CANBERRA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- A new report has warned that without greater investment in environmental monitoring, Australia's future ecosystems are at serious risk.

Australia's average land temperatures have risen 0.81 degrees Celsius over the past 25 years, while the number of threatened species has surged more than 50 percent, said the annual report by the Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, the national ecosystem observatory.

Australia's ability to monitor environmental changes is increasingly at risk, as it relies on satellite data from U.S. agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with proposed U.S. funding cuts threatening this critical access, warned the report's lead author, ANU professor Albert Van Dijk.

"Our own on-ground monitoring infrastructure is ageing and underfunded, and weather stations and stream gauges are being decommissioned or left unrepaired, groundwater and soil-moisture networks are patchy, and many regional areas are data deserts," said Van Dijk.

He cautioned that without robust, sovereign monitoring systems, Australia risks being unable to track environmental changes or respond effectively if international data streams are disrupted.

The report, based on 25 years of national and international data, revealed a 22 percent rise in extreme heat days, repeated mass coral bleaching, and a 53 percent increase in threatened species since 2000, with some wildlife populations falling over 60 percent due to habitat loss, invasive species, and climate stress. ■