Search

This paper presents a method to analyze and improve the set of equations constituting a rainfall‐runoff model structure based on a combination of a data assimilation algorithm and polynomial updates to the state equations. The method, which we have called "Data Assimilation Informed model Structure Improvement" (DAISI) is generic, modular, and demonstrated with an application to the GR2M model and 201 catchments in South‐East Australia. Our results show that the updated model generated with DAISI generally performed better for all metrics considered included Kling‐Gupta Efficiency, NSE on log transform flow and flow duration curve bias. In addition, the elasticity of modeled runoff to rainfall is higher in the updated model, which suggests that the structural changes could have a significant impact on climate change simulations. Finally, the DAISI diagnostic identified a reduced number of update configurations in the GR2M structure with distinct regional patterns in three sub‐regions of the modeling domain (Western Victoria, central region, and Northern New South Wales). These configurations correspond to specific polynomials of the state variables that could be used to improve equations in a revised model. Several potential improvements of DAISI are proposed including the use of additional observed variables such as actual evapotranspiration to better constrain internal model fluxes. Plain Language Summary: This paper presents a data‐driven method to improve rainfall‐runoff models used to generate future water resources scenario in climate change studies. The method, which we have called "Data Assimilation Informed model Structure Improvement" (DAISI) is generic, modular, and demonstrated with an application to monthly streamflow simulations over a large data set of catchments in South‐East Australia. Our results show that DAISI improves model performance for a wide range of metrics and increases the sensitivity of the model to climate inputs, which is critical in climate change scenarios. Finally, the improvements identified by DAISI take a simple mathematical form with distinct regional patterns in three sub‐regions of the study domain (Western Victoria, central region, and Northern New South Wales). Several improvements of DAISI are discussed including the inclusion of additional observed variables such as evapotranspiration to better constrain model simulations. Key Points: Data Assimilation Informed model Structure Improvement method diagnoses hydrological model structures by combining data assimilation with a polynomial update of state equationsThe method was applied to the GR2M rainfall‐runoff model with significantly improved streamflow simulations in 201 Australian catchmentsThe method identified updates to state equations with marked regional characteristics that could guide future improvement of GR2M [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the point that our current political‐economic‐climate conjuncture demands new engagements at the dynamic interface of climate capitalism. Using two cases of climate capitalist responses to climate challenges, I demonstrate the reparative potentials that emerge from the tensions and ambiguities that typify that conjuncture. In the first case, I examine financialised climate infrastructure in Jakarta, Indonesia, that promises to protect the city from flooding while enriching city elites, but against which diverse social movements and collectives have organised. The second case is about a cooperative energy provider in Australia, operating on the terrain of a neoliberalised electricity market and climate change, and working towards multifaceted repair by collectivising and redistributing surplus and modelling democratic engagement. Those involved in these vastly different cases both pursue repair and reparations through climate capitalist projects by reckoning with historical and present climate debts while constructing forward‐looking programs. As such, they chart the first steps towards reparative climate futures. This paper identifies the political and socioecological potentials from two key climate capitalist projects: flood protection infrastructures in Jakarta and cooperative energy in Australia. From this, it builds a framework of repair and reparations for engaging with climate capitalism and argues that the emerging tensions and ambiguities facilitate steps towards reparative climate futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism and climate change debates are often characterized by worst‐case thinking, cost neglect, probability neglect, and avoidance of the notion of acceptable risk. This is not unexpected when dealing with extreme events. However, it can result in a frightened public, costly policy outcomes, and wasteful expenditures. The paper will describe how risk‐based approaches are well suited to infrastructure decision‐making for extreme events. Risk management concepts will be illustrated with current research of risk‐based assessment of climate adaptation engineering strategies including designing new houses in Australia subject to cyclones and extreme wind events. It will be shown that small improvements to house designs at a one‐off cost of several thousand dollars per house can reduce damage risks by 70%–80% and achieve billions of dollars of net benefit for community resilience—this helps offset some the predicted adverse effects of climate change for a modest cost. The effect of risk perceptions, insurance, and economic incentives is explored for another climate adaption measure. The paper will also highlight that there is much to be optimistic about the future, and in the ability of risk‐based thinking to meet many challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a growing body of literature studies drought impacts, papers providing a comprehensive review of drought's social and economic impacts are scarce. This paper fills this gap by exploring the consequences of drought on societies based on research findings in Australia—a large country used to experiencing severe droughts. To do this, we propose a framework to categorise drought impacts in three dimensions: individuals/households (including health), productive sectors and system (including economic and