Project Overview and Outcomes

Project Summary

‘Embedding Climate Adaptation in Agriculture in North East Victoria’ (ECAiA) aims to increase the capacity of agriculture systems, related communities and support local government to adapt to significant changes in regional climatic conditions. The first part of this four year project has developed spatial tools to help guide discussions about climate adaptation pathways.

The final report for this first part of the project describes the findings and products developed in this first component which includes spatial tools to help guide discussions about climate adaptation pathways for agricultural industry sectors and local government.

The project used a participatory approach to understand the aspects of climate data that users (land managers and local government) were most interested in to help develop useable and practical web-based spatial tool(s) within the given budget and time-frames.. The climate data includes the latest climate information available from CSIRO with projections provided for 2030 and 2050 compared with a baseline climate period (1986-2005) where actual data was used.

The Spatial Tools comprise nine components: 1) Climate explorer; 2) Water balance explorer; 3) Cropping explorer; 4) Horticulture explorer; 5) Viticulture explorer; 6) Dairy explorer; 7) Beef/sheep grazing explorer; 8) Forestry explorer; 9) Local Government explorer. The Spatial Tools are housed on the North East CMA website and data has been made available to each participating local government. The tool and data presented was tested by a small group of people, from a range of sectors and who had participated in key elements of the project, prior to deployment.

The Spatial Tools provide a very powerful data set for people living in North East Victoria and elsewhere to explore the predicted future effects of climate change across a diversity of landscapes and farming sectors. A significant body of data and information is integrated in a user-friendly format. Whilst there are differences in particular locations and the trend is not uniform across the whole region, some general climate change trends are predicted. This includes that conditions will be hotter in 2030 and 2050 than historically and some areas may also have higher rainfall, at least in 2030.

Results have some important implications for people and communities, livestock, agricultural production and the environment. Overall there appears to be some potential for increased plant production, especially for summer active pasture species that are heat and drought tolerant, but minimum temperature results may mean that in some areas plant varieties may not receive their minimum chill requirements. Increased heat stress in summer is also likely to affect people, livestock, plants and ecosystems.
ECAiA is funded by the Australian Government through the National Landcare Program.

Project Reports

The Final Project report (in pdf format) can be accessed using the button below.

Final Project Report

Technical Reports (in pdf format) have been prepared for each of the agricultural industries represented in the Spatial Tool and can be accessed using the buttons provided below.