Improving Early Warning of Drought in Australia

Abstract

This invited review outlines a selection of recent technical and communication advances, in certain areas of climate and weather science that could improve the capability and utility of drought early warning systems in Australia. First, a selection of current operational outputs and their significance for drought early warning is reviewed, then a selection of advancements in the Research and Development (R&D) pipeline are considered, which have potential to help enable better decision-making by stakeholders subject to drought risk. The next generation of drought early warning systems should have a focus on index- and impact-based prediction models that go beyond basic weather and climate parameters, at seasonal through to multi-year timescales. Convergence and integration of emerging research, science and technology is called for across the fields of climate, agronomy, environment, economics and social science, to improve early warning information. The enablement of more predictively based drought policy, should facilitate more proactive responses by stakeholders throughout the agricultural value chain, and should make stakeholders more drought resilient.