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Queenslanders would pay much less for power if the generation sector was split up. The use, or non-use, of the Wivenhoe pumped hydro storage facility illustrates why.

Australia can be the energy capital of Asia, but policy vandalism by the Coalition government means we have lost our ranking in top 10 renewable investment countries.

There'll be a snap hearing into the Roe 8 highway extension this week, as contractors continue to clear land in the Beeliar Wetlands.

Green shoots: a mangrove in Cairns enjoys the wet. Not all of Australia was so lucky. Guillaume Blanchard/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

After several dry years, vegetation across much of Australia received much-needed rains in 2016. But this broad pattern of improvement belies some major environmental damage in parts of the country – particularly in Tasmania, which was scorched by bushfire, the Gulf Coast and Cape York, which missed out on the rains’ return, and on the Great Barrier Reef, which suffered massive coral bleaching.

That is the conclusion of our report on Australia’s Environment in 2016, released today. It’s a summary of the state of the nation’s environmental indicators, which we compiled by analysing huge amounts of satellite imagery, ground data, and water and landscape modelling.

The report and the accompanying Australia’s Environment Explorer website summarise those data into graphs and plots for 13 environmental indicators. With most data extending back to at least the year 2000, this makes it possible to see how the environment is changing.

The overall story is one of rainfall boom after four years of bust. The national average rainfall in 2016 was again well above average, albeit not quite as much as in the bumper years 2010-11.

Our report last year showed soil moisture conditions had reached a six-year low in 2015, as Australia was dragged back towards the conditions experienced during the Millennium Drought.

The rains of 2016 seem to have put at least a temporary end to this. Over the past year the soil moisture in Australia’s landscapes has bounced back to levels not seen since 2012. Vegetation growth, leaf matter and soil protection all followed the same pattern.

Despite major bushfires in Tasmania in January, there were fewer fires overall than in previous years. As a result, carbon emissions from bushfires were the lowest since 2010, meaning that 2016 was overall a good year for land-based carbon emissions.

Scorecard: winners and losers

We combined the data to produce an overall “environmental scorecard” for each state and territory, as well as for the nation as a whole. Inevitably, this introduces subjective judgements, but because so much of the environment’s health is linked to water availability, the overall pattern would remain similar even if we were to calculate the index differently.

Environmental scores in 2016. based on data on www.ausenv.online

The national environmental score increased to above average (6.7), but the improvements were uneven. Scores fell in Tasmania and the Northern Territory, in the aftermath of dry conditions that had already started in 2015 or before, whereas other states improved by varying amounts.

Large parts of Queensland had been suffering through several years of drought but bounced back with good rains and growth conditions. Despite this, much of the state remains officially drought-declared – although not, ironically, Cape York. Such contrasts are not unusual; it often takes more than a year of good rain for drought declarations to be lifted.

Meanwhile, the Channel Country and many of the Murray-Darling Basin rivers received their best flows since the Big Wet of 2010–12, replenishing floodplains and wetlands along the way.

The bad news

Continued dry conditions in northwestern Tasmania created the conditions for massive bushfires in the first two months of 2016. The fires affected an estimated 95,000ha across the state, including 18,000ha of vulnerable alpine ecosystems in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Although that is less than 1% of the total World Heritage Area, the ancient vegetation may have changed permanently. Characteristically for Australia, the fires were followed by a deluge, restoring soil moisture levels from May onwards but also causing major flood damage.

In the Top End, areas around the Gulf of Carpentaria missed out on the rains and continued a dry run that has lasted for four years in some places. Cape York was left high and dry, with historically low rainfall records at some locations.

Mangrove trees died in large numbers along 700km of coast on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The record temperatures and ongoing dry conditions were a likely factor. Mangroves provide breeding grounds for many sea organisms and protect the coast from erosion, and their demise may cause knock-on effects into the future.

Evidence of mangrove dieback along a short stretch of Gulf Coast, NT. Google Timeline

To Australia’s east, high sea temperatures played an important role in large-scale bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Reefs and mangroves have been wiped out and recovered before, such as after cyclones. But the sheer scale of last year’s damage was unusual and set against an unmistakable climate warming trend. The big question is whether these ecosystems will be able to recover before suffering the next setback.

So, while all of our national headline environmental indicators suggest signs of general recovery, not everything is easily summarised or understood. The full consequences of the damage done to the Great Barrier Reef, tropical mangrove forests and Tasmania’s wilderness may take several years to become clear.

Worryingly, the factors that drove them into decline are likely to become stronger in future. Add to that the record heatwaves this year, and it becomes clear that climate change will not just quietly disappear.

Albert Van Dijk receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. He has previously received funding from the Bureau of Meteorology.

David Summers receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He has previously received funding from the Bureau of Meteorology.

Several fires were lit at the Dakota Access pipeline protest campsite in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, early Wednesday ahead of a deadline from authorities to abandon the area. For months, hundreds of Native Americans and environmental activists have occupied the site as they protest the pipeline’s construction, but Donald Trump has signed an executive order clearing the way for construction to move ahead

• Police surround Standing Rock camps in push to evict remaining activists

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Seven planets orbiting a single star have been discovered in a solar system 40 light-years from Earth.

