Search

"Rural Australia" has long been a special site of political contestation. Staking the terms of public depictions of "the rural", "the bush", or "country life" is a constitutive thread running through Australian settler colonial identity and a cornerstone of national electoral politics. This paper analyses major News Corporation media outlets' presentation of an evolving political campaign, comparing contesting representations of farming and rural Australia deployed by the Morrison Coalition government and advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action, in the period between the government's re-election in May 2019 and July 2021. The paper steps through the key tactical discursive moves made by these contesting parties. It argues that in their depictions of rural Australia there are two important features that these perspectives share. Both embrace a discourse of increased agricultural productivity inspired by high-tech innovation, and both are silent on the related social and economic transformations that undergird the "crisis" of the rural. Consequently, public political contestation over rural policy unfolds without engaging transforming structural arrangements that fundamentally organise work and life on the land. • Presents comparative depictions of rurality by the Australian prime minister and advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action. • Political contests over the representation of the rural during the time of accelerating climate change are shown to have strong temporal framings. • Both government and Farmers for Climate Action embrace a discourse of increased agricultural productivity inspired by high-tech innovation and both are silent on socio-economic transformations. • Farmers for Climate Action have made significant steps towards normalising the idea that farming and climate activism go hand in hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper presents the first on-the-ground study of attitudes towards just transition ideas in Australian coal communities. • It highlights the range of specific anxieties and reservations that workers and individuals in these communities have about these ideas. • The study highlights the dire need for local autonomy and control over any transition planning in these regions. Over the past several years, numerous actors across Australian society have increasingly advocated 'just transition' policies to help coal communities move beyond their reliance on fossil fuel extraction. As part of this, individuals from the environmental movement, trade unions, various NGOs and the private sector have called for a range of initiatives designed to help maintain the social and economic integrity of these regions as coal inevitably declines. Yet while just transition ideas have grown in popularity in these numerous forums in Australian society, it remains unclear how they are being understood by the very workers and communities for whom they are being proposed. To shed light on this question, we conducted interviews with residents of coal communities throughout Eastern Australia. We found that respondents had several key anxieties about just transition ideas and their impacts on their lives. In this paper, we break our findings down into five main themes that help explain these anxieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• South Australia is leading low carbon energy transitions in Australia. • Socio-technical transitions are complex, non-linear and follow multiple adaptive pathways. • Complex adaptive systems and risk society theory can be integrated to better understand transitions. • Bold leadership and innovative policy are required to navigate transitions in a reflexive modernity. • Governance can exploit crises to justify transition policy in response to future risk and uncertainty. Renewable energy transitions are occurring across the globe in response to climate change. Such socio-technical transitions are complex and non-linear. They require bold leadership and innovative policy, both in response to environmental risk and to navigate political, technical and socio-economic conditions. This paper integrates complex adaptive systems and risk society theory to inform a discussion on regional socio-technical transitions. South Australia is forging its own adaptive pathway, and in doing so, is leading energy transitions in Australia. Utilising the complex adaptive cycle to frame the state's renewable energy transition, the path can be seen to be evolving from a simple first modernity to a multi-dimensional second modernity. Socio-technical transitions are partly a by-product of responses to risk. While there is no single map for navigating societal transitions, this paper proposes that risk, in the context of risk society theory, is an important guiding dimension for understanding transformational change in socio-technical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Climate adaptation policy in a large river basin is explored. • Empirical study of science and policy interactions during actual reforms. • Interviews with senior research policy professionals reveal dynamics of policy formulation. • Proposes legally prescribed procedures for utilising science in environmental policy formulation. Climate change has many disruptive consequences, particularly in large river basins experiencing drying trends and declining water availability. With pressure for more adaptive policies, understanding how institutions governing water are adapting to climate risks has broad international relevance. This paper examines the challenges of climate risk assessments in Australia's Murray Darling Basin, an economically and culturally important basin where national legislation mandates a Basin Plan based on the best available science. However, despite repeated scientific warnings about a drying climate, the current Basin Plan does not reduce estimates of water resources available, and its climate risk management relies on a bricolage of policy mechanisms, which appear insufficient for the magnitude of predicted changes. This paper outlines the findings of original research exploring why this occurred. It draws on interviews with 30 senior public policy professionals and researchers with deep experience in climate and water policy. The interview data indicate that minimising political risks were the principal reasons for abandoning proposed reductions in entitlements and for relying on historical averages for estimating water availability. As the reform process evolved, decisions about water-planning techniques became increasingly politicised, and the adoption of explicit climate adaptation measures became problematic. As a result, the Basin Plan neither reflects the broad scientific consensus about climate change nor makes specific allowances for declining water availability. Climate risks are downplayed while concerns about levels of scientific uncertainties appear overstated. Importantly, lessons emerge from this examination that could contribute to the revisions of the Plan, scheduled for 2026. More generally, the research finds that proactive climate adaptation policies for large river basins require sustained and well-designed institutional reforms, particularly the adoption of legally prescribed procedures for utilising science - and accounting for its use - in controversial environmental reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is expected to seriously affect agricultural livelihoods and food security in all Pacific Island countries. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation contends that, to adapt, both 'modern' and Indigenous agricultural practices and knowledge are needed. A challenge lies in combining agricultural knowledge systems and enabling adaptive knowledge to be shared amongst Pacific Islanders. Opportunities to integrate different types of agricultural knowledge (including 'modern' and Indigenous) are needed. This paper argues that international labour mobility programmes provide an avenue for knowledge exchange that can support climate change adaptation in agriculture. It presents empirical evidence from research with 33 Pacific Islanders who grow crops in their home countries and were employed in Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP). We demonstrate how SWP participation opened new possibilities for climate change adaptation in agriculture in the Pacific Islands. Adaptive knowledge stems from SWP workers' exposure to different agricultural skills and ideas in Australia, combined with their knowledge and experience of crop production in their countries of origin. SWP participation created opportunities for workers to draw on different agricultural skills and knowledge on return to the Pacific Islands. The ability for SWP workers to then exchange adaptive knowledge with other Pacific Islanders is enabled by their social relationships, the likes of which an official agricultural extension officer might not have to the same degree. So far, such adaptive agricultural knowledge and skills exchanges are serendipitous. There is scope to explicitly build climate change knowledge exchange into agriculture-focused international labour mobility schemes. • International labour mobility schemes facilitate agricultural knowledge exchange. • Labour mobility migrants adapt acquired agricultural knowledge to their countries. • International labour mobility schemes can build adaptive capacity in agriculture. • Adaptive capacity from labour mobility can spread via agricultural extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Nationwide streamflow projections for Australia informed by CMIP5 and CMIP6. • Vast majority of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs project less winter rainfall across Australia. • Lower winter rainfall translates to a significant reduction in annual runoff. • Modelled median projection of runoff shows a 50% reduction in far southwest Australia. • Modelled median projection of runoff shows a 20% reduction in far southeast Australia. Projections of streamflow under future climate are essential for developing adaptation strategies in the water and related sectors. This paper presents nationwide streamflow projections for Australia informed by climate change signals in CMIP6 GCMs and compares the projections with those from CMIP5 GCMs. The modelled future runoff projections driven by CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs are relatively similar for far southern Australia. The median projection is a 50% reduction in mean annual runoff in far southwest Australia and 20% reduction in far southeast Australia by 2046–2075 relative to 1976–2015 under the high SSP5-8.5/RCP8.5 global warming scenario. The vast majority of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs project less winter rainfall across Australia. As most of the runoff in far southern Australia occurs in winter and spring, the lower winter rainfall translates to a significant reduction in annual runoff. It is therefore prudent to plan and manage for a reduction in future water resources, particularly in the densely populated and important agricultural regions in southeast Australia. There is less agreement between GCMs in the summer rainfall projection, with the CMIP6 GCMs generally projecting a wetter future (or smaller decrease in rainfall) than the CMIP5 GCMs. The modelled median projection for mean annual runoff is a 10% reduction in the south-east coast, 5% reduction in the north-east coast and little change in northern