Natural hazards in Australia: droughts

Droughts are a recurrent and natural part of the Australian hydroclimate, with evidence of drought dating back thousands of years. However, our ability to monitor, attribute, forecast and manage drought is exposed as insufficient whenever a drought occurs. This paper summarises what is known about drought hazard, as opposed to the impacts of drought, in Australia and finds that, unlike other hydroclimatic hazards, we currently have very limited ability to tell when a drought will begin or end. Understanding, defining, monitoring, forecasting and managing drought is also complex due to the variety of temporal and spatial scales at which drought occurs and the diverse direct and indirect causes and consequences of drought. We argue that to improve understanding and management of drought, three key research challenges should be targeted: (1) defining and monitoring drought characteristics (i.e. frequency, start, duration, magnitude, and spatial extent) to remove confusion between drought causes, impacts and risks and better distinguish between drought, aridity, and water scarcity due to over-extractions; (2) documenting historical (instrumental and pre-instrumental) variation in drought to better understand baseline drought characteristics, enable more rigorous identification and attribution of drought events or trends, inform/evaluate hydrological and climate modelling activities and give insights into possible future drought scenarios; (3) improving the prediction and projection of drought characteristics with seasonal to multidecadal lead times and including more realistic modelling of the multiple factors that cause (or contribute to) drought so that the impacts of natural variability and anthropogenic climate change are accounted for and the reliability of long-term drought projections increases.

[1]  D. Benson,et al.  Particle tracking and the diffusion‐reaction equation , 2013 .

[2]  J. Williams.  Can we myth-proof Australia? , 2003 .

[3]  B. Timbal,et al.  The Millennium Drought in southeast Australia (2001–2009): Natural and human causes and implications for water resources, ecosystems, economy, and society , 2013 .

[4]  M. Curran,et al.  A Millennial Proxy Record of ENSO and Eastern Australian Rainfall from the Law Dome Ice Core, East Antarctica , 2013 .

[5]  P. Jones,et al.  Global warming and changes in drought , 2014 .

[6]  Ashish Sharma,et al.  A Comparison of Australian Open Water Body Evaporation Trends for Current and Future Climates Estimated from Class A Evaporation Pans and General Circulation Models , 2010 .

[7]  D. Karoly,et al.  Global warming contributes to Australia's worst drought , 2003 .

[8]  Anthony S. Kiem,et al.  Drought and water policy in Australia: Challenges for the future illustrated by the issues associated with water trading and climate change adaptation in the Murray–Darling Basin , 2013 .

[9]  D. Post,et al.  Provision of usable projections of future water availability for southeastern Australia: The South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative , 2013 .

[10]  R. Bradley.  Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary , 1999 .

[11]  W. Cai,et al.  Evidence of impacts from rising temperature on inflows to the Murray‐Darling Basin , 2008 .

[12]  A. Dai,et al.  The Magnitude and Causes of Global Drought Changes in the Twenty-First Century under a Low-Moderate Emissions Scenario , 2015 .

[13]  P. K. Snyder,et al.  Drought and Deforestation: Has Land Cover Change Influenced Recent Precipitation Extremes in the Amazon? , 2014 .

[14]  Tim R. McVicar,et al.  Assessing the ability of potential evaporation formulations to capture the dynamics in evaporative demand within a changing climate , 2010 .

[15]  Jason P. Evans,et al.  Natural hazards in Australia: floods , 2016, Climatic Change.

[16]  K. Anchukaitis,et al.  Experimental reconstruction of monsoon drought variability for Australasia using tree rings and corals , 2008 .

[17]  P. Moss,et al.  Evidence of ENSO mega‐drought triggered collapse of prehistory Aboriginal society in northwest Australia , 2012 .

[18]  Michael L. Roderick,et al.  On the attribution of changing pan evaporation , 2007 .

[19]  S. Franks,et al.  Indian Ocean sea surface temperature variability and winter rainfall: Eastern Australia , 2005 .

[20]  N. Nicholls.  The Changing Nature of Australian Droughts , 2004 .

[21]  J. Gergis,et al.  Southern Hemisphere high-resolution palaeoclimate records of the last 2000 years , 2012 .

[22]  M. Noordwijk,et al.  Flood risk reduction and flow buffering as ecosystem services: A flow persistence indicator for watershed health , 2016 .

[23]  Michael Leonard,et al.  Changes to the temporal distribution of daily precipitation , 2014 .

[24]  G. Kuczera,et al.  Parameter estimation and model identification for stochastic models of annual hydrological data: Is the observed record long enough? , 2006 .

[25]  João Paulo Ramos Teixeira,et al.  Remote sensing of drought: Progress, challenges and opportunities , 2015 .

[26]  Roger Jones,et al.  Pan‐evaporation measurements and Morton‐point potential evaporation estimates in Australia: are their trends the same? , 2009 .

[27]  Joëlle Gergis,et al.  Rainfall variations in south‐eastern Australia part 2: a comparison of documentary, early instrumental and palaeoclimate records, 1788–2008 , 2013 .

