Bureau of
Rural Sciences
SCIENCE FOR DECISION MAKERS
James Walcott
D E P A R T MSE C
NT
HN
E R IM
E SA K
AN
FORESTRY
I EONFCAEG R FI COURL T U
DREEC, IFSI ISO
EDR S
Agroclimatic Characterization and Zoning Methods
for Operational Applications:
Tools that make climate simple for agricultural decision makers
John Sims
(operations)
Greg Laughlin
(climate)
James Walcott
(agriculture)
Tim Brinkley
(methods)
Presented to WMO Workshop on Climate Analysis and Mapping for Agriculture. Bologna, 14-17 June 2005.
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
SCIENCE
FOR
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SCIENCE
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DECISION
MAKERS
Distribution of grain cropping in Australia
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
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Outline
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Operational uses
Rainfall reliability wizard: grain adaptation
Integrated toolset: productivity
Growest: pasture forecasts
National Monitoring system: drought policy
Conclusions/Future extensions
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Operational Uses
• Agricultural adaptation
– Crop, livestock decisions
• Climate risks
– Fire risk, storm warning, frost warning
• Agricultural risks
– Pest & disease outbreaks, weed incursions, plague locust
• Policy delivery
– Natural resource management, conservation, rural policy,
drought relief, quarantine
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Rainfall Reliability Wizard
Bureau of Meteorology
rainfall grids:
100+ yrs
25 km sq
Analysis:
means
percentiles
between seasons
within seasons
event analysis
Display and access:
www.brs.gov.au/rainfall
Laughlin et al (2003) Environmental Modelling and Software 18: 49-57
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Probability of 50% seasonal mean
www.brs.gov.au/rainfall
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Reliability of achieving 25 mm/month for June – September
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Distribution of available water capacity in
soil profile across grain cropping zone
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Integrated Toolset
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ANU Splin (Hutchinson 1990)
Interpolations using thin-plate splines
Independent factors such as altitude
Commercial in confidence
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Livestock density in 2001
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
Integrated Toolset: relating primary productivity to
livestock density
Livestock density
Low Medium High
Index of
primary
productivity
Low
Medium
High
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
GrowEst: simple estimates of plant growth
RI - Radiation index
Major climate drivers
in plant growth
1
TI - Temperature index
0.6
0.4
Radiation
0.2
Temperature
THERMAL RESPONSE
Microtherm
Mesotherm
C3 megatherm
C4 Megatherm
1.0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0.8
Total solar radiation
Thermal Index
0
0.6
0.4
0.2
Moisture
Soil moisture extraction
1.0
0.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Mean daily temperature (0C)
0.8
Ea/ET
Light index
0.8
0.6
0.4
Clay loam
Sandy Loam
Clay
0.2
Growth Index
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
(Current rain + storage)/Max water storage
GI = LI x TI x MI
MI - Moisture index
•Fitzpatrick and Nix (1970) – GrowEst
•Nix (1981)
•Hutchinson, Nix and McMahon (1992)
•Brinkley et al (2005)
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SCIENCE
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The National Monitoring System
Analyses
Mapping
Regional Reports
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Conclusions
Also consider flexible, pragmatic systems that:
• Analyse data rapidly
• Provide simple outputs
• Respond to wide range of requests
• Use our skills to provide advice on output
Future
• Weather Wizard (frost, growing degree days, vernalisation)
• Climate change/adaptation
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS
“… not … the simplicity this side of complexity,
but … the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
SCIENCE
FOR
DECISION
MAKERS