Australia. More GCMs project an increase rather than a decrease in the interannual variability of rainfall, and this would further amplify multi-year hydrological droughts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper connects critical legal geography and coastal climate change adaptation. It is particularly interested in the role that complex political ecologies and legal geographies have played in underpinning a decade of idealised integrated coastal management in New South Wales, Australia. In attending to the political-legal nature of coastal management through the lens of legal geography, this paper illustrates the complexities of law's role as both a driver and a barrier to coastal climate change adaptation, through a detailed review and analysis of repeated legislative reform between 2009–2018. This not-yet-documented analysis serves to highlight a shifting legal landscape and the politics of coastal climate change adaptation. It also illustrates how private property rights have been used as both a sword and a shield to advance dominant interests. The paper offers specific examples of ways private property discourses have been used to muddy the waters of adaptation responses, and how private property discourses can pervade, dissuade, and undermine land use management policies even as such policies aim to achieve more harmonious coastal management. • Integrated Coastal Management can balance competing interests on developed coastlines. • These interests are increasingly contested by climate change and the need for adaptation. • This contestation is usefully represented as between property rights and land use planning. • Law's role is also contested where law attempts, through land use planning, to curtail private property rights. • The lens of legal geography offers unique insights into the spatiality of law and is relevant to coastal adaptation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australians are one of the world’s highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, yet the country’s target for emissions reductions by 2030 remains modest. This paper looks at policy options for Australian cities to deliver faster emissions reductions than the national commitment level. The main focus is on an accelerated reduction in emissions from urban road transport, through technological improvements and behaviour changes. Targets are proposed for improved emissions intensities, to bring Australia much closer to US and EU performance expectations. A range of behaviour change measures is then tested on Melbourne and Sydney, the Sydney analysis using MetroScan-TI, an integrated evaluation framework, to explore how behaviour changes might enhance emissions outcomes. The potential contribution of public transport is a particular focus. The paper concludes that, with sufficient political will, Australia could reduce its 2030 road transport emissions to 40% below 2005 levels. This is a much larger reduction than the current 26–28% Australian target but is more consistent with longer term pathways to acceptable carbon budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local government organisations in coastal Australia have historically commissioned studies aimed at understanding risks in their locality to future sea level rise as a starting point for developing adaptation strategies to climate change. Therefore, the success of the overall adaptation activities of local government are strongly influenced by the way those initial risk studies are scoped and conducted, and how the outputs of those studies underpin subsequent adaptation planning activities within the organization. Mainstreaming of adaptation planning activities within local government is critical in terms of getting stakeholder support and required resources for its implementation. This paper analyses a sample of these coastal risk assessment studies across seven states and territories in Australia, with an aim to critically investigate the current state of practice among coastal local governments. First, we develop a typology of studies that have been undertaken by or for practitioners to understand coastal climate change risks, and discuss the applicability of the studies within the policy-making context of local government. Second, we identify a set of sample studies from the ‘grey literature’ through a systematic process and investigate to what extent they adhere to best practice risk management guidelines and principles, such as ISO31000. Third, we interview stakeholders from top performing studies to identify how/if the risk studies helped their organization in progressing their adaptation planning. We find that there is a significant inconsistency among terminologies in the coastal climate change risk assessment unpublished literature as studies use “risk”, vulnerability” and “hazard” concepts interchangeably despite their separate objectives and aims. Most studies perform poorly in evaluating risk against broader organizational criteria. Subsequently, it is difficult to integrate the findings of such studies into a broader organizational risk register, limiting opportunities for identified coastal climate change risks to be integrated into councils’ long-term strategic decision making. Conversely, the follow up interviews of studies that performed well in scoping and consultation in our assessment demonstrate that these aspects were beneficial to stakeholders in terms of informing adaptation planning. Importantly, the findings presented in this paper confirm the need for a consistent risk assessment approach for local councils in the coastal zone to underpin successful adaptation planning. This is a critical issue, not only for Australia, but for local government organisations globally given that sea level rise is a projected threat for all populated coastal regions worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In Australia, co-benefits have rarely entered policy discourse and have so far failed to gain traction in climate change-related policy debates. This is partly due to the dominant perception about the difficulties associated with identifying, quantifying and incorporating co-benefits into decision-making frameworks. There is also limited understanding on the part of policy-makers about the profound policy implications of a ‘co-benefits approach’ as a paradigm that can address multiple policy goals, including addressing climate change impacts, achieving sustainable development, and enhancing health, wellbeing and liveability. Objectives Our paper addresses this gap by contributing to current understandings of the ‘co-benefits approach’ as a means of integrating climate concerns into local planning and development control in general. At a more specific level, the paper provides an insight into the Australian local government policy context to illustrate how to plan, generate and purposively promote co-benefits in planning urban built environments. Methods A desktop review of NSW councils’ web sites and their climate change-related policies was undertaken. A comprehensive online survey was subsequently conducted to investigate the extent to which councils have adopted a ‘co-benefits approach’ in their low carbon policies. Results Major barriers to integrating co-benefits in the policy process were identified in this research. They include: (i) local government's current practice of single-sectoral policy development; (ii) absence of an integrated and co-ordinated ‘whole-of-government approach’ to address climate change impact; (iii) over-reliance on quantitative decision-support frameworks; and (iv) over-emphasis on short term and readily quantifiable monetary consideration of benefits. Conclusion Local government's over-emphasis on readily quantifiable ‘monetary considerations’ in targeting benefits from climate change policies excludes a wide range of environmental, social and health benefits from incorporation in policy. This limits the achievement of optimal policy outcomes across multiple sectors using a co-benefits approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal aquifers provide a source of water for more than one billion people, with island freshwater lenses being some of the most vulnerable coastal groundwater systems due to their susceptibility to saltwater intrusion. Basic hydrogeological and hydrochemical knowledge regarding the recharge and salinisation processes of freshwater lenses is important to ensure sustainable utilisation, especially considering possible climate change effects. This paper makes an assessment of the fate of a freshwater lens in a drying climate through a comparison of current and historic hydrochemical data, which to the author’s knowledge is unique to this study. Fresh groundwater stable isotope signatures (δ 18 O, δ 2 H) reflect local amount weighted rainfall signatures (δ 18 O: −3.8‰; δ 2 H: −15.1‰), and confirm rainfall as the origin of fresh groundwater (δ 18 O: −4.47 to −3.82‰; δ 2 H: −20.0 to −16.6‰). Mixing with seawater was identified through enriched groundwater δ 18 O and δ 2 H signatures (maximum values of −0.36‰ and −1.4‰ respectively) compared to local rainfall and higher salinity (maximum 29,267 mg/L Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)) in a number of monitoring wells around the freshwater lens. Enhanced seawater intrusion detected in the northern section of the lens area was identified through significantly increased TDS values over the last 20–40 years, with increases of up to 3000% observed between 1990 and 2014. A reduction in the extent of freshwater by approximately 1 km 2 was identified since 1977, which was found to be primarily caused by a reduction in recharge to the freshwater lens due to a ∼20% decline in winter rainfall in the south-west Western Australian region since the mid 1960s. Groundwater abstraction was found to equate to between 5% and 9% of the estimated recharge for the island, and is not a significant factor in the reduction of the lens extent compared to the observed decline in rainfall recharge. Interestingly, seawater intrusion into the fresh water lens was found to occur by older seawater (0.03–0.09 TU) in regions of the lens that were previously fresh or slightly brackish, while one sample (0.67 TU) suggests either modern seawater intrusion or mixing of older saline groundwaters (>60 years) with rainfall recharge. The use of tritium dating in this island aquifer was essential in identifying ‘older’ seawater that was previously unidentified until now. The isotopic and hydrochemical tools used in this paper quantify the effects of groundwater abstraction and climate variability on the freshwater lens and have implications for the sustainable management of the groundwater resource on Rottnest Island, and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifth-generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) systems have the potential to provide simultaneous heating and cooling, allowing for energy exchange between users with different needs. However, their viability in mild climates with a higher share of cooling demand remains unclear. In this paper, we propose a framework for assessing the engineering, economic and environmental performance of a 5GDHC system compared to a state-of-the-art business-as-usual solution and demonstrate it through a practical case study for a university campus in Melbourne, Australia. When accessible heat sources and sinks are available, the 5GDHC system provides a cost-effective solution, with annual cost savings between 