Posters

Climate and coastal development impacts on marine turtles in eastern Australia- a systems modelling analysis. 

Marine turtles have evolved over millions of years, persisting through periods of major climate change. However, populations of the seven extant species of marine turtle, six of which occur in Australian waters, are declining due to human-induced factors such as anthropogenic climate change and coastal development. Sea level rise, sea surface temperature increase, and severe weather events are key aspects of climate change impacting marine turtles. Coastal development, including urban and agricultural land use and infrastructure, such as buildings, roads, and seawalls, impact turtle nesting and near-coastal feeding habitats. There is currently little research into the cumulative impacts of climate change and coastal development. 

My PhD research will investigate and model key factors impacting marine turtle populations, with particular focus on the role of climate change and coastal development. We will conduct a systematic quantitative literature review of relevant literature on marine turtle ecology and species responses to climate variability, climate change and coastal development. Based on this, we will develop a conceptual systems model to capture the relationships between climate variables, coastal development, and the population ecology of marine turtle species. Lastly, we will develop a quantitative predictive model that will enable investigation of how a range of plausible future climatic and coastal-development scenarios may impact marine turtles, specifically on the Fraser Coast of Queensland. The results of the research will support stakeholders in making informed, evidence-based decisions regarding climate risk adaptation and conservation strategies for marine turtle species. 

Our research will provide a novel integrated assessment of major factors currently impacting marine turtle populations, globally. The working model developed will be able to be customised for other species and locations to enable prediction of conservation outcomes and support the adaptive conservation and development policies and decision-making required to better respond to changing environmental conditions.

Bridget Finlayson, Kathryn Reardon-Smith, Jarrod Kath & Scott Power 
Centre for Applied Climate Science (CACS) and School of Agriculture and Environmental Science, University Southern Queensland 

Can we creatively foster climate resilient communities from the home garden?

Typically, a community shares geographic boundaries and fate. This connectivity provides opportunities for people to work together to use adaptive or transformative responses against external social, ecological, and economic stresses such as those experienced with climate change. Using household urban agriculture as a mechanism and investigative lens, this research considers community resilience with its notions of building collective resilience, to mobilise community members to survive and thrive in amongst change and uncertainty. A survey of the Greater Adelaide (metropolitan) community was undertaken November-December 2022 featuring insights from >500 people across 18 Local Government Areas. The anonymous online survey asked questions about home gardening practices, perceptions of connections, barriers, and impacts held/anticipated with regards to growing food at home, community resilience, and climate change. Survey results show that whilst there has been a slight decrease in food growing compared to the past, more than 4 in 5 respondents currently grow food at home. Further, more than two-thirds of all respondents feel this practice connects them with others, and over half of non-connected respondents desire connection. Overall, 75% or greater (strongly) agreed growing food at home builds resilient communities and that urban agriculture increases the capacity of communities to build resilience to climate change. Time, space, knowledge and costs were all identified as both limitations and change factors to growing food at home. The results suggest that this community recognises a correlation between growing food at home and reducing community vulnerability and sustainability to climate change, particularly through connectedness. The range of suggested local, communal, and institutional supports to help communities overcome urban agriculture barriers reflect both the highly multidimensional nature of urban agriculture and its accessibility. Community corroboration of the survey data via qualitative methods (e.g. focus groups) is required to ensure representativeness of Greater Adelaide’s population and depth of data.

Author: Hannah Thwaites, PhD candidate,

Affiliations: Soil Ecology Research Group, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine / School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide (hannah.thwaites@adelaide.edu.au)

Supervisors:
Professor Tim Cavagnaro, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide

Professor Melissa Nursey-Bray, School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide

The vulnerability of New South Wales  Horticulture sector to climate change – Identifying sector-wide adaptation priorities.   
 

Horticulture is a highly diverse sector in Australia, comprising over 40 industries operating in widely differing climatic zones. The gross value of production in 2021-22 was $2,397 million. Some of New South Wales's most important horticulture industries are tree crops like macadamias, citrus, almonds and walnuts with long lifespans. Any potential future climate variability will greatly impact decisions regarding future planting and the viability of the crops over the next few decades.   

