Droughts can affect river flows permanently, Australian study suggests

Reason for lower flows was not clear, the research found, as it was not linked to land use or increased ground water

Australian researchers have warned that drought-affected rivers could experience reduced flows indefinitely even after the drought has broken in a study which found more than a third of Victorian water catchments have not fully recovered from the millennium drought.

The millennium drought ran from 1996 to 2010 and was the longest uninterrupted period of low rainfall in south-east Australia since 1900.