FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Bureau of Meteorology submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee
Inquiry into the Federal Government's response to the drought, and the adequacy and appropriateness of policies and measures to support farmers, regional communities and the Australian economy May 2020
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
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Bureau of Meteorology Submission to the inquiry into the Federal Government's response to the drought, and the adequacy and appropriateness of policies and measures to support farmers, regional communities and the Australian Economy
Introduction
The Bureau of Meteorology (Bureau) contributes to the Federal Government's response to drought by providing Commonwealth agencies with information, analysis and advice to support policy development and execution. Additionally, the Bureau provides a range of publicly available, subscription and bespoke services to support state and local government agencies, and weather- impacted industries. In addition to monitoring, collating, assessing and reporting on rainfall, temperature, water storage and soil moisture across Australia, the Bureau issues short to long-term forecasts and outlooks that materially assist planning for and response to Australia's variable and changing climate. While drought is contributed to by variables of the type monitored, forecast and reported by the Bureau, declaration of drought itself is the remit of state governments.
The Bureau of Meteorology
The Bureau of Meteorology is Australia’s national weather, climate and water information agency. It operates under the authority of the Meteorology Act 1955 and the Water Act 2007 , which together identify a range of functions that underpin delivery of information, advice, forecasts, warnings and associated services to meet Australia’s needs.
The Bureau is an Executive Agency under the Public Service Act 1999 , and a non-corporate Commonwealth entity under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 . The Bureau operates under the Agriculture, Water and Environment Portfolio and reports to the Minister for the Environment generally, and to the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia on water matters. The Bureau also provides advice on specific matters, such as drought, to the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management
The Bureau's role in water management is described in response to Terms of Reference 1.
Response to the terms of reference
The Bureau of Meteorology aims to increase the value it delivers to the Australian economy by $2 billion between 2017 and 2022, while contributing to zero lives lost from natural hazards. As drought significantly impacts both the economy and community health, the Bureau provides comprehensive public information as well as tailored support to Commonwealth Government, state governments and private enterprises to reduce risk and increase opportunities in preparation for, and during, dry conditions. a) loans and financial support:
The Bureau monitors, collates, assesses and reports rainfall, temperature, water storage and soil moisture across Australia. These data, especially when expressed on a Local Government Area basis, are relevant to the assessment of drought by Commonwealth and state agencies and inform their decisions on eligibility for loans and other support measures.
b) water availability, infrastructure, agreement and supply measures:
Under the Commonwealth Water Act 2007 (Part 7), the Bureau has responsibility for gathering and managing Australia's water data, and for compiling and delivering comprehensive water information to the nation. In discharging this responsibility, the Bureau collates and analyses water data to deliver reports on the availability (e.g. storage volume and trends), condition (suitability for a range of uses) and use (e.g. agriculture, mining, domestic) of water resources in Australia. This creates a publicly available, consistent and national coverage of water resources used to understand historical water use, the current availability of water and, when combined with climate and demand analyses, the likely future state of water security. This informs public policy, programs and practices for better management of the nation’s water resources. Surveys and ongoing customer feedback have confirmed the high usage and value of these water products and services.
In addition to these core public services, the Bureau supports federal, state and local water agencies with bespoke services to support decision making. This includes: • automated subscription-based data services that allow the ingestion of Bureau observations, nowcasts and forecasts into operation and decision-support systems, • regular in-person and written briefs on current and forecast climatic conditions to decision- makers in federal and state agencies, including to support the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office manage Commonwealth-owned water entitlements, • structured relationship management that allows frontline agencies and key industries to efficiently access Bureau expertise, • consultancy services to contribute to business cases and strategic plans for water supply augmentation, and • participation in science programs that support long-term policy and infrastructure planning such as the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the work of the National Water Grid Authority. The Bureau continually improves the accuracy and geographic and temporal reach of seasonal streamflow forecasts. These are currently issued for the coming six months for over 200 sites nationally, prioritised to support water agencies make planning decisions. The opportunity exists to further integrate climate and water modelling capabilities to provide insights into water resource availability at multi-year to decadal scales.
In the summer of 2019-20 the Bureau commenced producing fortnightly reports on water availability in major catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin. These reports provide information on how much water in available, to what purpose is it allocated, what recent allocation trade prices have been, and how the recent climatic conditions have impacted water availability. This is the first phase of a three year project that aims to provide more timely and accessible information to water users and communities in the Basin. c) various market impacts of the measures:
The Bureau collates and publishes national water trade data, including volume, location and price of water allocation trades and water entitlement sales. It also publishes the annual Australian Water Markets Report, which provides a comprehensive review of water markets across the country. Together, these products provide a central location for price discovery, a precondition for efficient and effective water market function.
d) interaction with existing legislative and regulatory instruments across jurisdictions:
The Bureau is the primary source of rainfall and related environmental data used across Australia to understand the likelihood, duration and potential severity of drought. Under s120(a) of the Water Act 2007 the Bureau is responsible for gathering, holding, managing, interpreting and disseminating Australia’s water information. The Bureau collects around 15,000 data files a day from nearly 200 providers, which enables it to collate and publish national datasets on past, current and potential future water availability, providing analysis and assessment that crosses business, catchments and jurisdictions.
Over the last 12 years the Bureau has invested in processes to automate data transfer and ease regulatory burden on providers, developed standards to ensure information is communicated in common units and language, and built portals to disseminate this data to the public.