9 and 29 % and GHG emissions reduction between 25 and 58 % compared to an already advanced business-as-usual system. Additionally, by using peak off-peak tariffs and an hourly emission factor for the electricity consumed, we demonstrate the 5GDHC operational flexibility in pursuing different objectives, such as minimising cost or emissions, respectively. The results suggest that 5GDHC systems are an economically and environmentally viable solution in milder climates, and a successful implementation of 5GDHC in Australia can create new market opportunities and pave the way for its adoption in other countries with similar climatic conditions and no established history of district heating systems. • 5GDHC systems are analysed in a new context with a milder climate. • A multi-dimensional assessment framework is proposed. • The framework is demonstrated through a practical case study in Melbourne, Australia. • Flexibility is assessed through varying electricity tariffs and emission factors. • The strong performance of the 5GDHC system offers insights into similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerated impacts of climate change pose significant challenges for natural resource management (NRM), challenging traditional decision-making approaches. Foresight provides a range of suitable methods for informing NRM due to high uncertainty and complexity. Foresight processes are inherently political endeavours because they are used to allocate resources and engage in normative questions of what constitutes a desirable future. Existing empirical examples suggest that broader political and institutional settings may constrain foresight in NRM. However, to date, research has not explored the broader contexts that shape foresight processes. The paper draws on qualitative and quantitative data from an exploratory survey with 32 regional NRM organisations (NRMOs) across Australia. It develops an exploratory framework that situates foresight interventions within nested scales, to consider how broader socio-cultural, political and institutional contexts shape and constrain how NRMOs apply foresight and how its outcomes are taken up in decision-making. We have found that NRMOs are using a broad range of foresight methods with five categories of outcomes, including relationship building, knowledge generation and integration; capacity building; strategy development; and normative outcomes. We argue that increased attention to normative outcomes may support NRM to explicitly engage with the political dimensions of long-term planning. Despite this, the broader socio-cultural and environmental contexts create a challenging disjunct wherein foresight interventions face multiple constraints and tensions. • A wide range of foresight methods are being used in natural resource management. • Foresight supports engagement with normative dimensions of environmental planning. • A nested framework supports analysis of contexts in which foresight is used. • Socio-cultural, political and environmental contexts can limit impact of foresight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using temporal or spatial analogues is a well developed technique for comparative studies that can shed light on past environments or inform changes in practice by reference to analogue locations. Recently, studies have begun to employ analogue techniques to inform on future conditions under climate change. This paper explores the breadth of application of analogue approaches and seeks to question whether there are the limits to the way in which the technique can be applied. We consider the case of policy in a wide range of land use relevant factors, using case studies of three Australian states. The analysis examines whether existing policy in land use planning, housing, infrastructure, health and ecological services in analogue communities can inform future policy in target communities, so as to fast track their policy development as climate changes. We highlight a number of situations where evidence supports the argument but we conclude that, over the full spectrum of policy, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that analogue approaches are valuable as a policy development tool. The paper outlines the reasons why the approach is limited in the case of land use policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climatic change is driving research and development in low emissions technologies. One such technology is the use of charcoal from biomass in steelmaking. This paper adapts social life cycle assessment methodologies to analyse the social dimensions of energy supply alternatives in steelmaking using regionalised production scenarios in Australia. Three energy supply alternatives are investigated: charcoal produced from Radiata pine plantation forestry; charcoal produced from Mallee eucalypt revegetation on agricultural land; and metallurgical coal. Impact indicators analysed include land-use, employment, workplace health & safety and a qualitative analysis of identified stakeholder issues. The research finds that biomass alternatives are significant generators of direct employment at the regional level; have concomitantly higher rates of workplace injuries and represent a significant change in land-use. Charcoal produced from Mallee biomass planted as a conservation measure on farmland, however, has the benefit of representing a shared land-use that provides an additional farm revenue stream and assists dryland salinity management. The paper finds that full substitution of coal by pine or Mallee charcoal does not provide a unique solution for optimising the social performance of the energy supply alternatives across all indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural and regional hinterlands provide the ecosystem service needs for increasingly urbanised communities across the globe. These inter-related ecosystem services provide key opportunities in securing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Their integrated management in the face of climate change, however, can be confounded by fragmentation within the complex institutional arrangements concerned with natural resource management. This suggests the need for a more systemic approach to continuous improvement in the integrated and adaptive governance of natural resources. This paper explores the theoretical foundations for integrated natural resource management and reviews positive systemic improvements that have been emerging in the Australian context. In setting clear theoretical foundations, the paper explores both functional and structural aspects of natural resource governance systems. Functional considerations include issues of connectivity, knowledge use and capacity within the natural resource decision making environment. Structural considerations refer to the institutions and processes that undertake planning through to implementation, monitoring and evaluation. From this foundation, we review the last decade of emerging initiatives in governance regarding the integration of agriculture and forests across the entire Australian landscape. This includes the shift towards more devolved regional approaches to integrated natural resource management and recent progress towards the use of terrestrial carbon at landscape scale to assist in climate change mitigation and adaptation. These developments, however, have also been tempered by a significant raft of new landscape-scale regulations that have tended to be based on a more centralist philosophy that landowners should be providing ecosystem services for the wider public good without substantive reward. Given this background, we explore a case study of efforts taken to integrate the management of landscape-scale agro-ecological services in the Wet Tropics of tropical Queensland. This is being achieved primarily through the integration of regional natural resource management planning and the development of aggregated terrestrial carbon offset products at a whole of landscape scale via the Degree Celsius initiative. Finally, the paper teases out the barriers and opportunities being experienced, leading to discussion about the global implications for managing climate change, income generation and poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is a distinction between usable and useful knowledge for climate change adaptation. • There are challenges to ensure boundary organisations have long-lasting impacts. • Two systemic changes are proposed to advance knowledge usefulness. Increased social and environmental vulnerability to extreme climatic events and inherent aggravation of environmental and social problems has placed climate change adaptation as an urgent challenge for decision-makers. Understanding and using climate change information to advance the implementation of climate-friendly policies further compounds this challenge. A rich scholarly literature focusing on climate change adaptation endorses that investing in mechanisms that narrow the gap between climate change information production and its use is crucial to increase adaptive capacity. Based on this assumption, this paper investigates the extent to which two collaborative projects that functioned as boundary organisations in Brazil (CiAdapta project) and Australia (Climate Change Adaptation for Natural Resource Management in East Coast Australia) increased access to information, and enabled the continual and continuous usefulness of produced knowledge for climate change adaptation. Considering the distinction between usable and useful information, we applied six criteria to guide the data analysis and extract key lessons from each project. Our findings confirm that face-to-face interactions are more likely to result in research having the societal impact that is being increasingly required by research and funding bodies. Our findings also indicate that two key systemic changes are critical for the long-term influence of boundary organisations for advancing climate change adaptation. These include changes to the science, knowledge production process; and shift in the political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present a multi-disciplinary collaborative approach for developing a regional scale climate adaptation plan with the health and wellbeing sector. • This includes an innovative engagement and policy mapping strategy. • We demonstrate the application of this approach for developing climate change adaptation plan for health and wellbeing sector in Queensland, Australia. • We find that direct engagement between various key stakeholders is a critical element of translating scientific evidence of climate change impacts on human health into a regional adaptation policy for the health and wellbeing sector. The science of climate change and its impacts on health makes it clear that human health and wellbeing will be increasingly negatively impacted as a result of climate change. The health and wellbeing sector must respond to these growing pressures in order to continue to provide safe, quality care. Adaptation and mitigation policies need to be developed at different scales, including at a regional government level. Numerous challenges exist; for example, the necessity for collaboration between multiple agencies across scales, the tailoring of policies to the health issues specific to regions, and constraints on existing regional and local resources and adaptive capacities, to name a few. This paper presents a multi-disciplinary collaborative approach used to develop