The Atmosphere report considers both the resilience of the climate system itself and the resilience of our society to climate change.

Current understanding of the resilience of Australia’s marine environment is limited because it is difficult to monitor the environment across timescales relevant for assessing resilience.

The condition of Australia’s coastal environment is mixed, being largely good in the north-west and far north-east of the country, and largely poor in the east, south-east and south-west.

National water storage levels varied, from above 80 per cent in 2011 to below 50 per cent in 2015.

The changes to Australia’s climate arising from global climate change include increased average surface air temperature, increased incidence of heatwaves, decreased average rainfall in parts of the country, an increase in drought frequency and severity, sea level rise, more extreme daily rainfall

The impacts of human land use are spread unevenly across the country. Vegetation clearing is concentrated in the long-settled agricultural and coastal zones, where more than 50 per cent of native vegetation has typically been cleared.

Ozone is a secondary pollutant formed through the interaction of VOCs (see ‘Volatile organic compounds’) and nitrogen oxides (NOx; see ‘Nitrogen dioxide’). The AQI for ozone in all capital cities was deemed ‘good’ from 1999 to 2008, and remained steady during this time.

SoE 2011 provided information on the pressure of invasive species, including cane toads (Rhinella marina, formerly Bufo marinus), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), eastern gambusia (Gambusia holbrooki),

An important role of government is to develop effective policies, implemented through supporting strategies and plans.

The outlook described above has both positive and negative components, although the negative tends to dominate. 

Pollution sources are often characterised as anthropogenic (i.e. human-made), biogenic (i.e. natural and living) or geogenic (i.e. natural and nonliving).

Each person added to our population creates additional demand on natural resources to provide materials for shelter, energy and sustenance. However, it cannot be assumed that an increase in population leads to greater stress on the environment.

Coastal population growth exerts strong pressure on coastal land by increasing the need for both agriculture and housing, and land-use demands often come at the expense of natural habitats and native

The tourism industry is important for the Australian economy, comprising approximately 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014–15 (Productivity Commission 2015).