State Salinity Strategy biological survey of the Western Australian wheatbelt: background

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 8 years ago

INTRODUCTION – Dryland salinity was first recognised as a significant threat to agriculture in the Western Australian wheatbelt in the early twentieth century (Mann, 1907; Patterson, 1917; Wood, 1924). However, it was not until the early 1970s that rising saline groundwaters were identified as a major threat to wetland biodiversity at Lake Toolibin (NARWC, 1987). The severity and widespread nature of the threat to biodiversity, both in Western Australia and elsewhere in Australia, received little attention in the scientific literature until the late 1980s when papers on wetland (Halse, 1988, Hart et al. 1990; Halse et al. 1993a,b) and terrestrial effects (George et al., 1995) were documented. Soon after a whole of Government approach was announced to combat dryland salinisation in Western Australia. Initially called the Salinity Action Plan (Government of Western Australia, 1996), through a process of review and public consultation it became the Western Australian Salinity Strategy (State Salinity Council, 2000).