ecosystem) impacts. The framework then guides a systematic literature review and discussion of studies looking at diverse drought impacts and their related costs. By analysing and discussing the findings from this literature, we emphasise different policy considerations, empirical challenges and research needs to support robust analysis and estimates of the true cost of droughts. We conclude by proposing an expanded framework to identify drought impacts and a discussion of the implications of the review for policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future water availability is threatened by changes in both climate and water demand. Water rights with differing priorities are an important foundation of demand‐side tools (e.g., buyback, water pricing, and water market) to improve water use efficiency and reduce water scarcity, especially in highly regulated river systems. This paper assesses the impact of climate change on water yields from carryover storage with dual‐priority (high/low) water rights allocation systems using a simple and rapid analytical method. The method characterizes reservoir inflows using readily available flow characteristics (annual mean and Cv). We evaluate this method against a water resource simulation model in the Goulburn River basin, Australia. In general, our analytical "dual‐priority" Gould‐Dincer model reproduces water allocation estimates from the simulation model. We further demonstrate this method across 12 Australian catchments to investigate the climate change impact on "dual‐priority" water rights yield at the catchment scale. The hydrological projections show decreasing mean annual runoff and increasing annual runoff variability, except for some catchments in northern Australia. Water yield for high‐priority water rights (HPWRs) and low‐priority water rights (LPWRs) decreases for most catchments except for some catchments in northern Australia. South Dandalup in the 2070s (RCP8.5) shows the largest percentage decrease in HPWR and LPWR yield (about −53.53% and −56.81%, respectively). Our results show that changes in mean annual inflow have a more significant influence on water yield of HPWR and LPWR than Cv. Overall, the simple method provides a rapid assessment of water yields with "dual‐priority" water rights which is applicable across multiple sites at regional or even global scale. Key Points: A simple analytical method is used to evaluate the impact of climate change on the yield of "dual‐priority" water rightsWater yield for both high‐ and low‐priority water rights generally decreases under future climate in AustraliaFuture change in mean annual inflow has a more significant influence on water yield than change in annual flow variability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater response to climate variations is often pivotal to managing groundwater sustainably. However, this relationship is rarely explicitly examined because of the complexity of surface to subsurface processes and the diverse impacts of multiple drivers, such as groundwater pumping and land use changes. In this paper, we address this challenge by proposing methods to quantify the sensitivity of groundwater level and recharge to temporal climate variability across Australia. Using the HydroSight groundwater hydrograph toolbox we first identify 1,143 out of a total of 4,350 bores as climate‐driven, where historically, head was primarily driven by climate variations. Streamflow elasticity measures are then adapted to groundwater to quantify the long‐term head and recharge sensitivity. We find that the national median sensitivity of head and recharge to precipitation change are 42 and 0.43 mm mm−1, respectively (interquartiles: 20–77 and 0.30–0.55 mm mm−1); both of which are ∼8 times that of potential evapotranspiration. Nationally, the results are spatially correlated, suggestive of large‐scale effects. The responses of head and recharge appear to be primarily related to climate type and hydrogeology. The more arid the climate, the higher the head sensitivity but the lower the recharge sensitivity. Porous media generally show higher head sensitivity than fractured media due to smaller aquifer specific yield, and again contrarily for that of recharge. These findings contribute to understanding the long‐term impact of climate change on groundwater and thus provide valuable insights for sustainable groundwater management. Plain Language Summary: In this study, we assess the response of groundwater to meteorological variations by using long‐term groundwater level records across Australia. We first identify the sites where the groundwater level has been primarily impacted by climate variations alone. The changes in groundwater level and replenishment rate (also called "recharge") at the natural sites are simulated under a range of precipitation and evapotranspiration shifts and their relationships are statistically quantified. Results show that the national median groundwater level changes by 42 mm and the recharge changes by 0.43 mm per 1 mm change in precipitation. The response of groundwater level and recharge are found to be primarily governed by the inherent properties of the sites, such as climate type and hydrogeology. This study provides valuable insights into climate change impacts on groundwater availability and contributes to developing adaptive water management strategies. Key Points: Climate‐dominated groundwater bores throughout Australia are statistically identified (n = 1,143, 26%)Median head and recharge sensitivity to precipitation are 42 and 0.43 mm mm−1Head and recharge sensitivity are primarily controlled by climate type and hydrogeology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoxic blackwater events occur worldwide, affecting inland and coastal waters. These events have been exacerbated by man‐made floodplain drainage, leading to large‐scale fish kills and ecological degradation. This paper presents a new method to identify estuarine catchment areas that are most likely to generate hypoxic conditions. The method uses established risk factors, including vegetation type, inundation extent and duration, ground‐truthed in eastern Australia. A catchment is at higher risk of hypoxic blackwater generation if (a) it