a regional scale climate adaptation plan with the health sector. Starting from a scientific understanding of climate change impact on the health sector in Queensland, Australia, the approach used an innovative engagement strategy to a) better understand awareness of relevant stakeholders about current and future climate change impact on the health of the population and on service provision, b) identify on-ground barriers to effective adaptation faced by the sector stakeholders, c) identify opportunities and benefits which would arise from adaptation, and d) identify what conditions or support stakeholders required to overcome those barriers, take advantage of opportunities, and achieve benefits from adaptation. Analysis of these findings guided the development of specific policy directions for the sector. We found direct engagement between various key stakeholders such as health service providers (e.g. hospitals), critical infrastructure providers, academics, local government authorities, and sub-sectors such as aged care and early childhood care facilities, was a critical element of translating scientific evidence of climate change impacts on human health into a regional adaptation policy for the health and wellbeing sector. The resulting policy, grounded in the reality and experience of health and wellbeing sector stakeholders, reflects their insights and concerns, and served to develop a level of sectoral 'ownership' (not 'top-down' imposition) which will be important for its successful ongoing development and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Collaboratively written article with a decolonising approach to climate and weather. • Acknowledges more-than-human agency by recognising Country as lead author. • Offers alternatives to Western-scientific constructions of time, climate and weather. • Adds new Indigenous-led dimension to academic/policy discourse on climate change. • Calls for 'response-ability as' rather than 'responsibility for' weather. New engagements between humans and with the environment are vitally necessary in this perilous period of intensified environmental change. Climate change policy interventions and public discourses persistently frame climate as outside human experience, something to be controlled and understood within a strict, linear, universalist and ultimately colonising understanding of time. Yet constructions that suggest that humans are separate from, act upon or may manage or control a passive environment may be offensive to a sentient world, while relegation of the past to 'the past' ignores the many enduring violences of colonialism and multiple sustained efforts to nurture multi-temporal relationships of belonging and care. In this paper, our more-than-human Indigenous and non-Indigenous research collective share understandings of time led by the Yolŋu songspiral, Wuku n or Gathering of the Clouds, from northern Australia. Wuku n challenges many orders and disciplines of colonial structures, including those associated with time and climate change. In place of an abstract, distant and unbound climate, locked into a linear, passive timescape, Wuku n suggests time as multiple, agential, and a manifestation of co-becoming. Rather than being responsible to or responsible for climate as something passive and separate from humans, Wuku n signals a need to cultivate abilities to attend deeply to place's agency and act through co-becoming. In this way, we may understand and respond to climate change as relational and patterned, embodied and affective, and co-constituted through more-than-human placed and multi-temporal relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The Anthropocene requires experiments in nature-society relations. • Guitar industry resource actors experiment with diverse plantings via long timescales. • They seek to resolve extractive dependencies with care for trees and forests. • Such experiments grapple with scarcity, unknown futures, and arboreal time. • Experiments arise as grounded, uncertain efforts on the fringes of formality. The Anthropocene signals anticipation of unknown ecological volatility. Transformational change necessitates diversified experiments for unpredictable scenarios, accepting that many will fail. This paper uncovers insights on such experiments, from an initially unrelated research project 'following' guitar production networks 'back to the tree'. Across the Pacific Northwest, Hawai'i and Australia, resource actors in liminal positions between forestry and guitar manufacturing pursue new roles as forest stewards, experimenting with multi-species plantings for future use beyond their lifetimes. Cognisant of impending ecological volatility, and uncertain that industrial forestry (defined by monocultural, short-term chronotopes) will sustain supply indefinitely, new cultivation techniques are being trialled, and stewardship practices extended towards trees that they will not themselves harvest. In experimentation, resource actors seek to resolve their own extractive dependencies with understandings of trees and forest ecologies. They also grapple with arboreal time - the temporalities of forests and their growing cycles, material qualities and genetic predispositions - knowing that the trees will mature amidst a profoundly different climate. We illustrate the value of 'legacy' mentalities, enthusiasm for trial and error, and prosaic restorative cultures among resource stewardship actors, focusing on those whose present experimentation responds to lived experience of industrial capitalism's failures. Insights arise on efforts we must all make to craft a world that can survive the future we have wrought. Unpremeditated experimental relations with nonhuman others, and with the future, unfold materially in time and space - not through official policy initiatives, but extemporaneously, on the fringes of formality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 2000 abstracts from 6 climate adaptation conferences over 10 years were studied. • Adaptation to climate change in Australia is evolving with more emphasis on action. • Some changes indicate progress, but others suggesting lack of research funding. • There is more conference participation by practitioners, less by researchers. • There is a shift from the natural environment to urban and infrastructure adaptation. The last decade has seen strong global growth in the number of climate change adaptation projects. To understand whether adaptation is progressing and is successful, some form of longitudinal tracking is required. The six adaptation conferences organised by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility between 2010 and 2018 provide a unique and novel opportunity to track adaptation progress in Australia. Each conference was accompanied by a call for abstracts for oral or poster presentation. The submitted abstracts form the basis of the analysis in this paper. We show that, over time, the balance of attendees shifted away from researchers and towards government employees, and the proportion of attendees submitting abstracts declined. The proportion of abstracts submitted by government employees and consultants has increased at more recent conferences. When abstract content is analysed, the results show that, over time, there has been a change in the focus of abstracts with respect to the sector, type and stage of adaptation. These trends indicate maturation of adaptation in Australia, but also suggest that lack of finance for research and action is having an impact. There is evidence that adaptation in Australia is moving from being largely planning based and towards implementation. This is encouraging, given that studies throughout the world have remarked on the barriers that exist in moving from planning to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its first use in the late 80's, the term chevron has been employed in numerous studies to describe large U- and V-shaped ridges found in or near shorelines worldwide. Most studies have so far focused on Bahamian chevrons that are exclusively of Late Pleistocene age, and on the supposed Holocene chevrons found in S-Madagascar and Australia. In the Bahamas, these deposits have been interpreted as the product of extreme storms at the end of the last interglacial (LIG) warm period. In contrast, the extensive chevrons complex exposed in S-Madagascar and on the western coast of Australia have been associated with a tsunami induced by a meteorite impact. Finally, several authors have also proposed a non-catastrophic (i.e. eolian) origin based on the recognized importance of wind-related processes in these coastal areas, and term such deposits parabolic dunes. In this paper, we collect and synthesize existing data on the morphology, sedimentology and age of these chevrons, and review the different interpretations proposed in the literature with the aim to lay out a consistent database to assist further investigations on these important coastal morphologies. In addition, we generated a synthesis of wind data at the three study areas, which highlights the relationship between present wind regimes and chevrons morphologies. The ubiquity of chevrons (likely actually parabolic dunes) in coastal areas around the globe and their relationship with coastal processes makes them crucial archives for reconstructing past wind regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Presents a typology of emergent risk that highlights the iterative and inter-related nature of climate change risk, and propensity for impacts, such as legal action and reduced debt access, to emerge subsequent to, yet far removed from, initial physical impacts. • Highlights current practice and gaps in local government risk management concerning emergent risk. • Highlights the potential and need for local government to consider, the application of risk transfer mechanisms such as catastrophe bonds in the face of historical and conceivable climate change-perpetuated reduced access to, and increased cost of, traditional mechanisms such as insurance. • Provides insight into barriers and enablers to local government agencies gaining an appreciation of the potential application of alternative risk transfer mechanisms. Insurance represents an integral part of local government risk management strategy. As climate change progresses, increased loss and risk related to extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones, could motivate insurers to withdraw from certain markets. In some regions, such a withdrawal represents an emergent risk that, when coupled with increasing populations and other climate change impacts, could leave local governments and ratepayers particularly vulnerable. This paper investigates such a scenario and its ramifications in the context of a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, through an exploration of the degree that consideration of emergent risks, such as loss of insurance, and the potential application of insurance alternatives influence Queensland local government risk management. The study finds little appreciation amongst government officials of emergent risk implicit in extreme weather events such as cyclones, little understanding of the nuances of risk transfer mechanisms beyond familiar traditional insurance and disaster funding mechanisms, and by default, a lack of appreciation of the relationship between the two. A lack of resource and leadership with respect to emergent risk, and an absence of dialogue between insurance brokers and local