Simon Santow reported this story on Monday, October 10, 2011 12:26:00

ELEANOR HALL: Now to the scientific report that warns that the Australian Alps could be snow-free in just a few decades.



In the first official update on the area's catchments in more than half a century, alpine scientists say climate change and land degradation are threatening the regions animals and plants.



And there's also not much joy for popular winter pastimes such as skiing and snowboarding, as Simon Santow reports.



SIMON SANTOW: You have to go back to 1957 to find the last proper assessment of Australia's alpine catchments and the results this time around are far from pretty.



Sixty per cent of the 235 catchments are rated poor to moderate - most are declining.



Retired NSW Government botanist Roger Good co-wrote the report for the Federal Government's Department of Climate Change.



ROGER GOOD: The worst case scenario really indicates that there will be little or no snow in 2050 but there'll be considerable change in precipitation regimes, in other words, no snow but more, just as much rainfall or it could be just as much rainfall in total precipitation. But that rainfall will tend to be towards the summer rainfall and it will tend towards a high intensity storms as against well, more gentler monthly falls.



SIMON SANTOW: And the lack of snow, what effects will be felt by having no snow?



ROGER GOOD: Well, there will be a number of effects. One starting with the vegetation itself. A lot of the vegetation up there, even though it is alpine and people assume that its adapted to all sorts of extreme cold conditions in winter time, in actual fact it is not because in winter time it is insulated from extreme temperatures or extreme ambient temperatures, frosts etc, by the snow itself.



If you remove the snow cover, there is a number of species that will be, plant species that will be threatened by the changes in light, temperature regimes etc. That also flows onto the animals of course.



SIMON SANTOW: The Australian Alps also play a vital role in the health of the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Snowy Rivers.



ROGER GOOD: If we have a change in snow cover or no snow cover where we don't have the water being stored and slowly released through the spring thaw, if it moves to higher intensity summer stores, we get very quick run off. While the same amount of precipitation might fall, it runs off in a different way.



SIMON SANTOW: The experts are also gloomy about the viability of winter sports and the tourism that feeds on them in the high country.



ROGER GOOD: The companies no doubt will endeavour to increase their snow making capacity, their artificial snow making capacity, to maintain their viability. If temperatures are slightly higher, they might not even be able to make artificial snow so winter sport and winter snow use will be very much limited or not available at all.



SIMON SANTOW: While not everyone believes the worst case scenario predictions, the ski industry knows the time for action is now.



BEN DERRICK: Climate change is happening. It is definitely, you know, things are definitely changing. How we are managing that is making sure that the environments that we've got are in as good a condition as possible.



SIMON SANTOW: Ben Derrick is the natural resources manager at Falls Creek Resort in Victoria.



He says that there's already work being done to try and safeguard the terrain of endangered species such as the mountain pygmy possum.



BEN DERRICK: They have got a very particular habitat that they live in which is generally above the tree line. There is other bits and pieces in there but they rely very heavily on having a good snow pack on the ground during winter to be able to go into hibernation.



If they don't get their hibernation during winter then the females don't become sexually active in spring and this is a species which is really quite rare. There is less than 2,000 breeding individuals left in the wild.



SIMON SANTOW: And as for whether man made leisure activities are also facing extinction, Ben Derrick believes it's too early to make a prediction.



BEN DERRICK: If you look at just the last two years are a perfect example where this season we had a very front ended season with heavy snow falls in June and then virtually nothing after that. Last year it was virtually nothing until mid-August and then we had a very heavily back-ended season.



So there is a lot of variation within seasons but there is also a lot of variation between seasons as well so something like 2004, which there was at Falls Creek around about two-and-a-half metres of snow on the ground during August, that followed 2003 where there was virtually no snow on the ground in August and so there is a lot of variation both within seasons and between seasons as well.



And so to be able to pick up - we graph and monitor these things quite closely at Falls Creek - to be able to pick up variations and trends is really quite difficult when there is so much natural variation going on.



ELEANOR HALL: That's the natural resources manager at Falls Creek, Ben Derrick ending Simon Santow's report.