is located where floodwaters are high and/or drainage is impeded, (b) the site topography includes an extensive, low‐lying floodplain; and/or (c) the land‐use and environmental characteristics have a high deoxygenation potential. Consequent impacts to an estuary are determined by the floodplain connectivity with the estuary, and the discharge characteristics of the catchment drainage system. Where multiple, proximate catchments have similar drainage conditions, compounding plumes of hypoxic blackwater can overwhelm the assimilation capacity of the estuary. Climate change may significantly increase the volume and frequency of blackwater events in estuarine environments as a result of reduced drainage due to sea level rise, higher temperatures, and more intense and sporadic rainfall events. It is recommended that management measures be introduced to mitigate the effects of climate change and avoid further widespread hypoxic blackwater events. Key Points: A methodology is presented to differentiate estuarine catchments by their potential to generate hypoxic blackwater eventsLocal topographic and hydrodynamic conditions strongly influence the potential volume of hypoxic blackwater generated over a catchmentClimate change may increase the frequency and severity and change the distribution of blackwater risk throughout an estuary [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We synthesise the findings from 10 years of ecological restoration in the Midlands of Tasmania, Australia, captured in the series of 14 papers in this special issue of Ecological Management and Restoration. The papers illustrate how expertise from disciplines as diverse as law, economics, social sciences, the arts, education, zoology, botany, genetics, climate modelling, agriculture, spatial sciences and fire ecology are necessary to address the complex social, ecological and financial questions that underpin restoration ecology. We highlight the complexity of the task, the multi‐disciplinary and collaborative approach needed, the importance of science to inform restoration practice and the problem of achieving functional connectivity. We also outline steps that need to be taken in the next 10 years. Together, the outcomes and recommendations from these studies provide a template for restoration in similar highly cleared and degraded agricultural landscapes affected by climate change in Australia and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires affect 40% of the earth's terrestrial biome, but much of our knowledge of wildfire activity is limited to the satellite era. Improved understanding of past fires is necessary to better forecast how fire regimes might change with future climate change, to understand ecosystem resilience to fire, and to improve data-model comparisons. Environmental proxy archives can extend our knowledge of past fire activity. Speleothems, naturally occurring cave formations, are widely used in paleoenvironmental research as they are absolutely dateable, occur on every ice-free continent, and include multiple proxies. Recently, speleothems have been shown to record past fire events (Argiriadis et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b00767; McDonough et al., 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2022.03.020; Homann et al., 2022, https://doi. org/10.1038/s41467-022-34950-x). Here we present a review of this emerging application in speleothem paleoenvironmental science. We give a concise overview of fire regimes and common paleofire proxies, describe past attempts to use stalagmites to investigate paleofire, and describe the physical basis through which speleothems can record past fires. We then describe the ideal speleothem sample for paleofire research and offer a summary of applicable laboratory and statistical methods. Finally, we present four case studies from southwest Australia which: (a) explore the geochemistry of ash leachates, (b) detail how sulfate isotopes may be a proxy for post fire ecological recovery, (c) demonstrate how a catastrophic paleofire was linked to changes in climate and land management, and (d) investigate whether deep caves can record past fire events. We conclude the paper by outlining future research directions for paleofire applications. Wildfires are a global hazard, and are likely to become larger, more common, and more intense with climate change. Most of our knowledge about wildfires comes from satellite data, which are not long enough to fully understand past fire behavior. We can use paleoenvironmental data to learn more. Natural cave decorations (speleothems) have recently been found to include information about fire events. As they grow, stalagmite chemistry changes according to the climate and environment, and recent research has shown that elements from wildfire ash can become incorporated into the speleothem archive. Here we review recent advances of this new application in paleofire research. We detail the development of this emerging field, starting with cave dripwater monitoring results, we then give an overview of relevant laboratory and statistical methods, and provide four case studies. The case studies are an investigation of ash geochemistry, an analysis of post-fire changes in sulfate, a study of how intense fires are linked to climate, and an exploration of whether deep cave stalagmites may also record past fires. Longer records of fire activity will help to improve models for forecasting how fire regimes might change with climate change and how ecosystems might respond to those changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern with climate change, and coal's contribution to it, has centred coal in an intensely moralised politics of accusation in Australia. This paper discusses the ordinary ethics through which pro‐coal lobbyists in Australia relate to this moralised landscape and offers an analysis of the everyday and ordinary production of complicity with climate change. It argues that complicity is not just something that insufficiently ethical people engage in, but instead highlights the ways in which the coal industry derives a moral weight for its defenders. This complicity is made and reproduced precisely through the everyday practices of ethical deliberation