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Wetland Loss in the Transition to Urbanisation: a Case Study from Western Sydney, Australia

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Abstract

Together with other signatories of the Ramsar Convention, Australia is obliged to seek to halt wetland loss, which may include farm ponds/dams and other constructed wetlands. Since European arrival in Australia, extensive clearing of native ecosystems for agriculture and urbanisation has resulted in a concomitant loss of natural wetlands. However, there is limited information on changes in physical characteristics of wetlands with the transition to agriculture and urbanisation. In North-western Sydney, we investigated changes in wetland surface area, distance to nearest neighbour (connectivity), and shape complexity with transition from natural to agricultural and urban landscapes. There were significant differences amongst land use types for these three waterbody parameters. Wetlands in natural areas were larger and further apart from each other. Half the wetlands in agricultural and urban landscapes had small surface areas, but wetlands in agricultural areas were closer together, so connectivity for biota was potentially greater. Most wetlands in all land use classes were simple or irregular in shape, though urban areas had a higher proportion of irregular wetlands. We predict that on the current trajectory of increasing urbanisation, native biodiversity will continue to decline unless more emphasis is placed on the importance of wetlands – natural and constructed.

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Notes

  1. The Hawkesbury campus of Western Sydney University was first developed (and remained for more than a century an agricultural institution), and for much of its history run in close association with the New South Wales Department of Agriculture. Although this influence was waning when the senior author commenced work as an academic in the late 1980s, there where staff/ex-staff who had been associated with the ‘farm’ for upwards of 50 years. Their knowledge, together with the knowledge of numerous decedents of the indigenous people and early settlers, often confirmed by careful observation, provides the basis for ‘pers. Obs.’.

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  1. Shelley Burgin

    Present address: Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, 4229, Australia

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  1. School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia

    Shelley Burgin, Michael J. M. Franklin & Loren Hull

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Burgin, S., Franklin, M.J.M. & Hull, L. Wetland Loss in the Transition to Urbanisation: a Case Study from Western Sydney, Australia. Wetlands 36, 985–994 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-016-0813-0

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