Revealed: how the environment in your suburb is improving or declining

High rainfall in 2025 filled Australia’s inland rivers and lakes and infused the landscape with green across much of the continent, with notable exceptions for drought-stricken areas on the border of NSW, Victoria and South Australia and in western Tasmania.

The Australian National University research found Australia’s environmental conditions remained above average for the fifth consecutive year, based on scores for inundation, streamflow, vegetation growth, leaf area, soil protection, tree cover and the number of hot days.

Professor Albert Van Dijk, the chair of water science and management at ANU’s Fenner School of Environment & Society, said last year’s weather matched a longer-term trend of rainfall patterns.

“The north of Australia is getting wetter, whereas the south of Australia … has been getting drier winters,” Van Dijk said. “That’s a long-term trend and that was very clear last year as well.”

While the flooding that hit inland Queensland and flowed into NSW and South Australia, filling up Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, caused challenges, it also had benefits, Van Dijk said.

“If the landscape greens up, then most species tend to benefit from that, directly or indirectly, and if floodplains flood, most floodplain species tend to benefit from that,” Van Dijk said. “That’s even true for people – graziers are, generally speaking, quite happy in the outback if their floodplains flood. Even though it causes an immediate problem for them, after that, the soils are good to grow some really good grass.”

The scale of zero to 10 measures the environmental conditions compared with typical conditions in the years from 2000 to 2025 – zero is the worst in the period, five is average and 10 is the best.

The national score for 2025 was 7.4 out of 10, with Queensland performing best against its own benchmark with a score of 8.38 and South Australia the worst at 4.78. Both NSW and Victoria were above average at 6.35 and 5.43 respectively, but had declined since 2024.

South-west Western Australia also had a relatively good year, but Van Dijk said this was about weather rather than a long-term climate trend.

In both Sydney and Melbourne, established inner suburbs fared better than the outer suburbs.

Van Dijk said the main driver for differences in suburb performance was development and loss of tree canopy, while western Sydney also had more hot days.

While Australia’s landscapes fared relatively well, the report details a terrible year for ocean ecosystems. Coral bleaching occurred on both the east and west coast, while a persistent toxic algal bloom devastated the coastal waters off South Australia.

The World Meteorological Organisation on Monday put out its annual State of the Climate report, which confirms that the oceans are absorbing 91 per cent of the excess energy trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. The ocean has been absorbing about 18 times the annual human energy use each year for the past two decades, the report says.

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