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Surfacing the secrets of groundwater

Groundwater levels are declining rapidly in many regions around the world. Our researchers visited the town of Elliston, South Australia, to better understand how groundwater recharges, and support better management for our water resources.

Sharing knowledge of drought resilience on Country

Country is full of stories, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have carried these cultural narratives for millennia. Now, we’re bringing perspectives from the Yuwaalaraay People to drought resilience research.

Sarah Rich: uncovering the hidden half of plants

Sarah Rich used to work as a lighting electrician for theatre, and now she’s shining a light on how plants thrive.

Starting from seed: nurturing a water savvy idea

Jay Elliott, an agricultural consultant, shares how innovation support and guidance helped nurture her idea for better water conservation in farming.

Crop insurance: can it make farming more sustainable?

Farmers can manage a wider range of risks to their crops through new types of insurance products that use agricultural systems science.

How quickly does groundwater recharge? The answer is found deep underground

Groundwater sustains life, from farming to wild animals. But we don’t fully know how quickly it recharges.

Opportunity

A stronger regional Australia

Regional Australia faces perennial weather extremes, such as droughts, floods, heatwaves and frosts. The frequency and severity of these events are predicted to increase, straining the ability of Australia’s regional communities and industries to thrive.

Low rainfall years have been shown to significantly reduce agricultural profitability and productivity. Many regional and rural communities also become at risk of running out of town water, known as “Day Zero”.

By building drought resilience, we are contributing towards a stronger regional Australia, equipped to successfully live and operate in our dynamic and changing world.

Our impact

Building drought resilience

Implementing drought resilience will ensure regional Australia can endure deeper, longer droughts, and recover from them sooner.

This will help Australia's agricultural industries maintain national farm income, increase food security, and protect the regional jobs that rely on agriculture during the toughest years.

Importantly, it will also increase the resilience of rural and regional communities and improve environmental outcomes.

Our focus

What we will achieve

We are operating at three inter-connected levels: on-farm, regionally and at the policy level.

We are working to deliver:

  1. On farm innovation: assisting farmers with improved decisions based on climate data for their location, new farming systems to improve water use efficiency, and options to minimise risk.
  2. Regional resilience and development: looking at ways to improve water security. This includes creating a climate-resilient regional water supply, community transition planning to diversify economies, and protecting natural capital resources. 
  3. Policy enablers and outreach: developing information and systems that underpin policy response and recognising international solutions to shared problems.

Improving Australia's drought resilience

My Climate View

My Climate View is a digital information product that provides commodity and location-specific climate predictions for Australian farmers for the next 50 years.

Water banking

Water banking can help to increase water security in some of Australia’s most drought-affected regions.

​Indigenous perspectives on drought

Indigenous cultural knowledge and environmental insight built over many generations are increasingly being recognised as key to managing Australia’s environment and ongoing stewardship of the Country.

Our drought work

Australia needs an integrated national approach to drought resilience. We're working with government, industry, communities and the research sector to address this challenge.

Plan and collaboration

Building it together

Drought is a society-wide problem, that requires significant stakeholder input and support to achieve impact. 

We are linking collaborators with researchers across CSIRO to develop cohesive, cross-industry solutions that are ready for community and industry adoption.

Collaborators include the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Bureau of Meteorology and others. 

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Building on our impact

Drought

Our research is building on existing work to improve the drought resilience of our regional industries, communities and environment.

Discover more about our drought research

Drought resilience

Reducing the impacts of Australian droughts. 

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The Drought Resilience Mission has a goal to reduce the worst impacts of droughts in Australia.

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Droughts are predicted to become more frequent and severe, requiring new solutions.

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Our mission is to reduce the impacts caused by droughts in three key areas.

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Firstly, we’ll strengthen our agricultural industries to reduce variability in farm incomes.

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Secondly, we’ll develop new ways to improve the resilience of our regional communities.

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Thirdly, we’ll improve environmental outcomes, such as reducing soil loss from erosion.

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We’re collaborating with industry, government and research organisations to overcome drought.

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Together the Drought Resilience Mission will build a stronger regional Australia against times of drought.

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