Learning from the past – Using palaeoclimate data to better understand and manage drought in South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia

Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies

Tessa R. Vance¹  Ramona Dalla Pozza²  Jason L. Roberts³  Anthony S. Kiem⁴  John Vitkovsky⁵  Carly R. Tozer⁶  Kate Smolders⁷  Mark A.J. Curran⁸ 

[1] Corresponding author.;Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston TAS 7050, Australia;CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia;Centre for Water, Climate and Land (CWCL), Faculty of Science, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia;Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia;Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (Previously Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC)), University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7004, Australia;Queensland Hydrology, Department of Environment and Science, Dutton Park, Queensland 4102 Australia;Seqwater, Ipswich, Queensland 4305, Australia;

关键词: Palaeoclimate;    Drought;    Hydroclimatic risk;    Climate variability;    Climate change;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Study region: South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. Study focus: Decision makers in the water sector need to deal with uncertainty about the impacts of climate variability and change. Identifying solutions for hydroclimatic risk adaptation strategies that are both optimal and robust in the presence of this uncertainty presents a difficult challenge. The instrumental hydroclimatic record in Australia is short (∼60−120 years depending on location and variable), and fails to encompass enough climate variability to allow the calculation of robust statistics around the baseline risk of extreme events (i.e. multi-year droughts, decadal periods with clustering of major flood events). This paper (i) demonstrates how palaeoclimate data can be used to better understand what is possible with respect to drought frequency and duration in South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia and (ii) investigates some implications from palaeoclimate data for drought planning, drought management and water security decision making. New hydrological insights for the region: The instrumental period is not representative of the full range of past climate variability. Droughts worse than those in the instrumental record are not only possible, but likely, and the probability of conditions drier than the worst on instrumental record is not zero. This means that current drought risk estimates are at best misleading and probably convey a false sense of security that is not justified given the insights now available from palaeoclimate data.

【 授权许可】

Unknown