Hydrological change escalates risk of ecosystem stress in Australia's threatened biodiversity hotspot

The southwestern corner of the Australian continent has been identified as a global “biodiversityhotspot”, defined as an area where “exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoingexceptional loss of habitat”. In this paper we reconsider the reasons for this conservation priority.We briefly review significant characteristics of the flora and fauna, and the way threateningprocesses are escalating ecosystem stress to these conservation values. Our specific aim is toexamine the ecological consequences of hydrological change, including emergent issues such asclimate change, and focus on the coastal plains in higher rainfall zones where the majority of theWestern Australian population resides. Here we argue that human-driven and/or climatically-driven hydrological change deserve greater attention, since they: i) directly escalate the risk ofextinction for some components of the biota, or ii) are underlying and/or contributing factors in themanifestation of other threats to the biota, and may complicate or exacerbate some of those threats(such as fire, Phytophthora and the spread of weeds). This paper briefly outlines the challenges tothe region’s biodiversity posed by hydrological change. We suggest a societal adoption ofapproaches based on water literacy will be necessary to avoid irreversible changes associated witha continued reliance on water resource developments and other energy/water intensive industrialactivities.