figured in response to interpersonal moral accusations. These insights are made possible through the author's own positionality and surprising affinities with pro‐coal lobbyists, and thus this paper argues for an anthropology of extractive industry which embraces the interplay of anthropological rapport with complicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of research documenting Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities' observations of changes in climate. The accuracy, efficacy, and transferability of this research depends on its motives and methods. In this paper, we report on research to produce a working knowledge of changes in climate and its impacts on local biophysical systems in the Tiwi Islands in Northern Australia. Interviews with 52 Tiwi people were combined with diverse forms of aerial data to produce a nuanced understanding of climate change in these remote islands. These data show changes in climate‐sensitive biophysical systems that would otherwise remain undetected by instruments conventionally used for monitoring climate change. These include changes in shorelines, which are causing concerns about damage to buildings that are important for Tiwi well‐being, and changes in the marine environment and wetlands, which are causing concerns about damage to natural heritage. We discuss the implications of these findings, arguing that systematic observations collected by networks of people "on Country" can provide excellent monitoring of climate change impacts, and that Indigenous people's interests in the effects of climate change overlap with those of non‐Indigenous people, as do their rights to support from the State for adaptation. Plain Language Summary: Research that documents Indigenous and local people's observations of changes in the environment is essential to understand the broader implications of climate change. The observations reported in this study in the Tiwi Islands (Northern Territory, Australia) show environmental changes that would otherwise remain undetected by instruments conventionally used for monitoring climate change, particularly changes that affect crucial infrastructure, as well as changes in the marine and coastal environment. Tiwi Islanders observations help monitoring climate change impacts while reaffirming the rights of Indigenous peoples to get support for climate change adaptation from the State. Key Points: Tiwi people observe nuanced changes in the environment that are significant to them, and for understanding the impacts of climate changeTiwi people express concern about the risks of coastal erosion to buildings that are important for their daily lives and livelihoodsIndigenous people's interests in adaptation overlap with those of non‐Indigenous people, as do their rights to support for adaptation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societies are now squarely facing the risks of environmental and climatic change, and developed coastlines are ground zero. Climate change will cause damage to, or loss of, coastal property – property that, in most Western societies, is considered a high net value asset. This paper examines cultural ideas about private property and the complexities of using land use planning law as an enabler of climate change adaptation. It reports the findings of qualitative research that explores how residents living in coastal Australia respond to the risks to their property and to the places they live that are posed by sea level rise and other coastal climate change‐related risks. By reporting how residents experience their material coastal environment, and how they relate with and to ideas of "property" in a coastal environmental change context, this paper contributes to both coastal policy and to legal geography scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pasturelands are globally extensive, sensitive to climate, and support livestock production systems that provide an essential source of food in many parts of the world. In this paper, we integrate information from remote sensing, global climate, and land use databases to improve understanding of the resilience and resistance of this ecologically vulnerable and societally critical land use. To characterize the effect of climate on pastureland productivity at global scale, we analyze the relationship between satellite‐derived enhanced vegetation index data from MODIS and gridded precipitation data from CHIRPS at 3‐ and 6‐month time lags. To account for the effects of different production systems, we stratify our analysis by agroecological zones and by rangeland versus mixed crop‐livestock systems. Results show that 14.5% of global pasturelands experienced statistically significant greening or browning trends over the 15‐year study period, with the majority of these locations showing greening. In arid ecosystems, precipitation and lagged vegetation index anomalies explain up to 69% of variation in vegetation productivity in both crop‐livestock and rangeland‐based production systems. Livestock production systems in Australia are least resistant to contemporaneous and short‐term precipitation anomalies, while arid livestock production systems in Latin America are least resilient to short‐term vegetation greenness anomalies. Because many arid regions of the world are projected to experience decreased total precipitation and increased precipitation variability in the coming decades, improved understanding regarding the sensitivity of pasturelands to the joint effects of climate change and livestock production systems is required to support sustainable land management in global pasturelands. Plain Language Summary: Pastures, which provide food for livestock, are the most extensive land use on the planet, and their productivity depends on the timing and amount of rainfall they receive. In this paper, we use data on vegetation productivity, rainfall, and land use in order to determine the ability of pastures to remain unaffected by a disturbance and the time required for pastures to recover following a disturbance. To determine the effects of rainfall on pastures, we analyze the relationship between productivity and rainfall at 3‐ and 6‐month time intervals. We also take into account pasture management and