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scienc e fo r decisio n makers
Bureau of Rural Sciences SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS James Walcott D E PA R T M HN E R IM E SA K ANE D RF S ORESTRY SE CNT I EONFCAEG R FI COURL T U DREEC, I FSI ISO Agroclimatic Characterization and Zoning Methods for Operational Applications: Tools that make climate simple for agricultural decision makers John Sims (operations) Greg Laughlin (climate) James Walcott (agriculture) Tim Brinkley (methods) Presented to WMO Workshop on Climate Analysis and Mapping for Agriculture. Bologna, 14-17 June 2005. SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Distribution of grain cropping in Australia SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Outline • • • • • • Operational uses Rainfall reliability wizard: grain adaptation Integrated toolset: productivity Growest: pasture forecasts National Monitoring system: drought policy Conclusions/Future extensions SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Operational Uses • Agricultural adaptation – Crop, livestock decisions • Climate risks – Fire risk, storm warning, frost warning • Agricultural risks – Pest & disease outbreaks, weed incursions, plague locust • Policy delivery – Natural resource management, conservation, rural policy, drought relief, quarantine SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Rainfall Reliability Wizard Bureau of Meteorology rainfall grids: 100+ yrs 25 km sq Analysis: means percentiles between seasons within seasons event analysis Display and access: www.brs.gov.au/rainfall Laughlin et al (2003) Environmental Modelling and Software 18: 49-57 SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Probability of 50% seasonal mean www.brs.gov.au/rainfall SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Reliability of achieving 25 mm/month for June – September SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Distribution of available water capacity in soil profile across grain cropping zone SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Integrated Toolset • • • • ANU Splin (Hutchinson 1990) Interpolations using thin-plate splines Independent factors such as altitude Commercial in confidence SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Livestock density in 2001 SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Integrated Toolset: relating primary productivity to livestock density Livestock density Low Medium High Index of primary productivity Low Medium High SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS GrowEst: simple estimates of plant growth RI - Radiation index Major climate drivers in plant growth 1 TI - Temperature index 0.6 0.4 Radiation 0.2 Temperature THERMAL RESPONSE Microtherm Mesotherm C3 megatherm C4 Megatherm 1.0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.8 Total solar radiation Thermal Index 0 0.6 0.4 0.2 Moisture Soil moisture extraction 1.0 0.0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Mean daily temperature (0C) 0.8 Ea/ET Light index 0.8 0.6 0.4 Clay loam Sandy Loam Clay 0.2 Growth Index 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 (Current rain + storage)/Max water storage GI = LI x TI x MI MI - Moisture index •Fitzpatrick and Nix (1970) – GrowEst •Nix (1981) •Hutchinson, Nix and McMahon (1992) •Brinkley et al (2005) SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS The National Monitoring System Analyses Mapping Regional Reports SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS Conclusions Also consider flexible, pragmatic systems that: • Analyse data rapidly • Provide simple outputs • Respond to wide range of requests • Use our skills to provide advice on output Future • Weather Wizard (frost, growing degree days, vernalisation) • Climate change/adaptation SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS “… not … the simplicity this side of complexity, but … the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Oliver Wendell Holmes SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS