PROJECT 5.4: Water futures under climate change
Water resource management in Australia will be affected by future changes in rainfall, temperature, evaporation and runoff. Robust projections of water futures are therefore important for impact assessments and developing adaptation options to climate change impacts in the water sector, as well as sectors which heavily rely on water such as agriculture and ecosystem management.
We’ve developed a framework that will integrate climate and hydrological science and modelling to deliver next generation national projections of key surface water metrics. We’ve also partnered with state government and government authority agencies to assess the resilience of water systems and adaptation options, and to ensure the framework and knowledge produced under this project is directly adopted by end-users.
This will increase the ability of water resource managers and industry across Australia to routinely access and incorporate the best available hydroclimate projections to inform water resource planning, management and investment.
For more information
Dr Dewi Kirono, CSIRO; Dr Francis Chiew, CSIRO
Synthesis products:
- Drought projections for Australia – outlines updated and improved drought projections for Australia delivered through the ESCC Hub at a national and regional level. The new drought projections investigated how time spent in drought, mean drought duration, drought frequency, and drought intensity may change under a warmer climate
- Projections of water futures for Australia – This brochure outlines outlines research by the Hub to updated projections of water resource (or water availability) and develop projections of hydrological characteristics across Australia.
- Climate change impacts on the reliability of farm dams and environmental flow in south-west Western Australia – outlines how the ESCC Hub collaborated with the Western Australian Department of Water and Environmental Regulation to enhance understanding of the reliability of farm dams and environmental flows in the south-west Western Australia Wilyabrup Brook catchment for a range of climate change scenarios.
- Understanding climate change impacts on water resource management in Western Australia – the Hub engaged with the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation to determine their climate change science needs.
Publications and papers:
- Chiew FHS, Zheng H and Potter JP. 2018. Rainfall-Runoff Modelling Considerations to Predict Streamflow Characteristics in Ungauged Catchments and under Climate Change. Water, 10, 1319, doi: 10.3390/w10101319 | Full paper
- Kirono DGC, Round V, Heady C, Chiew FHS, Osbourgh S. 2020. Drought projections for Australia: Updated results and analysis of model simulations. Weather and Climate Extremes, 30,doi:10.1016/j.wace.2020.100280 | Full paper
- Zheng H, Chiew FHS, Potter NJ, Kirono DGC, 2019a. Projections of water futures for Australia: an update, Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM 2019), Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, December 2019, pp. 1181–1187, doi:10.36334/modsim.2019.K7.zhengH | Full paper
Other:
- Conference abstract: Ho M , Bridgeman P, Briggs P, Chiew FHS, Lee J, Stratford D, Yang A, Zhang L. 2019. Climate informed robust decision analysis for environmental flow risks in the Lower Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, in Elsawah, S. (ed.) MODSIM2019, 23rd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, December 2019 | Abstract
This project is contributing to meeting the following climate challenges:
Improved modelling developed in this project will enhance the quality of projections that are available to water managers and planners.
Agricultural and environmental system managers and planners will be able to use projections developed from work in this project to make more effective management and investment decisions.
Our research will allow for better simulation of extreme events in climate change projections, making them a more useful tool for agencies responsible for preparing for an managing the response to natural disasters.