whether pastures are located in dry or humid areas of the world. In dry regions, rain from the current season, rain from the last two seasons, and vegetation productivity from the previous growing season explain nearly 70% of current season vegetation productivity. Pastures in Australia are least capable of withstanding rainfall deficits, while pastures in Latin America recover more slowly after drought compared to other regions. Dry regions of the world are predicted to receive less rain less regularly in the coming decades, so improved understanding of the sensitivity of pastures to expected changes in rainfall will help support sustainable management of global pastures. Key Points: In Australia, pasturelands have both low resistance and low resilience relative to other regions across the worldSouthern South America has the lowest resilience globally, which is indicative of slow vegetation recovery after a disturbanceA total of 14.5% of global pasturelands experienced greening or browning trends, with the majority of these locations showing greening [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eka Nari Sanghathan (ENS), an Indigenous single women farmer's collective in Odisha, India and Norco Dairy in regional NSW, Australia are cooperatives undertaking collective action to 'survive well', securing agrarian livelihoods in the face of climate change. Striking differences in affluence and poverty separate these place‐based cooperatives while other things connect them: an Earth unsettled by climate change and extractivist/capitalist interventions. Both cooperatives transform place in practice by engaging similar survival strategies and non‐exploitative forms of cooperation. In this paper we seek to articulate the transformative nature of these places and practices in a way that goes beyond easy binaries of local/global, while enabling recognition of different affiliations between lands, related climate crisis and sustainable and shared surviving mechanisms. We develop a 'two‐thirds' perspective building upon Bruno Latour's third attractor, the Terrestrial, together with another third, Chakrabarti, Dhar and Cullenberg's idea of the World of the Third (WOT). Their interventions open our thinking to the ecological particularities, uncertainties, and postcapitalist possibilities of surviving well in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intraspecific genetic diversity provides the evolutionary potential to adapt to changing environments and 'hotspots' of high intraspecific diversity are recognized as key targets for conservation.In south‐western Australia, intraspecific genetic diversity for mesic taxa is not uniformly distributed. Many species comprise highly divergent lineages with unique haplotypes resulting from contraction to refugia during historical arid cycles. Sampling strategies in studies of the region's unique and ancient freshwater fauna have often focused on broad distributional range, making it difficult to determine boundaries between lineages and the location of genetic hotspots.This study explored the spatial distribution of intraspecific genetic diversity in the threatened freshwater mussel, Westralunio carteri. Mitochondrial DNA sequences for 164 specimens, sampled from all basins within the distribution of the species, were used to describe lineage boundaries and the location of hotspots, and to reconstruct historical demographics.There was strong evidence for three subregions of genetic diversity based on the largely non‐overlapping distributions of three evolutionarily significant units. Spatial and demographic analyses suggest that these evolutionarily significant units persisted through past arid cycles in separate refugia. The majority of haplotypes were unique to a single location, indicating limited connectivity among populations in recent times. Hotspots were identified throughout the region. Most notably, a significant hotspot in the south‐western corner probably arose through the overlap of lineages in historical refugia.Conservation assessments often focus on the species as a whole, even though sublineages, hotspots and the threats faced are not evenly distributed across the species range. This paper highlights that effective conservation of spatially structured taxa requires targeted management of multiple genetic units. Given the importance of formal taxonomic description for conservation listings, further investigation of the potential for species delimitation within W. carteri is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the spatial variation of area‐orientated annual maximum daily rainfall (AMDR), represented by well‐fitted generalized extreme value (GEV) distributions, over the last century in Great Britain (GB) and Australia (AU) with respect to three spatial properties: geographic locations, sizes, and shapes of the region‐of‐interest (ROI). The results show that the spatial variation of GEV location‐scale parameters is dominated by geographic locations and area sizes. In GB, there is an eastward‐decreasing banded pattern compared with a concentrically increasing pattern from the middle to coasts in AU. The parameters tend to decrease with increased area sizes in both studied regions. Although the impact of the ROI shapes is insignificant, the round‐shaped regions usually have higher‐valued parameters than the elongated ones. These findings provide a new perspective to understand the heterogeneity of extreme rainfall distribution over space driven by the complex interactions between climate, geographical features, and the practical sampling approaches. Key Points: Rainfall series are extracted and processed from more than 11,000 regions of interest over the last 100 years in Great Britain and Australia.Spatial distribution of extreme rainfall modeled qualitatively and quantitatively shows impact from location, size, and shape of regions.Methods and findings provide new perspectives for understanding the heterogeneous nature of climate variability and climatic change impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Murray–Darling Basin covers parts of four States of Australia and the whole of the Australian Capital Territory. As at 2002, its water management was well regarded internationally. Basin