Long-term guidance for assessing hydroclimate...
URL: https://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/SY-IHSEP-long-term-guidance-hydroclimate-risks-mdb-outcomes.pdf
Project: Murray–Darling Basin Sustainable Yields 2 (MDBSY2)
Authors: Adjunct Professor William Young, (Chair), Honorary Professor Helen Cleugh, Professor Katherine Daniell, Associate Professor Anthony Kiem, Professor Rory Nathan, Brad Neal, Professor Seth Westra; and was supported by early career scientists Dr Danlu Guo and Dr Andrew John
This report is the third and final deliverable of the Independent Hydroclimate Scientific Expert Panel (IHSEP) under Terms of Reference that were agreed with the Strategic Hydroclimate Working Group (SHWG) of the Murray–Darling Basin Officials Committee (BOC) and the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA). IHSEP was established in late 2023 to provide advice on approaches to develop hydroclimate scenarios to meet identified policy and planning needs. IHSEP was established to guide Module 1 of the second Murray–Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project (SY2) that will inform the 2026 Basin Plan Review, and to provide longer-term guidance on assessing hydroclimate risks to Basin Plan outcomes, which is the focus of this report. The guidance provided herein considers technical aspects of hydroclimate modelling and analysis, as well as institutional aspects of how the climate risk problem is currently perceived and tackled by MDBA.
Herein, “longer-term” means beyond the horizon of the current SY2 project that will deliver hydroclimate scenarios to inform the 2026 Basin Plan Review. Basin Plan “outcomes” refers to the diverse outcomes articulated in various ways and in various places in the Basin Plan (2012). “Risk” is understood to be the effect of uncertainty on these outcomes, and “risk assessment” is understood to be the “process of risk identification, risk analysis and risk evaluation” (Standards Australia, 2018).
The hydroclimate risk assessment challenge is framed by the Water Act (2007) that requires the Basin Plan to include “an identification of the risks to the condition, or continued availability, of the Basin water resources” and “the risks dealt with must include the risks to the availability of Basin water resources that arise from… the effects of climate change” (Item 3, Subsection 22(1)). Other risks that are required to be addressed (“use of water including interception activities”, and “land use change”) are also likely to be affected by climate change. The Water Act (2007) also requires that the Basin Plan include a description of “the strategies to be adopted to manage the risks identified under item 3” (Item 5, Subsection 22(1)). Section 4.02 of the Basin Plan implies that the risks that arise from the effects of climate change can be summarised as “insufficient water available for the environment; water being of a quality unsuitable for use; and poor health of water-dependent ecosystems”. The Authority’s Early Insights Paper provides a broader perspective on climate risk that acknowledges that climate change puts all of the desired outcomes of the Basin Plan at risk, through multiple causal pathways (p13-14, MDBA, 2024a).
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