[28]  I. Masih,et al.  A review of droughts on the African continent: a geospatial and long-term perspective , 2014 .

[29]  D. Kavetski,et al.  On the recent warming in the Murray‐Darling Basin: Land surface interactions misunderstood , 2009 .

[30]  D. Verdon‐Kidd,et al.  Broadening the Spatial Applicability of Paleoclimate Information—A Case Study for the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia , 2014 .

[31]  R. Evans,et al.  THE IMPACT OF GROUNDWATER USE ON AUSTRALIA'S RIVERS Exploring the technical, management and policy challenges - summary report , 2007 .

[32]  D. Verdon‐Kidd,et al.  Nature and causes of protracted droughts in southeast Australia: Comparison between the Federation, WWII, and Big Dry droughts , 2009 .

[33]  E. Wood,et al.  Little change in global drought over the past 60 years , 2012, Nature.

[34]  G. Cockfield,et al.  Drought, Risk Management, and Policy: Decision-Making Under Uncertainty , 2013 .

[35]  R. Wilby,et al.  A systematic assessment of drought termination in the United Kingdom , 2016 .

[36]  Q. Hua,et al.  Evidence for extreme floods in arid subtropical northwest Australia during the Little Ice Age chronozone (CE 1400-1850) , 2016 .

[37]  J. Evans,et al.  Natural hazards in Australia: storms, wind and hail , 2016, Climatic Change.

[38]  D. Karoly,et al.  Identifying coherent patterns of environmental change between multiple, multivariate records: an application to four 1000-year diatom records from Victoria, Australia , 2015 .

[39]  M. England,et al.  What causes southeast Australia's worst droughts? , 2009 .

[40]  L. Tallaksen,et al.  Hydrological drought : processes and estimation methods for streamflow and groundwater , 2004 .

[41]  R. Uijlenhoet,et al.  Drought in the Anthropocene , 2016 .

[42]  David M. Hannah,et al.  Hydroclimatology of extreme river flows , 2015 .

[43]  Thorsten Wagener,et al.  Drought in a human-modified world : reframing drought definitions, understanding, and analysis approaches , 2016 .

[44]  George Kuczera,et al.  Climate‐informed stochastic hydrological modeling: Incorporating decadal‐scale variability using paleo data , 2011 .

[45]  A. V. Vecchia,et al.  Monitoring and Understanding Changes in Heat Waves, Cold Waves, Floods and Droughts in the United States: State of Knowledge , 2013 .

[46]  A. Kiem,et al.  An ice core derived 1013-year catchment-scale annual rainfall reconstruction in subtropical eastern Australia , 2015 .

[47]  D. Karoly,et al.  Understanding hydroclimate processes in the Murray-Darling Basin for natural resources management , 2012 .

[48]  P. Gell,et al.  Climate variability in south-eastern Australia over the last 1500 years inferred from the high-resolution diatom records of two crater lakes , 2014 .

[49]  D. Verdon‐Kidd,et al.  A paleoclimate rainfall reconstruction in the Murray‐Darling Basin (MDB), Australia: 1. Evaluation of different paleoclimate archives, rainfall networks, and reconstruction techniques , 2015 .

[50]  B. Cook,et al.  Reply to Comment on ‘Drought variability in the eastern Australia and New Zealand summer drought atlas (ANZDA, CE 1500–2012) modulated by the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation’ , 2015 .

[51]  Eric F. Wood,et al.  Global and Continental Drought in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Severity–Area–Duration Analysis and Temporal Variability of Large-Scale Events , 2009 .

[52]  M. Roderick,et al.  Changes in Australian pan evaporation from 1970 to 2002 , 2004 .

[53]  H.A.J. van Lanen,et al.  Global hydrological droughts in the 21st century under a changing hydrological regime , 2014 .

[54]  M. Wheeler,et al.  On the Remote Drivers of Rainfall Variability in Australia , 2009 .

[55]  D. Verdon‐Kidd,et al.  Towards understanding hydroclimatic change in Victoria, Australia – preliminary insights into the "Big Dry" , 2010 .

[56]  Jason P. Evans,et al.  Natural hazards in Australia: extreme bushfire , 2016, Climatic Change.

[57]  Regina Below,et al.  Documenting Drought-Related Disasters , 2007 .

[58]  M. Raupach,et al.  Rising temperature depletes soil moisture and exacerbates severe drought conditions across southeast Australia , 2009 .

[59]  S. N. Rahmat.  Methodology for development of drought severity-duration-frequency (SDF) Curves , 2014 .

[60]  S. Vicente‐Serrano,et al.  A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index , 2009 .

[61]  Murray C. Peel,et al.  A New Approach to Stochastically Generating Six-Monthly Rainfall Sequences Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition , 2008 .

[62]  Jack N. Fenner,et al.  Humification in northeast Australia: Dating millennial and centennial scale climate variability in the late Holocene , 2014 .

[63]  S. Franks,et al.  Long-term drought risk assessment in the Lachlan River Valley – a paleoclimate perspective , 2007 .