flows are low and variable. The most reliable streams show variations of about 12:1 between maximum and minimum annual natural flows. The longest tributary, the Darling, has a ratio of infinity. It was recognized in the 1980s that extractions from the system, largely for irrigation, had to be constrained. That led to the introduction of the "Murray‐Darling Basin Cap" which limited extractions and recognized the probability of average inflows declining, which was already being predicted by climate change modelling. The "millennium drought" of 2000–2009 was very severe and led to fears that the drop in inflows was happening faster than modelling was predicting. In 2007, the National Government, on the eve of an election, declared that the Basin had been mismanaged for a century by the States and legislated to transfer management powers from the States to the Commonwealth. That transfer has been pursued since then by National Governments of both major parties. Government claims to have "taken the politics out of Basin management and returned to the science." The evidence is that the exact opposite has occurred. The paper traces the history of water management in the Basin. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the urban political ecologies ( UPEs) of rental housing through the lens of water to draw attention to the different conditions of access to 'resources for adaptation' in the material relations of public and private rental housing provision in a world of changing climate. Climate change introduces a profound dimension of uncertainty in the socio-material relations of urban life. However, the capacity of urban residents to make changes to their housing is uneven, and this uncertainty is amplified by the limited access of many tenants to 'resources for adaptation' such as gardens, water efficiency, and alternative energy and is exacerbated by regulatory practices, including leases, insurance, and capital investment, that help shape the socio-natural relations of tenure. UPE emphasises the hybrid nature of cities and the flows of people and materials that constitute the built environment. We draw on the insights of UPE alongside an appreciation of the dynamics of normal standards of comfort, cleanliness, and convenience in the home to reveal the complexities of attempts to engage more sustainably with water in rental property. This paper draws on a case study of rental property managers and tenants in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, to explore social and cultural processes that are both shaped by and shape rental housing provision. We reveal a suite of practices, materials, and discourses that assemble to make 'resources for adaptation' and simultaneously render water useful, troubled, or troublesome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that catchment state variables such as groundwater can exhibit multiyear trends. This means that their state may reflect not only recent climatic conditions but also climatic conditions in past years or even decades. Here we demonstrate that five commonly used conceptual "bucket" rainfall‐runoff models are unable to replicate multiyear trends exhibited by natural systems during the "Millennium Drought" in south‐east Australia. This causes an inability to extrapolate to different climatic conditions, leading to poor performance in split sample tests. Simulations are examined from five models applied in 38 catchments, then compared with groundwater data from 19 bores and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment data for two geographic regions. Whereas the groundwater and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment data decrease from high to low values gradually over the duration of the 13‐year drought, the model storages go from high to low values in a typical seasonal cycle. This is particularly the case in the drier, flatter catchments. Once the drought begins, there is little room for decline in the simulated storage, because the model "buckets" are already "emptying" on a seasonal basis. Since the effects of sustained dry conditions cannot accumulate within these models, we argue that they should not be used for runoff projections in a drying climate. Further research is required to (a) improve conceptual rainfall‐runoff models, (b) better understand circumstances in which multiyear trends in state variables occur, and (c) investigate links between these multiyear trends and changes in rainfall‐runoff relationships in the context of a changing climate. Key Points: Environmental state variables such as groundwater display multiyear trends in response to sustained climate anomaliesWe show that five commonly used conceptual "bucket" rainfall runoff models are unable to replicate such trendsBecause of this, the models fail to extrapolate realistically to different climatic conditions, compromising runoff projections Plain Language Summary: It is common in science to use a mental picture or metaphor that simplifies a complex phenomenon. A common metaphor used for a water supply catchment is that of a leaky bucket. When it rains, the bucket fills up; when it does not rain for a while, the bucket empties due to evaporation and water used by trees; and leaking water is like river flow. Computer models based on variants of this metaphor are common and can provide predictions of how much streamflow might occur under future scenarios. This paper explores limitations of the bucket metaphor and associated models. Recently, during a 13‐year drought in Australia, river catchments gradually started to dry up. With each passing year, the depth to groundwater increased gradually as the water used by trees was not replenished by rainfall. We compare this long, slow behavior to that of five commonly used "bucket" models. The models do not show the long, slow drying up—they only show the seasonal ups and downs, and their predictions of streamflow over the drought are poor. This is surprising, and it means we should choose our models carefully and seek out models that can simulate this behavior and its impact on streamflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM) became unstable in 2016/2017 after 20 years of consistent performance. The South Australian grid collapsed