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Climate change and Australia’s primary industries: factors hampering an effective and coordinated response

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Abstract

Australia’s primary production sector operates in one of the world’s most variable climates with future climate change posing a challenge to its ongoing sustainability. Recognising this, Australia has invested in understanding climate change risks to primary production with a substantial amount of research produced. Recently, focus on this research space has broadened, with interests from the financial sector and expanded scopes of works from government and industry. These expanded needs require sector- and country-wide assessments to assist with the implementation of climate strategies. We considered the applicability of the current research body for these needs by reviewing 188 peer-reviewed studies that considered the quantitative impacts of climate change on Australia’s primary industries. Our broad review includes cropping, livestock, horticulture, forestry and fisheries and biosecurity threats. This is the first such review for Australia, and no other similar country-wide review was found. We reviewed the studies through three lenses, industry diversity, geographic coverage and study comparability. Our results show that all three areas are lacking for sector- and country-wide assessments. Industry diversity was skewed towards cropping and biosecurity threats (64% of all studies) with wheat in particular a major focus (25% of all studies). Geographic coverage at a state level appeared to be evenly distributed across the country; however, when considered in conjunction with industry focus, gaps emerged. Study comparability was found to be very limited due to the use of different historical baseline periods and different impact models. We make several recommendations to assist with future research directions, being (1) co-development of a standard set of method guidelines for impact assessments, (2) filling industry and geographic knowledge gaps, and (3) improving transparency in study method descriptions. Uptake of these recommendations will improve study application and transparency enabling and enhancing responses to climate change in Australia’s primary industries.

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Notes

  1. Mathematical models that simulate plant and/or animal growth as a function of environmental variables (e.g. climate and soil). Management options can also be integrated (e.g. fertiliser application, stocking rate).

  2. Mathematical models which consider climate and/or broader environmental suitability based on conditions in regions where the target species inhabit.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra, Australia

    Rebecca Olive Darbyshire

  2. NSW Department of Primary Industries, 11 Farrer Pl, Queanbeyan, NSW, 2602, Australia

    Rebecca Olive Darbyshire & James Lawson

  3. Weed Research Unit, Department of Primary Industries, Orange Agricultural Institute, Orange, NSW, 2800, Australia

    Stephen B. Johnson

  4. Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2650, Australia

    Stephen B. Johnson & Muhuddin Rajin Anwar

  5. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute, Pine Gully Road, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2650, Australia

    Muhuddin Rajin Anwar, Forough Ataollahi, Michelle Miller & Bin Wang

  6. NSW Department of Primary Industries, 152 Fifield Rd, Condobolin, NSW, 2877, Australia

    David Burch

  7. NSW Fisheries, Department of Primary Industries, National Marine Science Centre, 2 Bay Drive, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia

    Curtis Champion & Melinda A. Coleman

  8. Southern Cross University, National Marine Science Centre, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia

    Curtis Champion

  9. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Trangie Agricultural Research Centre, Trangie, NSW, 2823, Australia

    Sarah E. McDonald

  10. NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2198 Irrigation Way East, Yanco, NSW, 2703, Australia

    Jianhua Mo

  11. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Orange Agricultural Institute, Orange, NSW, 2800, Australia

    Mary Timms & Joanna Pardoe

  12. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Australian Cotton Research Institute, Narrabri, NSW, 2390, Australia

    Daowei Sun

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  1. Rebecca Olive Darbyshire
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  14. Bin Wang
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  15. Joanna Pardoe
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Correspondence to Rebecca Olive Darbyshire.

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Darbyshire, R.O., Johnson, S.B., Anwar, M.R. et al. Climate change and Australia’s primary industries: factors hampering an effective and coordinated response. Int J Biometeorol 66, 1045–1056 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02265-7

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