toxic pollutants nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone, and harmful microscopic particles produced by diesel vehicles, cooking and wood burning.

Yet some recent studies have suggested that trees may in fact worsen urban air quality by trapping pollutants at street level. A closer look at the evidence – and how it was collected – reveals the root of this dispute, and can help us come to a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of trees on our urban environment.

First things first; it is not trees that pollute the air of cities in the developed world. As car manufacturers are all too guiltily aware, it is mainly road vehicles that cause pollution. And their impacts are compounded by the choices we make about how and what we drive.

Many features of the urban landscape influence how air moves around a city. Impervious objects like buildings, and permeable ones like trees, deflect air from the path imposed by weather patterns, such as high and low pressure systems. The urban landscape turns freshening breezes into whorls of air, which can either contain pollution near its source – where it affects vulnerable hearts and lungs – or lift it away from ground level.

Whether the landscape traps or lifts air will depend very sensitively on the exact positioning of roads, buildings, gardens, street trees, intersections, even billboards and other street furniture.

Trees affect the urban environment in several subtle ways. From altering air flows, to collecting pollution deposits, to affecting the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, their impacts are both pervasive and difficult to pinpoint.

Experimental studies can certainly show that pollution ends up on leaves. But it is no easy task to convert such measurements into an estimate of how the concentrations – that is, the amount of pollutant per cubic metre of air – change. And it is this concentration change that really counts, since we breathe air and – generally speaking – don’t lick leaves.

Asking whether cities should have trees in it is a bit like asking whether a suit should have a person in it. There is every chance that urban trees could provide a “nature-based solution” to several pressing problems with the urban environment, but perhaps not in the way scientists and policy-makers seem currently to be thinking. Rather than providing a technical fix that disguises our obsession with the diminishing returns of the internal combustion engine, increasing urban tree numbers could change our entire perspective on cities, facilitating the creation of liveable cities that value nature as an integral part of social, economic and environmental capital.

Read more.