government concerning climate change risk arise as the main reasons for this result. This research is significant because it challenges current local government risk management practice through an exploration of the risks inherent in the process itself. This has potential social, economic and ecological ramifications in drawing attention to aspects of possible "uninsurability" and prospects of alleviation thereto. Further research is recommended to consider the insurance industry's part in this study's findings in order to inform current industry practice and thinking and further enlighten the causes of local government disengagement in this critical area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Research examining the construction industry demonstrates that it is the source of a large percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions, subject to future climate change risks, and that there is limited evidence of adaptation. This paper explores the preparedness of the Australian construction industry to adapt to climate change risks, through twenty-one key stakeholder interviews. The interviews addressed participants' perceptions of the industry's: climate change risk awareness, analytical capacity to address climate change risk, and current actions to address these risks. The main risk participants identified was extreme weather during construction (e.g. heat and wind) with impacts for occupational health and safety, supply chain reliability, project delivery delays, and profit. The impact of these risks was somewhat down played. While a high level of perceived analytical capacity to respond to climate change was observed, real action was limited by systemic, outdated regulations, lack of client motivation, and perceived costs. The climate change actions which were undertaken were predominantly climate change mitigation activities, largely focussing on organisational processes, rather than adaptations to built form. The results indicate that if Australia's built form is to be well adapted to climate change, greater preparedness to facilitate tangible and systemic actions to address climate change risk in the Australian construction industry is needed. Specifically, interviewees responses imply that increased awareness of the impacts of climate change, better translation of existing solutions into practice, and regulatory reform are needed. Highlights • Climate change preparedness of the Australian construction industry was investigated. • Main risks identified - extreme weather impacts to: worker safety, supply chain reliability, project delays, profit. • High level of perceived analytical capacity to respond to climate change observed. • Action limited due to: outdated regulations, lack of client motivation, perceived costs. • Greater climate change preparedness is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a risk analysis of the economic impact of damage to metal roofing of a typical contemporary (new) Australian house subject to extreme wind loading. The failure modes considered are roof cladding and batten-to-truss connection failures, with the effect of defective construction also considered. Monte-Carlo simulation and structural reliability methods are used to stochastically model spatially varying pressure coefficients, roof component failure, and load re-distribution across the roof. This spatial reliability analysis enables fragility curves to be developed that relate likelihood and extent of roof cover loss to gust wind speed. The annual economic risk is up to 0.3% of house replacement value. A typical house with construction defects increases economic risk more than sixfold when compared to the defect-free house. There is a 10% chance that a changing climate will increase expected losses for houses in Brisbane and Melbourne by 6–18% over the next 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Transformative change is needed in landscape practice to enhance its climate agency. • Little is known about the barriers and facilitators of designing for climate change. • Insights from Australian practitioners highlight lack of agency as a key barrier. • Transformation in structures and systems of decision-making processes is needed. • Improved advocacy, engaging with policy and collaboration advance designers' agency. The way we plan and design our landscapes, infrastructure, and cities has to transform if we want to meet the needs of our society and address climate change without breaching the earth's ecological boundaries. Landscape architects are known as environmental stewards. They are trained to create a balance between the built and natural environments. However, landscape architects' agency to lead climate change actions is restricted. Little is known about the barriers to addressing climate change in landscape architectural practice, and the levers to increase landscape architects' agency in climate change leadership. This paper addresses this gap through an in-depth empirical analysis of barriers and facilitators of climate change action from the perspective of landscape architecture professionals. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 practitioners from Australia. The results show that those interviewed perceived the profession had limited agency and influence in leading climate decisions. Other barriers exist and are grouped against the three spheres of transformation: 1) design implementation barriers influencing the built outcomes (practical); 2) structures and systems barriers influencing the design decision-making processes (political); and 3) socio-cultural barriers including values, ideologies, and beliefs (personal). The most restricting barriers that emerged were those related to limited project budget and timeframes, informational and technological aspects (access to reliable data, tools, and skillsets), as well as those related to political systems and structures in place (regulations, and design standards). Key facilitators to address existing barriers are identified, including creating awareness through practice and advocacy, active involvement of professionals in all life stages of projects, especially in planning and policy creation, and closer collaborations with other built environment sectors beyond sub-consultancy. The findings can pave the way towards increased agency and impact of the profession to bring climate change agendas to the forefront of landscape design practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key criterion of successful adaptation to climate change is that it avoids potential inequalities arising from climate impacts or from adaptation strategies themselves. Recent research on adaptation in developing and developed countries argues that the measures of such fairness cannot be captured by standard metrics of vulnerability and should be situated in the milieu of people’s daily lives and temporalities. Yet there is little empirical evidence to support this theoretical argument. This paper describes a method, and presents findings from research that aimed to understand and classify the lived values of four marginal rural communities at risk of sea-level rise in Australia to inform adaptation planning and implementation. Our research finds that there are at least five types of primary residents and second home-owners attached to these four low-lying coastal communities. Some of these residents are more likely to be amenable to relocation if their needs for affordable living and belonging are met. For others, there may be little that can be done to compensate for the loss of place attachment, and implementing a measured approach that provides them time to adapt to the idea of change and form connections to new places is the best that could be achieved. We discuss the implications of place-specific and people-centric values for achieving fair adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoengineering is a high-stakes policy issue that calls for research and debate that is pluralistic, reflexive and socially accountable. This paper reflects on an Australian geoengineering scenario project as a practical and innovative platform for informing governance. We produce multi-scale scenarios—representing Australia and the world— built on four fundamentally different archetypes, in which three include geoengineering. According to the four scenarios: greenhouse gas emissions continue increasing to 2050 but not long beyond; except with accelerated technology development and adoption, climate change impacts by 2050 become globally relevant; the risk of unilateral geoengineering deployment without adequate governance is low; and the framing of geoengineering deployment can be characterized as either climate mitigation, adaptation or optimization. Australia’s role in geoengineering can be described as passive in the global context, but Australia can benefit from an early transition to a low-carbon economy. A review of the evolution of ideas throughout the exercise reveals a process of shared learning that helps to focus governance discussions around key issues. This study is one step towards increasing the presence and influence of the Asia-Pacific in geoengineering discussions, and highlights the value that a tailored scenario exercise can bring to governance discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing environmental disasters are creating significant uncertainty for farm families and their communities across the world. One site critically affected is the Murray-Darling Basin area of Australia, an area known as the food bowl of Australia. Following a lengthy drought at the turn of the century concerns were raised about water quality and river health. This led successive governments to introduce policies to systematically reduce water available for irrigated agriculture. