Climate risk assessment in the MDB – a review

ABSTRACT

Climate change introduces greater complexity to water resources planning, requiring techniques suited to increased future uncertainties. In Australia’s Murray Darling Basin, governments formally recognised climate risk in 2002 and legislated science-based climate risk assessment in 2007. Since then, research has helped clarify the significance of climate change impacts on catchments, riverine ecosystems and water resources. This paper offers a review of climate risk assessments undertaken over the past two decades and outlines research needs and policy options while noting there are no simple solutions given the systemic nature of climate risks. Water resource planning and climate risk assessment need to handle non-stationarity and post-natural Anthropocene conditions. These methods should integrate biophysical and socio-economic modelling, increase stakeholder participation in developing and testing policy options and codify standards and procedures for transparency.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate risk
• systemic risk assessment
• Murray Darling Basin
• climate science
• river basin planning
• climate adaptation policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Alexandra

Jason Alexandra works at the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University researching water governance and climate adaptation.