Astronomers have discovered seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a single star - a record number.

Researchers will have to deal with attacks from a range of powerful foes in the coming years – and for many, it has already started

A little less than seven years ago, the climate scientist Michael Mann ambled into his office at Penn State University with a wedge of mail tucked under his arm. As he tore into one of the envelopes, which was hand-addressed to him, white powder tumbled from the folds of the letter. Mann recoiled from the grainy plume and rushed to the bathroom to scrub his hands.

Fortunately for Mann, the FBI confirmed the powder was cornstarch rather than anthrax. It was perhaps the nadir of the vituperation hurled at Mann by often anonymous critics who accuse him and others of fabricating or exaggerating the dangers of climate change.

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Science is facing a "reproducibility crisis" as scientists fail to reproduce others' work, it is claimed.

Documents suggest former Oklahoma AG followed lobby group’s guidance on challenging environmental regulations, and put letterhead to oil firm complaints more than once

The close relationship between Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and fossil fuel interests including the billionaire Koch brothers has been highlighted in more than 7,500 emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office on Wednesday.

The documents show that Pruitt, while Oklahoma attorney general, acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy. This practice was first revealed in 2014, but it now appears that it occurred more than once.

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New video is released of the Antarctic ice crack that promises to produce a giant berg.

Exclusive: Leaked documents indicate that the European Union is now preparing a full ban of raw ivory

The EU is set to ban raw ivory exports from 1 July as it struggles to deal with what was almost certainly another record year of ivory seizures across the continent in 2016.

Europe sells more raw and carved ivory to the world than anywhere else, feeding a seemingly insatiable appetite for elephant tusks in China and east Asia.

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Environmentalists hail ‘landmark moment’ as world’s biggest soft drinks company agrees to set up pilot scheme in Scotland

Coca-Cola has announced it supports testing a deposit return service for drinks cans and bottles, in a major coup for environment and anti-waste campaigners.

Executives told an event in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening they agreed with campaigners who were pressing the Scottish government to set up a bottle-return pilot scheme to cut waste and pollution and boost recycling.

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A sacred Tibetan lake, a crack in the Antarctic ice shelf and deforestation in Cambodia are among images captured by Nasa and the ESA this month

Yamzho Yumco (Sacred Swan) Lake is one of the three largest sacred lakes in Tibet. It is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and is highly crenellated with many bays and inlets. The lake is home to the Samding monastery which is headed by a female reincarnation, Samding Dorje Phagmo. The image covers an area of 49.8km by 60km. Aster images map and monitor the changing surface of our planet, such as glacial advances and retreats; potentially active volcanoes; crop stress; cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring surface heat balance.

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Donald Trump is a deal maker, and there’s a great deal to be made on climate change

A month into his presidency, Donald Trump already has a minus-8 job approval rating (43% approve, 51% disapprove). Congress has a minus-50 approval rating, and the Republican Party has a minus-14 favorability rating. All are facing widespread protests, marches, and public resistance. Hundreds of concerned constituents have been showing up to town hall events held by Republican Congressmen, like this one with Tom McClintock (R-CA):

This is the scene out Rep. Tom McClintock's town hall. We just made it inside after pleading with Roseville police. pic.twitter.com/13UaXMvWph

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Doctors from a children's hospital have saved the life of a premature baby hippo.

The president could spring a surprise with a carbon price, making renewables cheaper, US Republican warns

Fossil fuel industries in Australia could be left behind by improvements in renewables and the possibility Donald Trump changes tack on a carbon tax, a former US Republican congressman has warned.

In a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Bob Inglis, a conservative advocate for private sector action on climate change, called for the United States to take unilateral action by imposing a carbon tax with an import levy on goods made in countries without a carbon price.

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Wenlock Edge In anonymous hedges and woods, snowdrops have become a kind of spontaneous festival all over the country

Snowdrops and mild weather – is this spring? Something disturbed a crow in the darkness. The bird flew from trees behind the abbey ruins, skirting copse and hedge down the lane to the edge of town with its going-to-work traffic and lights switching on under rooftops. The crow called out before first light, before even the robins stirred, intent on raising the alarm by itself. Caw, caw, caw.

All right, crow, I’m awake. Now what? Snowdrops. Along the route, as the crow flies, the snowdrops are in full bloom, drifting along verges, tucked into corners of hedge banks, materialising from the mossy remains of walls in the wood. They are the footprints of old Welsh goddesses, the spilt milk no one cries over. They are something, at last, to cheer about. Every year they pop up from nowhere, grey-green leaf blades and little white lantern flowers glowing in gloom.

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Particles of debris from car tyres are ending up in the ocean as "plastic soup", conservationists warn.

China EV and energy storage giant BYD unveils new line of modular battery systems, targeting Australian households and businesses.