Australian Water Availability Project

The aim of the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) is to monitor the state and trend of the terrestrial water balance of the Australian continent, using model-data fusion methods to combine both measurements and modelling. The project determines the past history and present state of soil moisture and all water fluxes contributing to changes in soil moisture (rainfall, transpiration, soil evaporation, surface runoff and deep drainage), across the entire Australian continent at a spatial resolution of 5 km. Using the same basic framework, the project provides soil moistures and water fluxes over the Australian continent in three forms: (1) weekly/monthly near-real-time reporting, (2) monthly/annual historical time series from 1900, and (3) monthly climatologies (on request).

The long-term intention is to contribute to integrated monitoring and understanding of the dynamics of Australian landscape systems, especially responses to climate variability and change, and thus to assist adaptive, system-wide management through feedback via measurement and monitoring.

Funding for CSIRO AWAP science projects and the maintenance and development of CSIRO AWAP data is provided by the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative (SEACI), a three year, $7.5 million research program investigating the causes and impacts of climate change and climate variability across south eastern Australia. SEACI is a collaboration between the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, Department of Climate Change, Managing Climate Variability Program, CSIRO, and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Water Balance Maps:

Operational maps are more timely but are modelled using next-day meteorology surfaces, constructed using fewer stations, and before the completion of the BoM quality control cycle. Early operational results are occasionally refreshed using historical data.

• Operational Weekly (2007 and ongoing)
• Operational Monthly (2007 and ongoing)

Historical maps are modelled using the best quality-controlled meteorology surfaces available at the time, including the BoM AWAP daily recalibrated rainfall product, supplemented in data sparse areas by disaggregated monthly data.

• Data Re-Enabled Notice (21 July 2012): The offset error in the monthly solar radiation surface for November 2009 (explained here) has been fixed and the historical series have been reprocessed. These new data are linked to from the following two links and, for collaborators, are available by FTP.
• Historical Monthly 1900-2011 (last updated: 21 July 2012)
• Historical Annual 1900-2011 (last updated: 21 July 2012)

Additional Information:

• AWAP 26c public release announcement 20110302 (PDF, 0.6 MB)

• CSIRO AWAP Phase 3 Final Report (PDF, 3.8 MB)

• CSIRO AWAP Brochure (PDF, 874 KB)

• ReadMe file for the data including key references, contacts and citation information (Text, 28 KB) (last updated: 21 July 2012)

• Spatial Soil and Vegetation Parameters for AWAP Modelling
  • Map and information package (PDF, 3 MB)
  • Data surfaces (.flt/.hdr, zipped, 12 MB)

• ESRI projection file for use with AWAP surfaces (PRJ, 1 KB)

• Public access to the data: Currently AWAP model results (excluding BoM meteorology) are a research level product and are available for collaborative use with CSIRO AWAP team members. Where AWAP model data are to be used for significant scientific outputs (such as publications) we will wish to discuss co-authorship. Please contact Peter Briggs.

Partner Websites:

• South East Australian Climate Initiative - SEACI
• Bureau of Meteorology - AWAP
• Bureau of Rural Sciences - Rural Water

Contacts:

Contributors: