Tuesday 13th October 2026
12.00pm – 1.00pm (Australian Western Standard Time)
Join us as we explore what an increasingly extreme climate means for riverine biodiversity, and how science can help inform more
resilient approaches to managing these ecosystems.
Floods, droughts and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe, creating increasingly complex challenges for rivers and the biodiversity they support. This webinar will explore global evidence of how these events affect riverine biodiversity, from genetic diversity and species composition to ecosystem function and connectivity across river networks.
Our guest speaker, Professor Jonathan Tonkin, will discuss how extreme events can interact with other environmental pressures, including the growing concern around compound events where multiple extremes occur together or in sequence. The session
will also examine emerging approaches for predicting biodiversity responses and what this means for future management.
Importantly, this webinar will explore why building resilience requires a shift from local, reactive responses towards coordinated, catchment-scale approaches, supported by long-term monitoring, better understanding of ecological legacies and stronger
evidence about how ecosystems respond to compounding extremes.