In line with the 2018 National Drought Agreement, the Bureau draws on data from its own observation network and the observation networks of many partner agencies to provide a range of real time datasets that are used to derive drought indicators. In addition, the Bureau provides a climate outlook service, which forecast whether conditions are likely to be wetter or drier over the next four months. Commonwealth and state government agencies use these observations and forecasts to inform drought policy decisions. e) the response to the Drought Coordinator’s report;
Section 5 of Drought in Australia: The Coordinator-General for Drought’s advice on a Strategy for Drought Preparedness and Resilience (the report) , notes the importance of information accuracy, availability and accessibility in addressing every drought issue. The Bureau provides national datasets that can be used to determine meteorological and hydrological trends and deficiencies but does not define and declare drought, which is a policy matter. The report notes the complexity in developing drought indicators and Recommendation 5.1 advocates a non-public set of indicators that the Australia Government can use internally to flag changing conditions and emerging impacts. While there is no single or simple definition of drought, there are potential advantages from the use of common metrics to describe it. The Bureau supports consideration of the use of rainfall deficiency data as a common basis for assessing drought by Government agencies.
The report also advocates that such a set of internal indicators could then be used to develop sets of indicators to inform farmers, industry, not for profit organisations and the community to manage and prepare for drought. Indicators could be developed such that they provide a common picture of emerging trends and assist with decision making. These indicators could be developed in partnership with and disseminated by: • farmer organisations (e.g. through FarmHub), • commodity and grower groups, • rural research and development organisations, • rural media, • agribusinesses, and • state Government extension agencies.
f) preparedness for the current drought and the capacity of the Australian Government to prepare for future drought
As outlined above, the Bureau has for many years provided a wide range of products and services that describe the physical dimensions of drought so that the frequency, duration, intensity and geographic scale of drought can be understood in historical, current and forecast future timeframes. The Bureau continually improves its capacity to assist the Australian Government, community and industry to prepare for and respond to drought. For example:
• The Australian Government committed $77.2 million to enable the Bureau to install four new radars in Queensland that will fill significant coverage gaps and provide the agriculture and related industries with improved access to real-time weather information. They are scheduled to be operational between 2021-23 and will assist in drought preparation and response by enabling more effective tactical responses to forecast rainfall and more accurate estimation of accumulated rainfall and stored soil moisture.
• The Bureau, in collaboration with FarmLink and CSIRO, supported the Government's Drought Assistance Package by creating Regional Weather and Climate Guides that provide farmers with information that improves decision making as they manage and adapt to weather and climate variability. Fifty-eight guides, covering all of Australia’s Natural Resource Management regions, were released in October 2019. More than 12,000 copies have been downloaded from the National Farmers' Federation FarmHub website, the Bureau’s website, and the Managing Climate Variability ‘Climate Kelpie’ website.
• Through the Australian Government's Disaster Preparedness fund, the Bureau received $3 million to complete a project that will quality-assure data from thousands of privately- owned automatic weather stations, enabling them to support development of cost-efficient (parametric) agricultural insurance products and a wide range of digital agriculture services. This is designed to improve the capacity of farmers and other business owners to self- manage the financial impacts of drought and other weather-based threats and opportunities. • The Bureau's improved long-range temperature and rainfall forecasting services were publicly released in August 2019, made possible by $3.3m in funding through the Australian Government's 2015 Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper. They provide users with o more accurate seasonal forecasts that give users more confidence in making climate and weather sensitive decisions; o more localised seasonal forecasts through an improvement in modelling resolution over Australia to 60 km, from the previous 250 km; o more frequently updated outlooks that enable users to monitor progress of weather and climate events as they approach decision-making horizons; and o access to information on likely conditions in the coming 2-4 weeks, enabling more informed decision making and planning.
The opportunity exists for the Bureau, possibly in partnership with other agencies such as the CSIRO, to enhance climate modelling, and integrate it with hydrological and economic factors, to provide insights on how impacts of future droughts may vary from droughts of the past.
g) any related matters
It is important that drought is understood objectively, to ensure that decisions at all levels are based on facts rather than perception or hope. To hope for good conditions, rather than effectively planning for drought, may lead to unnecessary risk exposure, and indecision during drought which can exacerbate losses.
Drought is a normal occurrence in Australia; the average rainfall arises from extremes of above and below average rainfall (see New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory example in Figure 1). These extremes do not conform to a pattern of timing, duration and intensity that is simple to forecast precisely in the longer term. Sound planning for future drought can proceed on the basis of this challenge (the predictable unpredictability), assisted by observations and medium-term forecasts (out to six months) that provide strong guidance on seasonal trajectories.
Against this background of variability is a strong trend for elevated temperature averages and extremes of temperature that are increasing in frequency and intensity, and which amplify the impacts of drought (Figure 2). The predictability of this trend can be used to inform plans for future drought .
Figure 1 - Annual rainfall totals, averaged over NSW and ACT, displayed as variation compared to the 1961 – 1990 NSW & ACT average. Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Drranom%26area%3Dnsw%26se ason%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D0
Figure 1 shows the amount by which the rainfall received in a given year differs from the median for NSW/ACT. Blue bars indicate above average rainfall, red bars below average rainfall. Note the relative scarcity of years in which rainfall is within 50 mm (approximately 10%) of the average. Further, consecutive 'wet' or 'dry' years occur in the 40-60 th percentiles occur only twice in the 119- year record.
Number of days of extreme heat extreme of of days Number
Figure 2 - Number of days each year where the Australian area-averaged daily mean temperature is in the top 1% of historical records for national average temperatures. Source: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, State of the Climate 2018 (http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/australias-changing-climate.shtml ).
Figure 2 shows that the number of extremely hot days (hottest 1% of days) occurring each year is increasing. The incidence of extreme heat days each year is increasing at a rate of approximately one extreme heat day every four years.