[64]  Links between Central West Western Australian Rainfall Variability and Large-Scale Climate Drivers , 2013 .

[65]  Anthony S. Kiem,et al.  Steps toward “useful” hydroclimatic scenarios for water resource management in the Murray‐Darling Basin , 2011 .

[66]  Atypical influence of the 2007 La Niña on rainfall and temperature in southeastern Australia , 2009 .

[67]  S. Franks,et al.  Multi‐decadal variability of drought risk, eastern Australia , 2004 .

[68]  C. W. Thornthwaite.  An approach toward a rational classification of climate. , 1948 .

[69]  Bellie Sivakumar,et al.  Droughts in a warming climate: A global assessment of Standardized precipitation index (SPI) and Reconnaissance drought index (RDI) , 2015 .

[70]  E. Cook,et al.  Preliminary December–January inflow and streamflow reconstructions from tree rings for western Tasmania, southeastern Australia , 2015 .

[71]  E. Cook,et al.  Tree Rings Show Recent High Summer-Autumn Precipitation in Northwest Australia Is Unprecedented within the Last Two Centuries , 2015, PloS one.

[72]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Elusive drought: uncertainty in observed trends and short- and long-term CMIP5 projections , 2012 .

[73]  Seth Westra,et al.  Introduction to the special issue: historical and projected climatic changes to Australian natural hazards , 2016, Climatic Change.

[74]  Tim R. McVicar,et al.  Less bluster ahead? Ecohydrological implications of global trends of terrestrial near‐surface wind speeds , 2012 .

[75]  Michael J. Hayes,et al.  Understanding the complex impacts of drought: A key to enhancing drought mitigation and preparedness , 2007 .

[76]  K. Hennessy,et al.  Characteristics of Australian droughts under enhanced greenhouse conditions: Results from 14 global climate models , 2011 .

[77]  Stewart W. Franks,et al.  Long‐term behaviour of ENSO: Interactions with the PDO over the past 400 years inferred from paleoclimate records , 2006 .

[78]  Edward R. Cook,et al.  Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought During the Last Millennium , 2010, Science.

[79]  M. Roderick,et al.  The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years. , 2002, Science.

[80]  Christian Bernhofer,et al.  Evapotranspiration amplifies European summer drought , 2013 .

[81]  E. Wood,et al.  Drought: Past Problems and Future Scenarios , 2011 .

[82]  B. Timbal,et al.  A review of recent climate variability and climate change in southeastern Australia , 2008 .

[83]  Scott St. George,et al.  The Continuum of Hydroclimate Variability in Western North America during the Last Millennium , 2013 .

[84]  A. Dai,et al.  Revisiting the parameterization of potential evaporation as a driver of long‐term water balance trends , 2008 .

[85]  P. Tregoning,et al.  Tropical cyclones and the ecohydrology of Australia's recent continental‐scale drought , 2012 .

[86]  Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano,et al.  A multi-scalar drought index sensitive to global warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index - SPEI , 2009 .

[87]  A. Phatak,et al.  Natural hazards in Australia: heatwaves , 2016, Climatic Change.

[88]  P. Lane,et al.  Responses of evapotranspiration at different topographic positions and catchment water balance following a pronounced drought in a mixed species eucalypt forest, Australia , 2012 .

[89]  F. Chiew,et al.  Episodic recharge and climate change in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia , 2012, Hydrogeology Journal.

[90]  N. Wanders,et al.  Human and climate impacts on the 21st century hydrological drought , 2015 .

[91]  G. Skrzypek,et al.  Impacts of high inter-annual variability of rainfall on a century of extreme hydrologic regime of northwest Australia , 2015 .

[92]  Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano,et al.  A New Global 0.5° Gridded Dataset (1901–2006) of a Multiscalar Drought Index: Comparison with Current Drought Index Datasets Based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index , 2010 .

[93]  D. Verdon‐Kidd,et al.  A paleoclimate rainfall reconstruction in the Murray‐Darling Basin (MDB), Australia: 2. Assessing hydroclimatic risk using paleoclimate records of wet and dry epochs , 2015 .

[94]  A. V. Loon.  Hydrological drought explained , 2015 .

[95]  A. Kiem,et al.  Interdecadal Pacific variability and eastern Australian megadroughts over the last millennium , 2015 .

[96]  H. McGowan,et al.  Long-range dust transport from eastern Australia: A proxy for Holocene aridity and ENSO-type climate variability , 2009 .

[97]  Lukas Gudmundsson,et al.  Towards pan-European drought risk maps: quantifying the link between drought indices and reported drought impacts , 2015 .

[98]  M. England,et al.  Modulation of Australian Precipitation by Meridional Gradients in East Indian Ocean Sea Surface Temperature , 2009 .

[99]  B. Chase,et al.  Holocene palaeoclimate and sea level fluctuation recorded from the coastal Barker Swamp, Rottnest Island, south-western Western Australia , 2012 .

[100]  Anthony S. Kiem,et al.  Drought and the future of rural communities: Opportunities and challenges for climate change adaptation in regional Victoria, Australia , 2013 .