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was developed by the Commonwealth government and is designed to secure water savings from irrigators and to direct those water savings to the stressed natural environment. This paper focuses on the impact of these changes on irrigation dairy families and their communities in northern Victoria. Using a model designed to test the limits to adaptation, we draw out the constraints, limits and barriers to adaptation for dairy families and their communities coping with reduced water access. This model highlights the types of socially just and fair interventions necessary to assist adaptation and focuses attention on thresholds and traps that may prevent adaptation. The model is relevant to other areas where climate changes and environmental disasters are shaping inevitable change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Monsoonal North West (MNW) region of Australia faces a number of challenges adapting to anthropogenic climate change. These have the potential to impact on a range of industries, including agricultural, pastoral, mining and tourism. However future changes to rainfall regimes remain uncertain due to the inability of Global Climate Models to adequately capture the tropical weather/climate processes that are known to be important for this region. Compounding this is the brevity of the instrumental rainfall record for the MNW, which is unlikely to represent the full range of climatic variability. One avenue for addressing this issue (the focus of this paper) is to identify sources of paleoclimate information that can be used to reconstruct a plausible pre-instrumental rainfall history for the MNW. Adopting this approach we find that, even in the absence of local sources of paleoclimate data at a suitable temporal resolution, remote paleoclimate records can resolve 25% of the annual variability observed in the instrumental rainfall record. Importantly, the 507-year rainfall reconstruction developed using the remote proxies displays longer and more intense wet and dry periods than observed during the most recent ~ 100 years. For example, the maximum number of consecutive years of below (above) average rainfall is 90% (40%) higher in the rainfall reconstruction than during the instrumental period. Further, implications for flood and drought risk are studied via a simple GR1A rainfall runoff model, which again highlights the likelihood of extremes greater than that observed in the limited instrumental record, consistent with previous paleoclimate studies elsewhere in Australia. Importantly, this research can assist in informing climate related risks to infrastructure, agriculture and mining, and the method can readily be applied to other regions in the MNW and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quantile-quantile rainfall mapping methods are extended to improve streamflow simulations. • Extensions correct rainfall bias at multiple time scales and model rainfall autocorrelation. • Methods reduce bias in rainfall sequencing metrics for downscaled GCM simulations. • Methods reduce bias in streamflow simulations forced by downscaled GCM simulations. Global circulation models (GCMs) provide important insights into future climate change. Bias-correction of downscaled GCM output is integral to any hydrological investigations of climate change due to discrepancies between the statistics of downscaled GCM simulations and observations. Many bias-correction techniques have been developed to support hydrological applications. However, there have been few comparisons of the sensitivity of hydrological simulations to different bias-correction assumptions. This paper investigates the importance of two common assumptions: (i) simultaneously correcting bias at multiple time scales, and (ii) explicitly handling rainfall autocorrelation; in quantile mapping of downscaled GCM rainfall data for hydrological simulation. Four quantile mapping methods are applied to correct bias in dynamically downscaled reanalysis and historical GCM simulations of rainfall for 11 catchments in south-eastern Australia and the performance of bias-corrected rainfall and streamflow simulations is evaluated. All quantile mapping methods investigated can effectively eliminate bias in monthly and annual rainfall totals. Quantile mapping methods that consider differences in the temporal dependence (autocorrelation) structure of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall are most effective in reducing bias in rainfall sequencing statistics, such as probability of consecutive wet or dry days. Streamflow simulations of mean and high streamflow percentiles are underestimated when generated using rainfall that is corrected using quantile mapping methods that do not consider differences in the temporal dependence structure of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall. Future hydrological investigations of climate change should therefore adopt methods that explicitly consider the temporal dependence structures of downscaled GCM and observed rainfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change increases the complexity and uncertainty of regional natural resource management (NRM), calling into question the appropriateness of linear knowledge-transfer approaches. In this paper we reflect on knowledge practices among a partnership of researchers and NRM planners, under a federal program of NRM investment intended to ‘deliver information’ to regional NRM planners to support planning for climate change. We unpack ‘container’ and ‘conduit’ metaphors of linear, one-way communication invoked by the starting conditions, and explore whether more relational ways of communicating were achieved. A key theme emerged early in the research that NRM planners felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available and discouraged by the irrelevance of much of it to their climate change planning. Our research-practice collaboration unfolded in this context and through ongoing face-to-face and virtual engagement over a period of two years. The collaborative approach featured joint identification of priority activities, co-design of planning approaches, and the iterative co-development of an online ‘information portal’, which acted as a boundary object. We report the emergence of a ‘knowing system’, resulting from these efforts to foster relationships and co-produce boundary objects in a particular geographic context. Our findings highlight the potential benefits of investing in the capacity of researchers and NRM practitioners to engage in collaborative research partnerships premised on the emergence of knowing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decades have witnessed a rapid development of green building developments at a global scale, as a measure to deal with various challenges related to climate change especially environmental issues. Australia is no exception. It is not unusual that extra resources such as cost are required for developing green buildings compared to conventional buildings. To justify extra upfront resources required for green building developments, a variety of tools have been developed such as life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. These two tools have been used in some projects in order to evaluate the cost and benefits of green buildings from a life cycle perspective. However, the uptake of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are generally slow in the construction industry. This paper presents a critical review of green building evaluation from life cycle perspective. In particular, the use of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing in green building evaluation in Australia is reviewed. Knowledge gap is presented and future research agenda is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Integrated Urban Water Management plans” consider all water services simultaneously to determine optimal infrastructure solutions. They create many benefits, including unlocking opportunities for water reuse. This paper conducts preliminary assessment of nine IUWM plan case studies from Melbourne. It finds inconsistencies between plans in relation to environmental and liveability objectives, and option identification methods, and also that many IUWM options perform worse than conventional water supplies in regards to energy. The most consequential finding is that the plans do not include scenario planning and therefore fail to consider infrastructure performance regarding resilience to future uncertainties around population and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We modify a method to assess yield of carryover reservoir with environmental flow. • The method can be applied at large scales, under historic and future climates. • We quantify yield declines due to climate change and environmental flow provision. Protecting freshwater systems to ensure sustainability requires diagnosing threats over a broad range of scales, from local to global. There is growing acceptance that environmental flows must be protected to sustain river channels and floodplain ecosystems downstream of reservoirs. Meeting environmental water requirements has proven difficult because they reduce water yield available for human use – a particular challenge in regions already experiencing declining water availability with climate change. A further challenge is the difficulty of assessing the impact of environmental water requirements on water availability for other purposes. This paper provides a modification of the Gould-Dincer method to assess the yield of carry-over reservoirs subject to environmental water requirements. The method characterizes reservoir inflows using readily available flow characteristics (annual mean and C v). We develop and test the method using ten examples with well-understood environmental water requirements and a range of annual flow C v s. We then demonstrate this method at continental scale, to investigate the impact on yield of providing high-reliability supply including environmental water requirements, under a changing climate. According to our results, considering climate change and environmental flow provision simultaneously, the decline in water yield is projected to be about 27% and 18% respectively for Australia and US (based on hypothetical reservoirs capacity of one times mean annual inflow). Adapting environmental flow demands to future hydrological conditions results in a 2% and 3% increase in Australia and US-wide yield for human use respectively. While further testing is needed, the method provides a simple and rapid way to estimate the impact of providing environmental flow on yield, applicable at global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapidly warming planet provides a significant challenge to the design, delivery, and maintenance of habitable housing across Australia. Information on the adequacy of current measures for cooling Indigenous houses in regional and remote communities in relation to climate change and rising energy consumption costs is lacking. Such information is needed to better protect low socio-economic status householders, people with pre-existing health conditions, and people living in climatically exposed regions. This article models the thermal performance of both existing and 'improved' (built to current national construction code standards) housing stock in relation to various occupancy density, cooling system, and ventilation practice scenarios. This modelling was undertaken for housing in Australia's tropical, arid, and hot/mild climate zones, matching the sites where most discrete Indigenous communities are located. Results show that retrofitting existing housing stock and even building new stock to meet recommended standards are not adequate measures for current or future climate changes. This paper challenges current knowledge, policy, and practices regarding Indigenous housing, demonstrating that significant reform is necessary to maintain habitable conditions and improve energy resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a meta-analysis of 689 luminescence age estimates of Australian desert sand dunes. This analysis had two aims: to examine the hypothesis that Quaternary climate changes have forced dune accumulation, and to understand longitudinal dune behaviour from the age-architecture of sand dunes for which stratigraphic information is often absent or poorly known. A novel approach to the analysis of probability density curves of dune age frequency shows that in the Mallee dunefield of southeastern Australia only the period leading up to and including the last glacial maximum (LGM) (18–34 ka) experienced marked dune growth which cannot be explained by random stochastic activity. During the LGM, most, but not all, Mallee longitudinal dunes were accumulating more rapidly than before and after. In the Strzelecki dunefield source-bordering (SBD) longitudinal dune TL ( n = 61) and OSL ( n = 40) ages are more frequent at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition but nearby non-SBD longitudinal dunes ( n = 21 ages) were only active above background levels during the LGM. However, the Strzelecki dune age data set suffers from being