In March, torrential rain impacted communities across the east coast of Australia, resulting in severe flooding, mass town evacuations and thousands of damaged homes.
After what had already been a wet summer with above-average rainfall, the saturated, close-to-capacity water catchment areas cannot cope.
The intensity of the floodwaters caused significant erosion of dirt, sand, and clay. As a result, local water agencies estimate that the turbidity or cloudiness of the raw water in flood-affected regions has risen at least 100 times above acceptable levels.
Turbidity is caused by solid particulates within a water source, which can include soil, sand, as well as clay.
