Enhancing Australia's Drought Resilience: Insights from the Australian Climate Service Hazard Teams

Drought, as a recurrent phenomenon, exerts a profound impact on Australia's agricultural productivity, water resources, ecosystem health, and socio-economic stability, while also serving as a catalyst for heatwaves and severe fire seasons. Drought can manifest on varied timescales, leading to non-linear and complex impacts. Long-term droughts in Australia are often linked to large-scale climate modes including the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the Southern Annular Mode. Contrary to the belief that drought is a slow onset hazard, drought conditions affecting agriculture can also develop rapidly in a matter of weeks under favourable synoptic conditions (flash drought) and may compound with heatwaves and high fire risk.  

The several types of drought and driving factors preclude a uniform definition and as a result many drought indices exist. However, most climate information portals offer only precipitation-based measures as a drought proxy, often neglecting important changes in temperature and evaporation, that do not sufficiently capture changes in drought intensity, frequency, and duration to support informed decision-making. Additionally, the rarity of drought events in historical observations, together with the high variability and uncertainties in the magnitude of precipitation change and the response of large-scale atmospheric circulations to global warming, challenge reliable future projections. 

The Australian Climate Service (ACS) has been formed to provide improved data, intelligence and expert advice on climate risks and impacts to support and inform decision-making. Recognising the significance of drought as well as current knowledge and service gaps, the ACS has recently established a dedicated Climate Hazard Team to comprehensively investigate drought and changing aridity across Australia under global warming. This team is one of ten covering natural hazards of importance at a national level in Australia – identified via the National Climate Risk Assessment. The hazard teams unite the ACS Partners CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as other experts from across Australia, including those at universities. The team will provide actionable information for resilience and adaptation strategies using a suite of drought indices calculated from observational and downscaled climate model data, drawing on top-tier scientific knowledge from ACS and university partners to fill these gaps. 

This presentation will provide an overview of the Australian Climate Service, the drought hazard team in particular, drought research and services for Australia, and findings to support communities, emergency management and federal government in taking informed decisions.