This project was jointly funded by the Australian Government ($1.885 million) and the Tasmanian Government ($185,000 for Phase 1). Australian Government funding was provided through the National Water Grid Fund.
This project will identify appropriate climate change projection datasets to use in surface water modelling.
Project overview
Climate change will affect how much water is available in a catchment. Also called catchment yield. It will also affect the timing of water demand and the reliability of water supply.
Climate change projections used to model catchment yield in Tasmania are dated. While they are still very useful, they may not fully inform us of the future risks to water resources.
Appropriate climate change projection datasets:
- improve surface water modelling
- better informs future water planning and decisions in Tasmania, including proposed water infrastructure
- continues to support sustainable development.
Goals of the assessment
This project aims to update datasets to support more accurate modelling based on contemporary science, by:
- generating new Tasmania-wide catchment yield estimates utilising updated climate projections
- carrying out a pilot project incorporating a sample of updated datasets into Tasmania’s catchment models. The pilot will compare sustainable yield estimates to those from the current modelling.
Phase 1
Phase 1 is complete. It developed an approach to update models. This included identifying:
- up-to-date climate inputs suitable for updating Tasmania’s catchment models
- changes needed for current modelling methods
- implications of those changes.
Phase 2
Phase 2 is currently underway. This next stage will incorporate the new datasets into Tasmania’s catchment modelling. This will be based on the preferred approach.
Through in-kind contributions*, the Tasmanian Government is contributing $480,000 and the Bureau of Meteorology is contributing $100,000 towards phase 2 works.
*In-kind contributions are contributions of goods and services and do not contribute to the total project cost.
Key project benefits
Learn more
- Learn more about our Science Program
- Read about the project on the Tasmanian Government website
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