Improving the management of Australia’s water resources through the delivery of value-added water information products.
Transforming Australia’s water resources information
Water scarcity is a major challenge facing Australia. The need to accurately monitor, assess and forecast the availability, condition and use of water resources is now more vital than ever.
The Water Information Research and Development Alliance (the Alliance) brings together CSIRO’s research and development expertise in water and information sciences and the Bureau of Meteorology’s operational role in hydrological analysis and prediction to transform the way Australia manages its water resources.
A water information alliance
Water resources information is currently collected and held by hundreds of organisations across Australia, making it difficult to monitor the status and use of Australia's water resources and to accurately forecast water availability.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s role has expanded to include transforming Australia’s water resources information by improving its accessibility, integration and use. These improvements will be achieved through substantial innovation and will yield huge benefits through more informed policy and infrastructure decisions.
CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country Flagship and the Bureau of Meteorology has established the Alliance as a strategic investment of A$50 million over five years that will yield most of the innovation required by the Bureau in support of its national water information role.
The Alliance is guided by the Science Plan which outlines the scope of research, and the Implementation Strategy which provides a pointer to tactical investment priorities, maps out at a high level how the research may unfold over the next five years, and identifies processes to facilitate the transition of research into the Bureau’s water information policies, systems, products and services.
A major R&D program
The Alliance will deliver new science and technology that will enable the Bureau to undertake real-time interactive analysis of water information and begin using advanced methods for forecasting of water availability and floods across Australia.
The Alliance brings together over 40 leading researchers from CSIRO in the fields of:
- data interoperability
- hydrologic modelling
- water accounting
- water resource assessment.
Research is currently focused on key stages of the water development process and is spread across 8 key project areas:
The Sustainable Water Information Models project is developing methods and tools for managing and ensuring interoperability between the different water information models needed to support the water community. It will provide the Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric and AWRIS projects with the information model framework required to ensure robustness and evolvability into the future.
The Water data transfer standards project is defining and developing transfer standards and procedures for supply of specified data from water information providers to the Bureau. The new data transfer standards will help organisations meet the Bureau’s data compilation and publishing requirements.
The Hydrologists workbench project will develop tools to automate common workflow processes to access and use hydrological data and models. These tools will enable the Bureau’s hydrologists to more readily perform complex tasks involved in the integration of hydrologic data and models.
The Precipitation and actual evapotranspiration products project is developing new methods and tools to produce data products to underpin hydrologic assessment and forecasting across Australia.
The One-second SRTM digital elevation model project is developing consistent elevation datasets from Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data, at a resolution of approximately 30 m across the Australian continent, that are customised for hydrological applications.
The Water resources assessment and water use accounting project is developing methods and technologies, to enable the Bureau to provide integrated surface and groundwater resource assessments, water accounts and water resource outlooks.
The Short-term water forecasting and prediction project is developing methods and tools to enhance the Bureau’s operational flood forecasting and generate continuous short-term streamflow forecasts across Australia.
The Seasonal and long-term water forecasting and prediction project is developing new methods and tools to provide reliable seasonal and long-term water forecasts of inflows to river systems across Australia.
The outcome
Through the Alliance, the Bureau will adopt CSIRO’s leading science and technology, resulting in vastly improved water data integration, water resources assessments, National Water Accounts and flood and water availability forecasts.
Read the WIRADA Annual Reports.
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