Modelling climate change impacts on horticulture crops are limited in Australia. What is published is difficult to compare due to differences in the method used, future time points, and baseline periods. This makes it difficult to provide comprehensive strategic advice to industries to better prepare for climate change. A targeted and uniform approach to identifying vulnerabilities across multiple horticulture industries is needed to help build industry preparedness and identify adaptation priorities. 

The Vulnerability Assessment Project developed a standardised method to determine the vulnerability of horticulture industries by developing a series of Multi-Criteria Analysis models for cherry, winegrapes, almond, walnuts, macadamia, citrus and blueberries to explore the impacts of climate change on specific crops and identify the adaptation priorities. Published literature and expert opinion were used to inform the development of these models. The process identified the key climatic variables (e.g. temperature, rain) for each phenophase in the growth cycle. The model focuses on the extent to which the climate conditions satisfy growth requirements. 

The preparedness and the ability of these industries to adapt to a changing climate will depend on each industry’s vulnerabilities, which are determined by the exposure and sensitivity of the horticulture crop to climate. Future work will use outputs from this modelling to identify research, management and adaptation priorities that can be addressed strategically by industry and government to enhance climate preparedness in NSW.  

Funding:
This work has been completed as part of the NSW Primary Industries Climate Change Research Strategy funded by the NSW Climate Change Fund. 

Jane M. Kelley, Bethany Ellis, James Lawson and Joanna Pardoe
Vulnerability Assessment, Climate Change Branch, Department of Primary Industries, New South Wales, Australia 

Using expert elicitation to model climate change impacts on NSW primary industries.  
 

Australia’s primary production sector operates in one of the world’s most variable climates, with future climate change challenging its ongoing sustainability. A review of climate change risks to cropping, livestock, horticulture, forestry, fisheries, and biosecurity threats in Australia, identified that research was skewed towards cropping and biosecurity threats and specific commodities and biosecurity threats within those sectors. 

The Vulnerability Assessment Project wanted to explore the impacts of climate change across all primary industry sectors in NSW. Still, the lack of coverage across the other commodities and biosecurity threats meant that the knowledge gaps were barriers to modelling climate change impacts. It was impossible for the project to fill the gaps across all primary industry sectors in Australia, so a model development approach was developed that used experts to provide judgement and insights based on experience where the science was not yet published. 

The approach used available literature to draft the model, and crucially, any knowledge gaps in the empirical evidence were overcome by using expert opinion. Two to six experts (a focus group) were convened for each of the 42 models developed. The role of the focus group was to critique the model based on their accumulated knowledge and then review the model outputs and endorse that they aligned with historical observations. We found that approximately 30% of each model was completed with expert elicitation and that critical knowledge gaps remain even in industries that have been intensively researched.  

The expert elicitation process identified where there was a lack of empirical evidence, which was then captured in a gap analysis for each model that has since been used to determine the strategic research priorities for each commodity or biosecurity risk. The gap analysis further enabled the quantification of the valued expertise in the model development process.  

Funding:
This work has been completed as part of the NSW Primary Industries Climate Change Research Strategy funded by the NSW Climate Change Fund. 
 

Jane M. Kelley, Bethany Ellis, James Lawson and Joanna Pardoe 
Vulnerability Assessment, Climate Change Branch, Department of Primary Industries, New South Wales, Australia 

Australian coastal ocean hazard modelling to better understand ocean extremes at climate scales 

Coastal ocean extremes, resulting from combinations of storm surge, waves, tides and regional sea level, cause billions of dollars of damage globally and this will be exacerbated by climate change in many regions. In Australia, where over 80% of the population are concentrated along the coastal margin, populations, industries and valuable coastal environments are increasingly likely to experience hazards such as coastal inundation and erosion over coming decades driven by sea-level rise and changes in weather patterns which causes hazardous waves, storm surges and combined rainfall runoff. 

