History of drought management in Australia

History of drought management in Australia

In Australia, as in other parts of the world, drought is a common climatic phenomenon causing significant social, economic, and environmental impact [37,91,107]. However, perhaps uniquely, drought in Australia has also driven significant adaptation. Australia’s agricultural production systems operate under a high level of uncertainty in terms of climate variability [82] and are renowned as some of the most resource efficient, globally [25,65]. Australia has developed high-level research expertise in understanding climate systems and, to some extent, the drivers of drought [66,123]. It is also one of the few countries to have legislated a national drought policy aimed at managing drought risk [16,123].

This chapter provides an overview of Australia’s drought history, the ways in which drought risk and associated water scarcity have been managed over time, and the impact of drought on Australian landscapes, production systems, and communities. It looks at responses to drought from prehistorical evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ land use systems developed over thousands of years, through the challenges faced by European settlers in modifying conventional farming systems and adapting to the extremes of climate variability over the last 230 years, to current-day drought risk management and regional, state, and national governance around mitigating the impact of drought events and managing water scarcity. It starts by considering the role that research has taken in enhancing the understanding of the geophysical systems that influence climate variability, including drought, in Australia and concludes by considering the challenges Australia will face under future climates.

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