drawn from a small number of individual dunes (10 SBD dated using TL; 12 SBD dated by OSL; 7 non-SBD dated by OSL) with a marked bias away from surficial (young) and basal (old) depths. Even during the LGM, many dunes do not record active growth and the dunefield was most likely a mosaic of stable dune surfaces and bare mobile patches, supported by the scant pollen data from the arid zone. Hyper-aridity has not been experienced in these dunefields. These vegetated dunes exhibit conservative behaviour with limited response to the range of climate forcing experienced in the late Pleistocene. A more complete understanding of dunefield response to Quaternary climates would require an intensive and structured dating program to overcome the ‘noise’ from stochastic processes leading to small-scale activity in these dunes and the simultaneous removal of parts of the sedimentary record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle and vegetation health can only be undertaken over large areas and on a regular basis using ecological indicators derived from satellite-based sensors. Climate conditions in Mediterranean ecosystems have undergone, and are projected to undergo, significant change in the future with marked impacts on forest and shrubland vegetation. In the southwest of Australia (SWAU), endemic tree species have experienced significant declines in health and mortality since the early 1990s primarily due to these climatic changes. In this paper we examine trends in Net Primary Production (NPP) from 2000 to 2011 as an indicator of productivity and health condition of the woody vegetation across the SWAU region. To do so, we examine NPP estimates derived from satellite imagery and climate data to answer the questions: (1) what is the extent and rate of change in NPP for the SWAU region over the study period, and (2) how important is fire as a contributing factor in the observed trends? Our results suggest that, similar to the global trend in Mediterranean ecosystems, between 2000 and 2011, overall NPP declined across the study region, with the majority of declines occurring in the ecological transition zone between trees and shrubs. Twenty-six percent of the 37,042 square kilometre of woody vegetation that showed a declining NPP trend, was affected by fire. The overall rate of NPP decline for the region was estimated to be −0.38 megaton C per year since 2000, indicating a reduction in the capacity of the region to act as a carbon sink. Under climate change projections, the observed decline trends are likely to continue and our results suggest that the carbon storage potential in this region is gradually decreasing following an ecological shift from tall tree-dominated to lower shrub-dominated vegetation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development or expansion of existing land use, agricultural industries are seen a way to manage global food security in the face climate change and reduced water availability in the traditional cropping regions. This paper examines economic and policy implications of incremental and transformational changes in production location by considering the net effects of shifting rice production from a southern area to the sugar dominated Burdekin area in northern Queensland, using a dynamic regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Three rice transformational adaptation scenarios at two time points, 2030 and 2070, were considered. The results suggest a net reduction in real economic output and real income, although adopting a rice-sugarcane rotation in Burdekin could partly offset some of the negative impact. The displacement of sugar would result in a much larger net national loss and consequent net reduction in gross regional product (GRP). The study findings suggest that there is unlikely to be a rapid and spontaneous increase in rice production in the north, because of a lack of infrastructure, wariness in relation to the agronomic issues, the lower profits and the opportunity cost of turning away from sugar. Currently private investment in infrastructure can keep pace with the level of production, but a more rapid expansion would need access to government assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 369 recovered a stratigraphically complete, Santonian-aged, pelagic sedimentary sequence at Site U1513 on the Naturaliste Plateau (33°47.6084′S, 112°29.1338′E) at ~2800 m water depth. The site was located at ~60°S paleolatitude in Cretaceous times. A total of 59 samples studied from Holes 1513A and 1513B yielded 140 calcareous and nine agglutinated benthic foraminiferal taxa. Gavelinellids (Notoplanulina, Gavelinella, Anomalinoides) and Gyroidinoides spp., are the most abundant taxa overall and also dominate most samples. We also report 382 foraminiferal stable isotopic measurements and infer cooling [of ~5 °C in surface waters and 2 °C at the seafloor] based on changes in δ18O values for benthic and planktonic taxa through the Santonian at Site U1513. Inferred cooling was accompanied by changes in planktonic and benthic foraminiferal assemblages. At Site U1513, benthic foraminiferal taxonomic richness declines by 15 species (from 20– 25 to 5–10 taxa) towards the upper Santonian. Within this interval, epifaunal, oxic foraminifera diminish in absolute and relative abundance, and there is a parallel relative increase in opportunistic taxa and infaunal foraminifera. Changes in benthic foraminiferal communities indicate a shift from oligotrophic to eutrophic conditions in the bottom water despite the general cooling trend. This paper explores the causes and effects of the paleoenvironmental changes in the bottom waters. • surface and bottom waters were differently affected by the Santonian cooling. • Ecologic groups within benthic and planktonic foraminifera show different reactions to pronounced cooling. • surface dwelling planktonic foraminifera record cooling by ~5 °C. • the seafloor cooled by ~2.5 °C during the onset of the Late Cretaceous cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Wildfires are becoming more severe and frequent and their effects increasingly expose water resources to stress. • Climate, wildfire, streamflow records (1975 to 2018), topography, and landcover data from 92 catchments were combined to quantify the contribution of wildfire to streamflow variability across Australian temperate forests. • On average wildfire regimes relatively results in 8.8% increases in streamflow across Australian temperate forests. • Wildfire effects on regional streamflow varied spatially depending on hydroclimate factors, particularly precipitation. As wildfires become more frequent and severe, there are concerns regarding their impacts on water yield from forested catchments. While there are many studies in Australia about the effects of individual wildfires on streamflow at fine scales (<1 km2) in specific geographic settings, the effects of wildfire regimes on streamflow at broad spatial scales across temperate forests in Australia are not well understood. In this paper, we combined climate, wildfire, streamflow records (1975 to 2018), topographic, and landcover data from 92 catchments (74 – 4740 km2) in the Australian temperate zone to quantify the contribution of wildfire regimes over time to streamflow variability in different hydroclimatic settings (humid, dry sub-humid, and semi-arid) and geographic regions (Southeast Australia (SEA), Southwest Western Australia (SWWA), and Tasmania (TAS)). Wildfire regimes were represented by two metrics: the burnt area to drainage area (BDA) ratio for wildfire events in each year and a spatially averaged metric of Time Since Fire (TSF), which is a spatial average of time since the last wildfire in the catchment. By comparing prefire and postfire runoff ratios our study found that on average there was a short-term increase in runoff ratio (∼3% in year 1 and ∼6% in year 2 post-fire) after wildfires with BDA > 25%. No influence of fire was found in the long-term (15–20 years after the wildfire) runoff ratio. We found that wildfire regime, measured by TSF, explained ∼8.8% of the variation in annual streamflow across the Australian temperate zone, and that with decreasing TSF (i.e., increased wildfire impact), the average streamflow increased. Streamflow variation explained by wildfire regimes varied with hydroclimate. The explained variance of streamflow by wildfire regimes in semi-arid catchments (23%) and dry sub-humid catchments (13%) were higher than humid catchments (5%). Our results provide a broad-scale understanding of how wildfire regimes influence streamflow variability at broad temporal and spatial scales, and provided important context and baseline information for determining the implications of changes in climate and fire regimes for regional water availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the past behaviour and present status of Australian beach systems and their likely response to the impacts of climate change in the coming century. The 2021 IPCC AR6 report, besides highlighting rising sea level and changing storm tracks in the Australian region, places high confidence in general recession of most Australian beaches by 2100. However, Holocene barrier studies, decades of field survey data from a number of sites and satellite mapping of the entire coast indicate that 78% of Australia's beaches have been stable over the past 30–40 years. The data also indicate that while some beaches are receding, others are accreting, and the majority are stable. A sea-level tipping point is yet to be reached and these beaches are unlikely to begin recession in the timeframe or on the scale predicted by AR6 during the 21st millennium. The field data also documents considerable variation between beaches, even adjoining beaches, highlighting the need to undertake studies and predictions at a local level. The issue with the AR6 predictions is the simplistic modelling applied on a global scale, which while seemingly attractive, cannot deliver the level of detail required at the local level. In addition, shifting pressure belts and wave climates, may have at least the same, if not a greater magnitude of impact on many beaches, as the sea level rise. In order to make accurate predictions of future beach behaviour a sediment compartment approach is advocated, based on detailed seabed topography, sediment sources and paths, and changing regional wave and tide regimes. It seems unlikely that a single sea level tipping point will trigger widespread recession around Australia, rather sea level in combination with other regional and local factors will determine when and how each beach responds to these impacts. • Modelling that predicts massive Australian beach retreat is questioned. • Most Australian beaches are presently stable. • A sea level tipping point is still decades away. • Local investigations are required to address and model future changes. • A sediment compartment approach to coastal management is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia’s agriculture industry, particularly in the north, is characterised by supply chains of long travel distances, often in excess of 2500 km and costing up to 35% of farm gate price. Such travel distances increase the vulnerability of the industry to climatic variability and extreme events. Infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, processors and storage, along with changes in policy, have the potential to substantially reduce costs and increase resilience of the agriculture industries. In