S C I E N C E F O R D E C I S I O N M A K E R S B u r e a u o f R u r a l S c i e n c e s S C I E N C E F O R D E C I S I O N M A K E R S James Walcott D E P A R T M E N T O F A G R I C U L T U R E , F I S H E R I E S A N D F O R E S T R Y
Greg Laughlin James Walcott (climate) (agriculture) Agroclimatic Characterization and Zoning Methods for Operational Applications: Tools that make climate simple for agricultural decision makers John Sims (operations) Greg Laughlin James Walcott (climate) (agriculture) Tim Brinkley (methods) Presented to WMO Workshop on Climate Analysis and Mapping for Agriculture. Bologna, 14-17 June 2005.
Distribution of grain cropping in Australia
Outline Operational uses Rainfall reliability wizard: grain adaptation Integrated toolset: productivity Growest: pasture forecasts National Monitoring system: drought policy Conclusions/Future extensions
Operational Uses Agricultural adaptation Climate risks 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
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
Probability of 50% seasonal mean www.brs.gov.au/rainfall
Reliability of achieving 25 mm/month for June – September
Distribution of available water capacity in soil profile across grain cropping zone
Integrated Toolset ANU Splin (Hutchinson 1990) Interpolations using thin-plate splines Independent factors such as altitude Commercial in confidence
Livestock density in 2001
Integrated Toolset: relating primary productivity to livestock density Low Medium High Index of primary productivity Low Medium High
GrowEst: simple estimates of plant growth RI - Radiation index Major climate drivers in plant growth TI - Temperature index Radiation Temperature Moisture Growth Index 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)
The National Monitoring System Analyses Mapping Regional Reports
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
“… not … the simplicity this side of complexity, but … the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Oliver Wendell Holmes