The challenge
Building community resilience
Exacerbated by climate change, recent Australian droughts have had many adverse impacts. Significant impacts include economic losses, mental health and social wellbeing in rural farming communities, degradation of agroecological systems and biodiversity losses.
Australia’s approach to drought has continued to evolve over recent decades. Successive drought policies and intergovernmental agreements have increasingly emphasised long‑term preparedness, sustainability, resilience, and risk management.
Scientific knowledge and evidence about building resilience in communities can inform better planning. It can foster local understanding of the effects of drought, and the actions and pathways that are most relevant to the region.
This work builds on foundational work through the Resilience, Adaptation Pathways and Transformation Approach (RAPTA) project.
Our response
Applying resilience science to regional planning
Through the FDF's Regional Drought Resilience Planning (RDRP) program, consortia of stakeholders have developed Regional Drought Resilience (RDR) plans across 69 regions. RDR plans are locally led and owned, empowering regions to identify and determine their own priorities, needs and opportunities to prepare for, manage through, and recover from drought.
Key stakeholders include local government, regional and community organisations, First Nations people, farming groups, farmers and community members. Development of these RDR plans is supported by the Australian and state and territory governments.
As part of the RDRP program, we have applied resilience, adaption and transformation science, knowledge and expertise to independently review each plan.
We have reviewed the components of each plan through the lens of resilience science principles and practices and have provided feedback to each region, including suggestions on how the plan could be improved now and into the future.
The results
Preparing communities for the future
We developed a guide that's informed by current resilience thinking, principles and leading practices to use as a basis for the reviews, and to help build the knowledge of those planning 'on the ground' in the regions.
We've reviewed, and provided feedback on, all 69 RDR plans developed under the first phase of the program. We have also produced synthesis reports to promote learning within government and improve capacity and support for future regional drought planning.
RDR plans now cover the vast majority of agricultural regions nationwide. The extensive collective effort invested in developing these plans deserves recognition and celebration, particularly the local authors of the RDR plans, for establishing the vision for their region and developing plans to increase drought resilience. Developing these RDR plans, and the independent reviews, has significantly advanced science-policy-practice partners' understanding of the challenges of drought resilience planning across Australia.