this paper, we outline the model, TRAnsport Network Strategic Investment Tool (TRANSIT) which is based on ArcGIS, and utilizes the Origin to Destination Cost Matrix solver within the Network Analyst toolkit. TRANSIT estimates the transport costs for all movements between enterprises, accommodating road conditions, vehicle types, vehicle access restrictions and regulatory requirements. TRANSIT was applied to the northern Australia livestock industry, consisting of 12 million cattle across 10,000 enterprises and 89,000 unique trips between these enterprises. Its ability to estimate the transport benefits from road upgrades, new processing facilities and biosecurity changes are shown using three priority case studies identified by industry and government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance has long been identified as a crucial part of solving environmental problems. Effective governance supports and encourages adaptive capacity to maintain or improve the conditions of socio-ecological systems. As coastal zones are among the most vulnerable systems to climate change impacts (e.g. sea-level rise), the adaptive capacity of coastal communities to climate change threats will be critical. Human populations will respond both directly and indirectly to these threats and impacts; for instance by adapting resource use and practices (e.g. changing fish targets). In this paper, we apply definitions of resilience, adaptive capacity and vulnerability to the coastal zone socio-ecological system. We focus on organizations and management aspects of governance in coastal Australia. Our approach combines a literature review that highlights key organizational drivers that supports adaptive capacity with interview data from senior resource managers from organizations from across Australia to test the validity of such drivers. The key drivers related to organizational and management issues that are required to build and strengthen the adaptive capacity of Australian coastal communities are: (a) Leadership; (b) Clear responsibilities and flexible organizational framework; (c) Effective integration of knowledge and insights; (d) Learning approach to natural resource management; and (e) Human capacity and coordinated participation in decision-making. Our study showed that natural resource management organizations are clearly concerned about future changes and uncertainties and recognize the need for cooperation and good organizational drivers. However, integration of knowledge and long-term planning to deal with predicted changes in climate is largely lacking; and mismatches between management, organizational and ecosystem boundaries and processes also exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine-oriented nature-based tourism plays an important socio-economic role, and provides an incentive for conservation in many coastal regions. However, accelerating global change, and the associated socio-economic and political change may have severe consequences for marine tourism at the local level. Thus, understanding the ability of sectors within marine tourism to cope with, and adapt to, change is paramount. Private sector enterprises are key players in marine tourism and their capacity to adapt to change will vary across socio-economic and governance contexts. Thus, the resilience of these enterprises (their ability to adapt to, and continue to function under changing pressures and circumstances) is critical for the future of the marine tourism sector more broadly. This paper examines how socioeconomic and governance contexts influence the resilience of coral reef tourism enterprises in three settings: the formal and informal sector in Phuket, Thailand and enterprises on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Although there are differences between the three groups of enterprises, lifestyle factors, human capital, perceived reef condition, and government support are associated with the resilience of enterprises across all three groups. These findings suggest that policy-makers should consider enterprise lifestyle benefits, and that a nuanced understanding of marine tourism enterprises is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The threat of climate change demands that human settlements adapt to unavoidable impacts. Climate change is a complex problem that requires traditional disciplines to work together to facilitate an integrated and coordinated response to its impacts. Transdisciplinary research approaches have been recognised for being well placed to aid responses to complex problems such as climate change. This paper draws on the experience of the South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQCARI), Australia, to reflect upon the challenges involved in undertaking transdisciplinary research aimed at developing and improving a range of adaptation options for specific sectors as well as across sectors. Challenges and learning's are discussed based on the three phases of transdisciplinary research processes: problem framing and team building, co-creation of solution-oriented transferable knowledge, and (re)integration and application of created knowledge. Four key insights are then discussed to advance transdisciplinary research approaches for climate change adaptation: adoption of a dynamic learning approach such as learning-by-doing/doing-by-learning to provide sufficient flexibility and scope to navigate potential barriers and conflicts; selection of social sciences to drive integration; choice of one sector as a platform for integration; and acknowledgement of existing barriers and limitations associated with the political context in which the research takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented damage to our society and economy, globally impacting progress towards the SDGs. The integrated perspective that Agenda 2030 calls for is ever more important for understanding the vulnerability of our eco-socio-economic systems and for designing policies for enhanced resilience. Since the emergence of COVID-19, countries and international institutions have strengthened their monitoring systems to produce timely data on infections, fostering data-driven decision-making often without the support of systemic-based simulation models. Evidence from the initial phases of the pandemic indicates that countries that were able to implement effective policies before the number of cases grew large (e.g. Australia) managed to contain COVID-19 to a much greater extent than others. We argue that prior systemic knowledge of a phenomenon provides the essential information to correctly interpret data, develop a better understanding of the emerging behavioural patterns and potentially develop early qualitative awareness of how to react promptly in the early phases of destructive phenomena, eventually providing the ground for building more effective simulation models capable of better anticipating the effects of policies. This is even more important as, on its path to 2030, humanity will face other challenges of similar dynamic nature. Chief among these is Climate Change. In this paper, we show how a Systems Thinking and System Dynamics modelling approach is useful for developing a better understanding of these and other issues, and how systemic lessons learned from the COVID-19 case can help decision makers anticipate the destructive dynamics of Climate Change by improving perceptions of the potential impacts of reinforcing feedback and delays, ultimately leading to more timely interventions to achieve the SDGs and mitigate Climate Change risks. • COVID-19 and Climate Change display similar archetypal structures, relevant in describing the early phases of the phenomena. • Systemic qualitative approaches are useful for easy and early awareness of the potential evolution of destructive phenomena. • Early understanding of the archetypical structures with systemic frameworks is essential to anticipating adverse behaviours. • Lessons learned from COVID-19 should warn policy makers not to underestimate the accelerating dynamics of Climate Change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities must transform in order to address the challenge of climate change and to achieve societal ambitions such as the sustainable development goals. However, a key impediment to achieving transformation is underdeveloped understandings of how key actors and sectors within the built environment work together to achieve goals. This paper addresses these gaps by developing and visually presenting a process map to describe: the key processes involved in producing the built environment across its life stages; key sectors of the built environment, their key actors, and the activities coordinated between them. The process map was peer reviewed by an expert reference group of built environment professionals active in Australia and the UK. The motivation for developing this process map is to facilitate future research to identify and expedite opportunities for coordinated action to address significant societal challenges such as climate change action, and the sustainable development goals – which require transformative action in cities. • Cities must transform to address climate change • We develop a process map to describe the production of the built environment • Process map describes fundamental activities for producing the built environment • Process map spans built environment life stages; identifying activities and interactions of key sectors and actors • Can be applied to inform transformative action targeted at challenges such as climate change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to significant weather variabilities of rainfalls, potential water savings through rainwater tanks are expected to vary significantly. Moreover, within some large cities, significant spatial variations are reported. With the emerging impacts of climate change, existing weather and spatial variabilities of potential water savings are also likely to be changed, which are unknown to the end-users. This paper presents the impacts of climate change on current weather and spatial variabilities of potential water savings for Adelaide, a large city in Australia. Future daily rainfall data was collected from a data portal provided by the Australian government derived through a statistical downscaling modelling. Projected daily rainfall data was fed to an earlier developed daily water balance model (eTank) to calculate water savings for three future periods; 2030–2050, 2055–2075 and 2080–2100. Three weathers (dry, average and wet) in each period were considered along with two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) and two tank sizes (5 kL and 10 kL). It is found that varying outcomes without any general trend are expected depending on the projection scenario, period and weather condition. Contrary to the general perception, it is found that in several cases, the potential water savings are expected to increase compared to the current climate. Most of those expected increases in water savings are attributed to the projection scenario of RCP 4.5, in the near future and in dry years. In the far-future and with the projection scenario of RCP 8.5, most of the potential water savings are expected to decrease compared to the current climate. Regarding changes in spatial variability of water savings, it is found that the spatial variability will decrease in the near future, but will increase towards the far future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]