A natural sequence of events occurs following bushfires, seeing ash high in nutrients entering streams and oceans with rainfall. This and other processes can lead to outcomes very unfavourable for our aquatic life often resulting in migration to better water if possible, extreme animal stress or fish kills. Expanding human development activities, and climate change reduce the resilience of aquatic habitats, therefore the impacts of a bushfire can be even more severe than they naturally would be, not only at the time of the fire but in the days, weeks and months post fire.
Through our bushfire recovery initiatives OceanWatch has taken an in-depth look at the impacts of the 2019-20 bushfires on marine and freshwater environments.
