Catchment Yield Science

Project overview

Climate change will affect how much water is available in a catchment (the catchment yield). It will also affect the timing of water demand and the reliability of water supply.

Climate change projections used to model catchment yield in Tasmania are dated. While they are still very useful, they may not fully inform us of the future risks to water resources.

This project will identify appropriate climate change projection datasets to use in surface water modelling. Updating the modelling with contemporary scientific knowledge of climate change projections will better inform future water planning and decisions in Tasmania.

Goals of the assessment

The project will identify appropriate up-to-date climate change projection datasets for Tasmania. This will be incorporated into catchment modelling. The updated datasets will support more accurate modelling based on contemporary science.

This will be achieved through:

• identifying up-to-date climate inputs suitable for updating Tasmania’s catchment models
• documenting any changes to current modelling methodologies and the implications of those changes
• scoping stage 2 of the project, which will implement the incorporation of the new datasets into Tasmania’s catchment modelling.
• carrying out a pilot project incorporating a sample of updated datasets into Tasmania’s catchment models. The pilot will compare sustainable yield estimates to those from the current modelling.