Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, is now entirely in drought, as a dry winter has intensified what has been called the worst drought in living memory in parts of eastern Australia. New South Wales produces around 25 percent of Australia’s agricultural output. The latest seasonal update from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has placed the entire state in some form of drought following one of the driest winters on record.
The whole of New South Wales is in drought. This is what it loo...
The department’s Combined Drought Indicator combines rainfall, soil water, plant growth and drought direction indexes, to classify levels of drought. It’s the first time in three decades that the NSW landscape has faced similar conditions. Western parts of the state have had their driest period since records began. With dry conditions forecast to continue for the next three months, farmers had to decide whether to continue the expensive and laborious task
of hand-feeding cattle and sheep or sell their livestock.