The Australian Climate Service (ACS) (2022-2025) aims to build and enhance Australia’s climate and natural hazard intelligence capability. A key component of the Coastal and Flooding Hazards work package (WP3) is CSIRO’s development of a national high-resolution coastal hazard modelling system which simulates waves, storm surge, tides and other forms of sea-level variability and dynamics for the entire Australian coastline. The system is being used to perform 40-year hindcasts and future time-slice projections of climate change and sea level rise (SLR) scenarios. It is underpinned by a high-resolution two-way coupled hydrodynamic-wave model (SCHISM-WWM3), operating on an unstructured mesh, that utilises new forcing datasets being delivered jointly by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and the CSIRO via ACS. These include a new global wave hindcast, new high-resolution regional atmospheric reanalyses/hindcasts/CMIP6 future climate projections, and latest developments in SLR projections and CMIP6 wave projections.  

As well as the deterministic hindcast/time-slice national modelling, we will apply innovative synthetic tropical cyclone approaches for generating cyclone forcing applied to regional “tiles”. This work aims to provide greater understanding of future changes in waves, storm surge, SLR and associated coastal impacts at the national scale and provide stakeholder-relevant information to better understand and adapt to coastal hazards under current and future climate. 

Vanessa Hernaman, Kathleen McInnes, Ron Hoeke, Julian O’Grady, Claire Trenham, Xuebin Zhang, Alberto Muecci 
CSIRO Environment 

Natural Capital on the balance sheet: a case study in valuing natural capital.

We present a proof of concept for incorporating Natural Capital assets into financial reporting as a means to improve the recognition of the services provided by the environment to improve social wellbeing. This case study focuses on a water utility as a realistic public asset manager with responsibilities for environmental protection and custodianship, including riparian land management.  

Through stakeholder engagement, we identified stormwater filtration and carbon storage as two focal ecosystem services. We demonstrate the measurement and reporting of the extent and condition, as well as monetary valuation and financial recognition, of Natural Capital income and assets. We found that current accounting standards allow recognition of environmental income and assets where ecosystem services were associated with cost savings.  

Our research details how a water utility could disclose changes in the natural capital assets it manages through voluntary disclosures, financial statement notes, or inclusion as balance sheet items. The implications of this research extend to reporting entities accountable for natural capital, as it offers a means to strengthen and report financial returns on natural capital investments. Moreover, recognizing the benefits derived from natural assets can foster public debate. This study contributes to the field by applying financial accounting principles and processes to a real-world public asset management scenario, involving collaboration between the asset manager, academic researchers, and a sub-national government natural resource management agency. Importantly, it demonstrates that natural assets can be better valued and integrated into financial statements, proposing an innovative approach to measuring and reporting on natural capital.  

Meeting the Climate Intelligence needs of Australian business.  
 

For Australia to be better prepared for climate change, Australian businesses need to understand the risks posed to them by climate change and develop their own response plans.  

The climate intelligence required to do this must enable information on climate hazards to be translated to  information on physical climate risks that businesses and their supply chains are exposed to. Further, these physical risks must be considered in the context transitional risks as the economy decarbonises.  

To be valuable to businesses, climate intelligence must be relevant, timely, sufficiently consumable, and represent robust, transparent and up-to-date science. Feedback across the Australian private sector is that currently available offerings are unable to meet these requirements. CSIRO’s Climate Innovation Hub has been established as a facilitating hub, to enable maturation of climate intelligence service provision for Australian and regional businesses.  

The Hub partners with others to access a broad range of expertise required to build climate intelligence solutions that suit the requirements of businesses. It works with consumers of climate intelligence to jointly design and develop solutions that help them understand how climate change will impact their organisations and industries. It accesses climate science and sectoral expertise from across CSIRO and the broader scientific community. It works hand in hand with Australian companies supplying climate intelligence to jointly fast-track climate intelligence offerings.  

