Why is the water in Toolibin Lake became salty?
Salinity. Natural vegetation has been removed in the past to make way for agriculture resulting in the water table rising and bringing salt from underground aquifers. This causes the soil and water systems in that area to become saline, which impacts on the health of Toolibin Lake’s fragile lake floor vegetation.
Where is Toolibin lake located?
Western Australia
| Toolibin Lake | |
|---|---|
| Location | Wheatbelt, Western Australia |
| Coordinates | 32°55′15″S 117°36′28″ECoordinates: 32°55′15″S 117°36′28″E |
| Type | perched freshwater or brackish wooded swamp |
| Primary inflows | local surface runoff |
Is Toolibin a wetland?
Toolibin is the only remaining example in Southwest Australia of a wetland with extensive living thickets of swamp sheoak and the paperbark Melaleuca strobophylla on the lake fringes and bed – one of the main wetland types in the region prior to agricultural development there.
Where is Toolibin Lake located?
Toolibin Lake is a seasonal fresh to brackish water perched lake or wooded swamp, in south-western Australia. The lake is contained with a 493-hectare (1,218-acre) nature reserve and it is located about 200 kilometres (124 mi) south-east of Perth, in the Shire of Narrogin, and 40 kilometres…
What makes Toolibin such a special place?
The vegetation community provides habitat, now rare in the central wheatbelt, for woodland birds and other animals. Toolibin and its environs support more breeding waterbird species — up to 25, including the rare freckled duck, cormorants, egrets, night herons and spoonbills — than any other inland wetland in south-western Australia.
Is Toolibin Lake saline or saline?
Toolibin is the only major lake in the catchment that has not become completely saline. Toolibin Lake lies in a low rainfall area of the Wheatbelt with an average annual rainfall of 400 mm, mainly falling in May–August, with annual evaporation of 1800 mm.