CANBERRA, ACT, Feb. 25 -- Murray-Darling Basin Authority issued the following news release:
Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, experiences highly variable weather and climate. Managing water under these conditions is complex. We use sophisticated computer models to help understand how water management decisions could affect rivers in the future.
There are many types of models that can be applied. We use hydrological models which capture both the natural behaviour of rivers and human decisions about water use.
No model is perfect, however these models are a vital tool to explore options. Their information is brought together with other information - such as on-ground lived experience - to help make water management decisions.
Rivers are always changing. Natural processes such as drought, floods, erosion and environmental response to flow are not consistent. Also, humans are making decisions about how to improve river operations or which crops to plant. In addition, climate change will introduce a major non-stationarity. Non-stationarities (or continual alteration) means the future drivers of change will be different to those experienced in the past, requiring more sophisticated predictive approaches. We can no longer assume that past behaviour of the system is a good predictor of future behaviour.
A new study has focused on 133 catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin. The researchers used high-quality data to test the models when non-stationarity was included. It found that runoff projections are sensitive to non-stationarity. This sensitivity varies by location and model. The largest changes appear in the northern Murray-Darling Basin and western Victoria. The south-east models showed less impact.
Accurate models are crucial for predicting future water availability and managing resources. This research highlights the importance of addressing non-stationarity in future models. We are building upon this research by considering all the indirect impacts of climate change on water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin. A synthesis report will be published in the coming months that characterises how the indirect impacts of climate change will influence water supply, demands and management considerations.
This research was supported through funding from the Australian Government Murray-Darling Water and Environment Research Program (MD-WERP).
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
