Environment at a Glance Indicators

Australia

This country profile features selected environmental indicators from the OECD Core Set, building on harmonised datasets available on OECD Data Explorer. The indicators reflect major environmental issues, including climate, air quality, freshwater resources, waste and the circular economy, and biodiversity. Differences with national data sources can occur due to delays in data treatment and publication, or due to different national definitions and measurement methods. The OECD is working with countries and other international organisations to further improve the indicators and the underlying data.

Context

Australia is the world's sixth largest country and has the third-largest ocean territory. It is also the driest inhabited continent. The country’s steady economic growth has helped improve the living standards of a growing population. The economy is service based but highly resource-intensive due to the high level of extraction and use of metal ores and fossil energy materials, and low population density.

The continent is relatively flat, with the planet’s lowest average elevation. It is endowed with a wide variety of natural resources. This includes abundant energy resources: fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil), renewables (wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal and biomass), uranium, as well as significant other metal and mineral resources (aluminium, iron, gold, copper, nickel, zinc and mineral sands). Australia is one of 17 megadiverse countries with 10% of global biodiversity and a high level of endemic species. The country has a variety of ecosystems, from tropical wetlands and rainforests to eucalypt forests, a central desert and coral reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef. While it is among the world’s less densely populated countries, Australians live mostly on the eastern, southeastern and southwestern coasts in dense urban areas. Environmental responsibilities are shared between the Commonwealth (federal) government, six states and two territories, and over 560 municipalities.

Climate change

GHG emissions

Energy mix

Air quality

Air emissions

Australia addresses national air quality issues through a coordinated effort between the Commonwealth government in cooperation with individual states and territories under the National Clean Air Agreement that was established in December 2015.

A National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure establishes national ambient air quality standards and a national framework for the monitoring and reporting of six common air pollutants to which most Australians are exposed: carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), lead and particles.

Freshwater resources

Intensity of use of freshwater resources

Despite some variations, Australia's water stress level over the last 20 years remains low. However, this national estimate hides important sub-national variations both on a spatial and temporal basis. Total rainfall for Australia in the 2021-22 financial year was above average. Regionally, rainfall was above average for much of the eastern mainland states, pastoral South Australia and central Australia. Parts of south-eastern Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales recorded highest on record rainfalls. There were also areas that received below average rainfalls, notably northern parts of the Northern Territory, parts of the Queensland gulf country, parts of the Western Australian goldfields, south-eastern South Australia and western Tasmania.

Australia's abstraction intensity has remained reasonably constant over the past five years. In 2021-22, there was more rainfall than usual, which increased the availability of surface water. As a result, less groundwater was used in that year. Desalination plants also reduced their production for water supply services in the last two years, as more water was available from other sources. Desalination plants, however, still have an important role in Australia’s water management. They provide an alternative source of water that is not affected by climate variability.

The rural residential population connected to the sewerage treatment is very small in Australia, and the data is not available.

Waste, materials and circular economy

Municipal waste

Material consumption

Biodiversity

Protected areas

References and further reading

An understanding of the agricultural nitrogen balance is particularly important in the management of nutrient run-off into the Great Barrier Reef.  See the Paddock to Reef Program as part of the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan.

Fertilizer Australia (data to 2017).

National Water Account Urban Regions 2020 | Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Water Account, Australia, 2018-19 financial year | Australian Bureau of Statistics

OECD (2019), OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Australia 2019, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264310452-en.

This recent paper provides guidance on the types of information sources required to calculate an agricultural nitrogen balance – this is for SW Western Australia cropping systems based on an historical database (2010-2015) - Harries et al., 2021.

The Australian national State of the Environment report 2021, https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/

Urban National Performance Report 2019-20 financial year | Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Regional Water Information