Long-term monitoring shows how these environmental flows sustain big old trees and cycle nutrients through the ecosystem. They drive breeding for frogs, waterbirds, reptiles and fish, and protect endangered species. This is a good news story for our inland waterways – but it’s mostly told through scientific reports. We wanted to use ecological data to convey not just facts but feelings, and create a vivid digital portrait of life in Nap Nap. So we recently produced The Sound of Water, using audio, images and water data to reveal the patterns and rhythms of the swamp. But there’s a bigger agenda here too: how might we use environmental data to amplify humanity’s attachment to the living world? In part, this is about finding an engaging way to tell an important story. Nap Nap wetland, the name of which means ‘very swampy’ in traditional language. Healthy wetlands rely on varying river flows. When a river is flooding or at high flow, water is delivered to wetlands, enabling seeds to sprout and animals to move and breed. When the river is at low flow, wetlands enter a natural drying phase.īut across Australia, thousands of wetlands have lost their natural connection to rivers. Lower river flows – the result of water regulation and diversions required to meet human needs – means many wetlands no longer experience these natural cycles.Įnvironmental flows seek to address this imbalance.
Managed by water authorities, the flows involve strategically delivering water to replenish rivers, wetlands and floodplains. Our project – a design-science collaboration – was funded by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office’s Flow-MER program, which undertakes long-term monitoring of the ecological impact of environmental water allocations. The Sound of WaterĪcross nine days in spring of 2020, an environmental flow of about 16,000 million litres rolled into Nap Nap swamp in the Lowbidgee floodplain after a brief dry spell. The Lowbidgee floodplain is near the confluence of the Kalari (Lachlan) and Murrumbidgee rivers in New South Wales. But don’t take our word for it - listen for yourself: The frogs began calling as the water returned. The Peron’s tree frog has a shrill, rattling call. To reveal the content of all this audio, we used a visual representation of sound known as a spectrogram. Sound of Guns Sound of Guns - Alcatraz, Sound of Guns - Sometimes, Apollo Brown - Sound of Guns, Sound of Guns - Architects, Sound of Guns. We adapted a technique developed by researchers at the Queensland University of Technology which enables ecologists to visualise and analyse thousands of hours of recordings. We visualised almost a year’s worth of audio from Nap Nap – more than 700 hours. The below image contains spectrograms of audio from June 2020, which was a dry period in the swamp. The colourful central band corresponds to the noisy daylight hours, when woodland birds dominate. The vivid blue areas are wind and rain noise.
The pink and orange are mostly bird calls, and continuous sounds like cricket calls show up as strong horizontal bands (top right). I can honestly say walking out of the theater, I felt like it was a great ten bucks spent.The mostly dark outer bands correspond to the nights, which in dry periods are fairly quiet. Toward the end of the movie, I found my eyes welling up with tears. Somehow the subject of a teenage girl wanting to contact her deceased mother made the old wounds of my own personal losses feel fresh. As one having dealt with the loss of many loved ones over time, I understand the deep desire to reach out to them from beyond the grave. My favorite part about this movie was that it really tugged at the old heart strings. I can honestly say that the first two movies didn't do that great of a job at making me feel any emotions resembling sympathy toward the protagonists. I found myself feeling sorry for the father for having to carry such an emotional burden while also feeling bad for the daughter for basically having to take on the maternal role in the household. The tension between the father and daughter was so intense that it was palpable. For instance, I actually felt a connection to the characters in this movie. This movie has way more substance than all the others in the franchise. I feel like this is undoubtedly due to the fact that it makes you all at once feel horrified and sad, while also having mild undercurrents of comedic relief. Without a doubt, this movie is the king of all the Insidious movies.
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