on 28 September 2016 – Australia's first black system event since 1964. Wholesale prices in the region trebled to $120+/MWh; soon after Hazelwood power station announced its exit with just 5 months' notice. The problem spread as prices elsewhere doubled to $89/MWh from a long‐run average of $42.50. The NEM is experiencing a supply‐side crisis. Consistent with the requirement to decarbonise the system, aged coal‐fired generators are exiting but decades of climate change policy discontinuity has frustrated the entry of new plant. Long‐dated capital‐intensive asset industries like electricity supply anticipate a conventional policy cycle. What they have experienced instead is consistent with garbage can theory. Policy clarity may be emerging for only the second time in two decades. As with the NEM, its durability will depend on cooperative federalism. This paper provides an overview of Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM) and reviews Australia's climate change policy. A quantitative analysis reveals the implications of two decades of policy discontinuity on the NEM. The analysis is theoretically contextualised via garbage can theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that for city-dwelling Australians, COVID-19 sent the population into a toilet paper stockpiling hysteria, and bushfires were already a dwindling memory. It mentions that people living in rural communities are more likely than their city-dwelling cousins to experience multiple physical and mental health problems; and also mentions that self-management interventions are highly effective at preventing readmission to crisis care.

Abstract: Climate change has been described as the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. The atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, have increased significantly since the start of the Industrial Era around 1750, with much of this increase occurring over just the last 50 years or so. This is resulting in warming of the climate system as well as changes in precipitation and weather and climate extremes. These changes in climate are having wide‐ranging impacts on the Earth’s physical, biological and human systems, including human health. It is these impacts of climate change on human health that are the focus of this paper, particularly the impacts on allergens and allergic diseases. Such impacts are particularly significant in many countries where the prevalence of such diseases is high and/or increasing. There is now compelling evidence that rising air temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations are, in some plant species, resulting in increased pollen production and allergenicity and advancement and lengthening of the pollen season. Changes in extreme events, such as thunderstorms and tropical cyclones, will also have impacts on allergic diseases, with, for example, the flooding associated with tropical cyclones leading to proliferation of mould growth in damp homes. The article also considers a range of responses to these health threats, including greenhouse gas mitigation, and adaptation strategies, such as enhanced environmental monitoring and health surveillance and adequate planning for the future medical workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pride in Australia's extreme climate has long been a part of Australia's national identity. Today, climate continues to be enrolled in a range of nationalistic projects, including the (re)development of climate science and other responses to climate change. In this paper, we outline some of the contours of the 'Australian national climate', claims to know it, and four idealised responses to it: bounce back, dismissal, endurance, and migration. We argue that the deeply cultural framing of climate in Australia-in particular, Australians' emphasis on the climate's inherent variability and unknowability, and their own historical adaptability-is being exploited by the federal government and hampering climate change mitigation nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Seasonal rainfall forecasts are an important tool for risk management across many sectors. However, significant challenges arise in the development of skilful and practically useful seasonal forecasts for regions where the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall is large and/or knowledge about what causes this variability is in its infancy. This is evident in the state of South Australia ( SA), where seasonal rainfall currently has low predictive skill. The key climate processes have yet to be fully identified in SA and therefore may not be adequately represented in forecast models. The aim of this paper is to identify and quantify relationships between large-scale ocean-atmospheric processes and seasonal rainfall variability across SA. We identify two distinct climate zones: (1) the arid northern region, where rainfall is mostly influenced by climate processes stemming from the tropical Indian and/or Pacific Oceans and (2) southern SA, which is dominated by Southern Ocean processes. The average percent of variability of SA rainfall accounted for by any single large-scale climate process (i.e. linear regression using a single predictor) is 8% in summer, 19% in autumn, 33% in winter and 24% in spring. However, when two or more processes are considered in combination (through multiple linear regression), this rises to 13, 26, 46, and 33%, respectively, highlighting the importance of capturing the interaction among multiple climate processes. Importantly, the findings from this study provide a set of metrics against which existing statistical and dynamical forecasting schemes can be tested and highlight processes that should be focused on in order to improve (or develop new) forecasting schemes. The study also recommends the need for further investigations into non-linear relationships between rainfall and large-scale ocean-atmospheric processes and the development of more objective methods for determining which climate process, or combination of processes, are most important for a certain season or location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 100 years, Australia has experienced pronounced changes in rainfall patterns, which in south-western