Climate data and their characterisation for hydrological and agricultural scenario modelling across the Fitzroy, Darwin and Mitchell catchments

Author:
Date of Publication:

2016-12-14

Publication Type:

Report

Pages:

159

Abstract:

Climate variables, water availability and soil data, are generally considered to be the most important environmental information for determining the agricultural suitability of particular locations. Equivalent sized catchments in south-eastern Australia have about ten times more climate stations than those of northern Australia’s Fitzroy, Darwin and Mitchell catchments. While this reduces the certainty of hydrological modelling, the density of rainfall stations in the three study areas is considered adequate for the purpose of water resource planning. A consistent set of historical climate data for the Assessment were assembled from daily gridded climate data. After consideration of paleo-climate studies, rainfall trends and future global climate model pattern scaled (GCM-PS) rainfall projections, a climate baseline from 1 September 1890 to 31 August 2015 was adopted. This follows the general principle that hydrological planning should use as long a hydroclimate sequence as possible to encapsulate the range of likely/plausible conditions and variability at different time scales. In collating and analysing the climate data for use by the Assessment’s numerical models, climate statistics and maps were prepared for the Fitzroy, Darwin and Mitchell catchments and are presented herein.

Publisher:

CSIRO

Place of Publication:

Australia

Keywords:

Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment; NAWRA

Field Of Research:

Agricultural Hydrology (Drainage, Flooding, Irrigation, Quality, etc.)

Full Text Availability:

Published Version (pdf) (7.82MB)

Published Version (pdf) (24.50MB)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25919/5b86ed38d15a6

Rights Notice:

This report has been placed on the CSIRO repository and may be made available to persons outside of CSIRO for non commercial purposes, in its entirety and without deletion of disclaimers and copyright information.

Funding Sources:

Funding Body Name	Project/Grant ID
Australia. Department of Agriculture

Identifier:

EP167294

Publication Sub Type:

Technical Report (Author)

Language:

English

Attribution Statement:

Charles, Steve; Petheram, Cuan; Berthet, Alice; Browning, Greg; Hodgson, Geoff; Wheeler, Mat; Yang, Ang; Gallant, Simon; Vaze, Jai; Wang, Bill; Marshall, Andrew; Hendon, Harry; Kuleshov, Yuri; Dowdy, Andrew; Reid, Phillip; Read, Arthur; Feikema, Paul; Hapuarachchi, Prasantha; Smith, Todd; Gregory, Paul; Shi, Li. Climate data and their characterisation for hydrological and agricultural scenario modelling across the Fitzroy, Darwin and Mitchell catchments. Australia: CSIRO; 2016. csiro:EP167294. https://doi.org/10.25919/5b86ed38d15a6