Australian farmers generally have a hard time of surviving in many areas, and climate change has made this increasingly difficult as long droughts seem to become more common, and along with those come grassfires and bushfires, and the occasional massive floods to really make life hard.
Many towns in NSW are now running extremely low on even town water for the occupants let alone water for the farms.
The above shows the vast areas of south-eastern Australia with the lowest rainfalls for a 7 month period which not only highlights the drought issue but the risk of major fires as we head towards another hot, dry summer.
Looking over even 16 months, we still see lowest levels on record in most of these areas.
The above are courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Perhaps photographers can help a little – by touring these areas to not only capture and highlight the drought, but bring much needed money into these communities – and for posterity document historic features which may become destroyed in bushfires – an ever present risk in Australia which results in substantial losses of our heritage nearly every year.
PS. bring your own water!