Australia (SWAU) has resulted in both a >50% decrease of runoff since 1975 and effects on vegetation health. Resolving the dynamics of vegetation and climate is a prerequisite for predicting the response of vegetation to future climates and carbon mitigation objectives. With multi-resource vegetation indices (VIs; normalized difference vegetation index and leaf area index) and gridded climate data, this paper examines vegetation dynamics and sensitivity to rainfall change on the Australian continent for the past long drought period (2002-2010). We found that rainfall and VIs declined across 90% and 80% of the whole continent, respectively, compared to the baseline period of 2000-2001. The most dramatic declines in VIs occurred in open shrublands near the center of Australia and in SWAU, coinciding with significant reductions in rainfall and soil moisture. Overall, a strong relationship between water (rainfall and soil moisture) and VIs was detected in places where rainfall declined dramatically (up to 5 mm/year since 1970). For five major vegetation types, croplands showed the highest sensitivity to water change, followed by grasslands and woody savanna. Moderate sensitivity of open shrublands to water change was found, while evergreen broadleaf forests only showed a slight sensitivity to soil moisture change. Although there was no consistent significant relationship between rainfall and VIs of evergreen broadleaf forests, forests in south-eastern Australia, where rainfall had declined since 1997, have become more sensitive to rainfall change than in SWAU. Our results provide evidence that, at this scale of assessment and with interpolated data sets, a lasting reduced rainfall pattern has been a key factor constraining vegetation growth over the Australian continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argonauts (informally known as "paper nautiluses") are a family of pelagic octopuses. Here, we report a stranding on 4 March 2022 of 18 I A argo i shells and one argonaut specimen with an associated shell (NMV F305014) across a 10-km stretch of beach near Gabo Island, Victoria. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Irrigation & Drainage is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the impacts of climate change on future water yield with associated uncertainties in a mountainous catchment in Australia using a multi-model approach based on four global climate models (GCMs), 200 realisations (50 realisations from each GCM) of downscaled rainfalls, 2 hydrological models and 6 sets of model parameters. The ensemble projections by the GCMs showed that the mean annual rainfall is likely to reduce in the future decades by 2-5% in comparison with the current climate (1987-2012). The results of ensemble runoff projections indicated that the mean annual runoff would reduce in future decades by 35%. However, considerable uncertainty in the runoff estimates was found as the ensemble results project changes of the 5th (dry scenario) and 95th (wet scenario) percentiles by −73% to +27%, −73% to +12%, −77% to +21% and −80% to +24% in the decades of 2021-2030, 2031-2040, 2061-2070 and 2071-2080, respectively. Results of uncertainty estimation demonstrated that the choice of GCMs dominates overall uncertainty. Realisation uncertainty (arising from repetitive simulations for a given time step during downscaling of the GCM data to catchment scale) of the downscaled rainfall data was also found to be remarkably high. Uncertainty linked to the choice of hydrological models was found to be quite small in comparison with the GCM and realisation uncertainty. The hydrological model parameter uncertainty was found to be lowest among the sources of uncertainties considered in this study. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electricity supply industry has historically offered a homogenous good supplied via economically regulated transmission and distribution networks. Competition was introduced into the contestable generation and retail supply chain components as part of the 1990s Hilmer reform process. After a century of incremental technological developments, the industry is now being transformed by new distributed energy technologies and a global focus on reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Policy-makers did not anticipate these changes. A number of key reforms are likely to be required. These include: assessing whether the return on capital provided to network operators is appropriate given changing economic conditions; determining the role of competition in the provision of 'behind the meter' energy services; and integration of climate change policy with wholesale energy market design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, Australia's approach to climate change policy could be described as erratic. In 2007, both major political parties announced support for a domestic emissions trading scheme ( ETS) but bipartisan agreement evaporated in 2009. An ETS was established in 2011 but then repealed in 2014. The Commonwealth Government has subsequently introduced a 'Direct Action' climate change policy, but there is little political agreement about the best long-term policy approach. This is unfortunate given climate science is indicating that relatively significant cuts to emissions may be required to avoid 'dangerous climate change.' This article provides some insights for future Australian climate change policy suggested by an analysis of the realities of electricity generation costs, international policy settings and Australian policy history. Enlightened and effective policy cannot ignore how comparative generation costs affect incentives to replace existing assets and how different policy instruments impact on electricity prices. As a significant exporter of emitting fuels, Australia would also be wise to consider how to manage the economic risks of reduced international demand for these fuels in the absence of technological development that eliminates externality costs. Such consideration could be focused on both reductions in domestic emissions and Australia's strategic negotiating position ahead of international climate change mitigation negotiations in late 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]