Here we present an overview of the Climate Innovation Hub, including its scope and future plans.

Mark Hemer and Ian Macadam. 
CSIRO Environment 

The Australian Biochar Industry aims to remove 15% of annual GHG emissions. 
 

Biochar can provide Australia with crucial economic, social and environmental and carbon removal opportunities - if scaled up successfully.   

Every year in Australia more than 50 million tonnes of commercially accessible, sustainable biomass residues are being burnt, land-filled, or otherwise wasted (Crawford et al 2015).  The Australia and New Zealand Biochar Industry Group (ANZBIG) recognises these biomass residues as a resource.  ANZBIG is the peak industry body for biochar has supported technology development to convert this waste to biochar.   Biochar production technology can also generate renewable energy, wood vinegar, syngas/biogas, renewable diesel and various gas products potentially including carbon negative bio-hydrogen.  Hence, there are many revenue opportunities when biochar is produced in addition to carbon credits.   

Biochar in itself is also special because of its many chemical properties, high surface area and ability to absorb moisture and enhance nutrient absorption. It has multiple benefits for Agriculture and carbon drawdown contributing greatly to the Australian Government pathway of 100 billion dollars in farmgate output by 2030. 

ANZBIG has developed a roadmap to scale up the industry which requires a a concerted effort from industry, research, government and capital investment.  

Biochar production is one of the carbon dioxide (CO²) removal means, also known as negative-emissions technologies (NETs) and is an effective method of climate change mitigation recognised by the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Implementing the ANZBIG Biochar Roadmap successfully by 2030 could: 

• reduce Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions by 10-15% 
• provide 10,000-20,000 permanent jobs - especially in regional and rural areas; 
• improve soil health and agricultural productivity; and 
• restore degraded lands to their true capacity. 

Biochar production can provide huge solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation and is the circular economy. This presentation will cover the value proposition for biochar and opportunities to support the roadmap roll out and industry scale up. 

Melissa Rebbeck (Board Director) and Don Coyne (CEO)  
Australia and New Zealand Biochar Industry Group

The transport and climate nexus in the Pacific

Why does transport matter for climate in the Pacific?
Transport systems are central to decarbonisation, resilience, and adaptation in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), with transport contributing over half of domestic emissions and fuel use in PICTs. Transport connectivity is critical to community resilience and disaster response and recovery, and the sector will require focus from climate investment. At the same time, critical transport infrastructure and systems are at risk of damage and disruption from natural disasters, which will be exacerbated by climate change.

Why we need to think differently about the climate and transport nexus for the Pacific
Transport systems will take time to shift as most transport projects are discrete, standalone projects. Based on current needs – transport related projects are often maintenance or rehabilitation projects focused on returning assets to existing use. This will often consider climate resilience, but rarely future use and transition. Because transport infrastructure is long-lived nature there is ‘lock in’ created now for systems that will need to be responsive to climate impacts, and support climate change action (including mitigation) in the future. Consequently, planning must start now to evolve these systems over time.

Approaching the opportunity for adaptation

• There is a requirement to balance drivers for investment in transport infrastructure and systems with consideration across:
• Impact – accelerating carbon mitigation, enhancing resilience, improving institutions and leveraging previous or adjacent investment.
• Effort – resourcing, skills and capacity from the investor, as well as the capacity and alignment of objectives with government agencies.
• Gap – how are others investing in this space and is there a gap in provision?
• Influence – influencing systemic change, leveraging investment or building relationships

Nicole Baker, Ed Rowe

Seasonal Calendars- Are the seasons changing? 

Several first nation community groups have agreed to share their understanding of the progression of seasons in their area with the Bureau of Meteorology.

We have looked at the physical climate indicators in the same framework to produce wheels based on the Indigenous Weather Knowledge calendar design. We worked with the Kiwirrkurra people to explore how the physical climate indicators align with Indigenous weather knowledge.  

In some regions a specific climate indicator (heat, wind, or rain) is important in defining the start/finish of each season, and we have considered all these variables. 

