B.CCH.8120 - Forewarned is Forearmed: managing the impacts of extreme climate events

Summary

Australian farmers and agribusiness operate in one of the most variable climates of any country in the world, with extreme events and climate variability the largest drivers of fluctuations in annual agricultural income and production.

This project delivered direct value to red meat and sugar producers in northern Australia through improving the forecast of extreme climate events, equipping farmers with the information and risk management tools to be forewarned and proactively prepared.

Objectives

University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) and Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland (DAF) provided support to the Bureau of Meteorology to develop and make operational five climate extremes products by:

• Establishing industry reference groups (IRG’s) for northern red meat and sugar industries
• Facilitating operations of the IRG’s to provide feedback to the Bureau to develop and refine climate extreme products
• Producing an extreme event risk management framework for the sugar and northern red-meat industries
• Presenting at workshops/conferences and publishing in peer-reviewed literature
• Contributing to extension and training via the Community of Practice (CoP)
• Preparing a business case for a heat load index for cattle
• Producing four short videos on explaining deciles, rainfall burst and probability of exceedance products.

Key findings

Five climate extreme products were developed and published on the Bureau of Meteorology website. These products were developed in association with industry consultation however they have not yet been subjected to a broad based focused and widespread extension and adoption program. This would improve product awareness, knowledge and application and lead to economic benefits being realised.

Benefits to industry

The potential benefits to the industry of accurately forecasting extreme climate events are substantial. A property in the Gulf during the February 2019 floods stood to save over $5.5million provided they were given one weeks’ notice to move cattle from the floodplain and provide fodder.

Future research

The value of these products is limited by climate model accuracy. Providing more research resources to improve model accuracy by reducing the model biases and improving convective parameterisation will help uptake by industry.
Providing more resources for extension and adoption (E&A) to train and support local climate advisers to deliver an innovative service with clear targets to improve awareness, knowledge and application of products #1-5 will improve evidence of impact.