Gwydir 2023-24 Annual Report - Appendix H Pool Water Quality Mapping Report

It has been widely recognised that extreme events, such as high and low temperature, heavy precipitation and floods and droughts, occur more frequently under the impact of climate change (Du et al. 2014). Climate change has the potential to substantially alter river flow regimes (Arnell and Gosling 2013). The frequency and intensity of drought and drying events are increasing globally as a result of human-induced climate change and growing agricultural and anthropogenic water demand (Mazdiyasni & AghaKouchak, 2015, EPA, 2016, USGCRP, 2018). Drought may impact freshwater biota by altering community composition (Attril et al. 1996), decreasing habitat connectivity and availability (Lennox et al. 2019), affecting recruitment success (Morrongiello et al., 2011), increasing disease transmission (Chiaramonte et al. 2016), and leading to local extirpation and even extinction of endangered species (VanderVorste et al., 2020).