We also explore if some seasons are changing in length and whether the seasonal boundaries are shifting from year to year and if there are any trends.  

The goal (through collaborative research) is to help communities adjust seasonal practices if there is evidence of strong seasonal climate shifts and impacts. 

Peter Reeve, Pandora Hope, Justin Peter, Kiwirrkurra Elders: Payu West, Nolia Ward, Mantua James, Kim West, Loretta Gibson/Nungarrayi 

A Standardized Benchmarking Framework to Assess Downscaled Precipitation Simulations 

The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the exacerbation of rainfall-related disasters and the vulnerabilities of regional water resource infrastructure and security in a changing climate. Regional and national governments and decision-makers are increasingly requesting downscaled climate model data to underpin climate risk assessments and inform climate adaptation strategies. However, within the scientific community there is ongoing debate surrounding the added value that downscaled Regional Climate Models (RCMs) provide when compared to Global Climate Models (GCMs). Rainfall is frequently evaluated in these added value studies, but presently, there is no standardized framework or metrics identified to evaluate RCM precipitation output. Because of this, it can be difficult to make a one-to-one comparison or properly assess what useful information RCMs provide. We introduce first steps towards establishing a high-level, standardized benchmarking framework that can be used to assess model skill in simulating various characteristics of rainfall. Benchmarking differs from typical model evaluation in that it requires that performance expectations are set a priori. This framework allows decision-makers to distill the most useful climate information available by identifying models that are fit-for-purpose. While this framework can be applied to RCM simulations at any spatial domain, we demonstrate its effectiveness over Australia using high-resolution simulations from the CORDEX-Australasia ensemble. We provide recommendations for selecting metrics and pragmatic benchmarking thresholds depending on the application of the framework, including a top tier to establish a minimum benchmarking standard for ongoing climate model assessment. We present multiple applications of the framework using feedback received from stakeholders in agriculture, humanitarian aid, and water resource management. 

Rachael N. Isphording,a,b Lisa V. Alexander,a,b Margot Bador,c Donna Green,a,b Jason P. Evans,a,b Scott Walesd 
a Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 
b ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 
c CECI Université de Toulouse, CERFACS/CNRS, Toulouse, France 
d Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 

Investigating the influence of climate change on crop-pest interactions: Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni) and its hosts

Climate change can potentially alter the distribution of native and invasive pest species, thereby threatening food security and market access globally. It is challenging to predict where these changes will occur, how they will influence current pest management and effective monitoring programs and their resulting impacts on agricultural commodities. The horticultural industry’s preparedness and ability to adapt to a changing climate depends not only on the direct impacts of climate upon commodities but, more importantly, upon the combined effects on pest-commodities interactions in space and time.  

Queensland fruit flies (Q-fly) significantly burden horticultural production across NSW and much of Australia, with damages exceeding $300 M annually. Like all species, Q-fly has tolerances to or requirements for specific environmental conditions to survive. These tolerances define their ecological niche, determining the geographical regions and times of the year that allow the flies to proliferate and attack crops. As climate changes, suitable conditions for fruit fly outbreaks will likely shift both spatially and temporally, affecting their impact on horticultural production and the management practices required for their control. Modelling the patterns and processes of future changes in fruit fly habitat suitability and climatic tolerances is therefore a key component in predicting their impact. However, to truly assess the impacts of climate change on crop-pest interactions, modelling has also been undertaken for several key Q-fly host crops. The integration of the horticulture crop and pest models allows for a greater understanding of the influence of climate change on crop-pest interaction. Our modelling results provide useful insights into the potential exposure of NSW horticultural industries to Q-fly as a result of climate change. 

Funding: This work has been completed as part of the NSW Primary Industries Climate Change Research Strategy funded by the NSW Climate Change Fund. 


Bethany Ellis, Polychronis Rempoulakis, Fiona Lidbetter, Jane Kelley, James Lawson and Joanna Pardoe 
Department of Primary Industries, New South Wales, Australia