Climate Services Provided by SARDI
Melissa Truscott and Jim Egan, South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), GPO Box 397, Adelaide, 5001 (truscott.melissa@saugov.sa.gov.au; Phone: 08 8303 9639; Fax: 08 8303 9378).
Summary
SARDI has developed practical climatological information resources, services and tools to assist land managers to understand and manage the effects of climate variability on their farming enterprises.
Tools and services SARDI provides or supports include Climate Risk Management Workshops for delivery across southern Australia and Climate Risk Management Decision Support trials incorporating the Climate Risk and Yield Information Service.
Land managers in southern Australia have a need so great for practical decision support tools for understanding and managing the climate that some have developed their own tools. Analysis of profits driven by rainfall variability alone in low rainfall cropping districts has shown farmers to make losses on average 3 years in 10 and 80% of their profit from 3 years in 10. However, with declining wheat prices and a run of poor seasons, some low rainfall farmers say the last 10 years have averaged a loss every second year.
It is in the poor seasons in low rainfall cropping environments that farmers make the most changes to their planned cropping program. Farmers say if they had more accurate forecasts they could cut back their crop area and change crop types and varieties in these seasons to avoid making a loss.
Since rainfall forecasts can’t be accurate all the time for individual locations, it is necessary to develop and utilise practical management tools that help farmers to understand and manage climate risks on their individual properties. To provide these tools and services, SARDI has utilised and endorsed information and decision aids from its collaborators including Agriculture WA, the Kondinin Group and the Bureau of Meteorology. Such tools and services that SARDI currently provides or supports include Climate Risk Management training workshops for delivery across southern Australia and Climate Risk Management Decision Support trials incorporating the Climate Risk and Yield Information Service.
The Climate Risk Management Training Kit was designed to provide a greater understanding of the climate risk management tools and services in southern Australia, and how they can be utilised to better manage climate risk. It endorses and promotes climate risk management research and outcomes across southern Australia.
The Kit is used to provide Climate Risk Management workshops to agronomists, researchers and educators. Those who attend this one-day interactive course become accredited to run their own specialised climate risk management workshops for farmers and use the information to provide climate risk management advice to clients. They receive the Climate Risk Management Kit with the following materials to enable them to provide training for landholders to manage the climate and make short and long term management plans for climate risks:
This covers the topics of the southern Australian climate, risk management, weather systems and maps, seasonal climate and forecasting systems, climate risk events, accessing climate information and support and decision support tools, and models for climate risk management.
Module 1 - Understanding risk
Module 2 - Understanding climate and weather in southern Australia
Module 3 - Using decision support tools to manage climate risk
Module 4 - Developing management plans for climate risk.
On-going support and information updates are also provided.
Over the past 5 years, decision support trials have been run in low rainfall cropping districts including Upper Eyre Peninsula, Upper North and Murray Mallee in SA, and the Eastern Wheatbelt in WA (in conjunction with Agriculture WA and Kondinin Group). Two models of information delivery have been tested in these trials.
Each week, farmers faxed in their daily rainfall readings for the previous week. These recordings were entered into two decision support programs developed in WA and modified for use in SA. Individualised outputs were then faxed back to farmers on a weekly basis, before and during the growing season. The outputs included:
Participating farmers were surveyed after each trial to determine how they used the information and how it could be improved. These results are discussed below.
This information delivery system can be used with any relevant decision support tools and information that focuses on the needs of farmers across a range of environments.
In 1999, this system of climate information delivery was operated as a commercial Climate Risk and Yield Information Service (CRYIS) by the Kondinin Group, with SARDI and Agriculture WA as collaborators.
District rainfall and yield information, incorporating short-term and seasonal climate forecasts, was faxed or emailed to 42 low rainfall cropping farmers in SA during the 2000 growing season. This information was updated every two to three weeks or whenever a significant event (e.g. high rainfalls) occurred.
The information supplied included:
Fig. 1. Effect of April-May rainfall on yield probabilities in the Black Rock district, Upper North of SA (based on STIN predicted yields for 1878-1998).
Fig. 2. Effect of April-May SOI phase on yield probabilities in the Black Rock district, Upper North of SA (based on STIN predicted yields for 1878-1998).
To date, 50 research or advisory agronomists from SA and Victoria have been trained in workshops utilising the Climate Risk Management Kit. These agronomists are now using this information to train farmers in their local districts.
Many farmers experienced both information delivery models in the decision support trials. When asked their preferred method of information delivery in the future, 20% favoured the higher cost farm-specific fax-back (model 1), while 34% preferred the less specific district level information (model 2), at lower cost and time input. Forty six percent had no preference for either method of future information delivery.
Most trial participants either changed their cropping management or were influenced by the information provided via either model. Changes were primarily to crop area, crop types and varieties, but fertiliser rates and sowing dates were also adjusted.
Farmers’ rankings of information that would best help their management decisions in future, from most to least important, were: accurate 3 month forecasts; accurate 10 day forecasts; spring rainfall forecasts; advance warnings of bad seasons; accurate yield probabilities; nitrogen decision support; stored soil water information including considerations of moisture depth, soil type and treatment; historical comparisons; and predictions of frosts, hot north winds and spring temperatures.
SARDI is currently working with Agriculture WA to gain and improve some of this information from decision support tools. These include: STIN for yield probabilities on an individual property basis; RAINCAL for stored soil water information; SPLAT for nitrogen decision support; and Flowercalc for frost risk information.
There is potential for delivery of climate risk management information to landholders at a number of levels and via a range of methods, including:
It will be important to also provide technical support for these services, including advice on the interpretation and application of the information to farm management decisions.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the support and collaboration of Agriculture WA, the Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit (APSRU) in Queensland, the Kondinin Group and the Bureau of Meteorology. Funding for this work is provided by the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
References
Stephens, D.J. (1995). Crop yield forecasting over large areas in Australia. PhD Thesis, Murdoch University, Perth, WA.
Truscott, M.A. and Egan, J.P. (2000). Climate Risk Management Resource Manual. South Australian Research and Development Institute. (44 pp).
Truscott, M.A., Erkelenz, P., Stanley, M. and Egan, J.P. (2000). Climate Risk Management Kit. (Training module for agribusiness and farmers). South Australian Research and Development Institute.