The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) held its annual conference in Hobart last week. AMOS 2026 had the theme ‘Southern Skies, Southern Oceans: Science on the Edge’.
On Friday I was delighted to present ‘An intense fire changes surface hydrology and decreases the amount of rainfall needed for groundwater recharge’ on behalf of Christina Song and Micha Campbell in the Hydroclimate session ‘Hydroclimate variability, land surface processes and extremes‘.
The outline of the presentation:
It introduces groundwater recharge, and why it is important.
It outlines how we have been using caves and other underground spaces as underground observatories of groundwater recharge, and that we are finding that rainfall in the top 10% of all events is needed for groundwater recharge to potentially occur.
We show that at one site, our data shows that less rainfall is needed for groundwater recharge after an experimental fire at Wombeyan, NSW.
The presentation concludes with an overview of hydroclimate variability, fire, land surface processes and extremes.
If you are interested in the presentation, a pdf can be downloaded here:
The presentation is based on research published by Song et al. (2025) in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences and provides further evidence that rainfall in the top decile (top 10% of all rainfall events) are the weather events that might replenish groundwater (Priestley et al 2025).
#AMOS2026
Andy Baker 
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