Identifying areas of high drought risk in southwest Western Australia

Amanda R. Bourne (), John Bruce, Meredith M. Guthrie, Li-Ann Koh, Kaylene Parker, Stanley Mastrantonis and Igor Veljanoski
Additional contact information
Amanda R. Bourne: Northern Agricultural Catchments Council: Natural Resource Management (NACC NRM)
John Bruce: Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Meredith M. Guthrie: Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Li-Ann Koh: Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Kaylene Parker: Great Southern Development Commission
Stanley Mastrantonis: University of Western Australia
Igor Veljanoski: Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2023, vol. 118, issue 2, No 22, 1385 pages

Abstract: Abstract Drought is a significant natural hazard in Australia, associated with financial hardship and damage to soils and vegetation. With droughts expected to become more frequent and more severe as climate change progresses, it is increasingly important to identify drought risk and assess community-level drought resilience at the appropriate spatial, temporal and administrative scale for decision-making. Here, we have used spatial multi-criteria analysis (MCA) to identify regional priority areas for the implementation of drought resilience interventions or investment in southwest Western Australia (WA). The MCA method involves the systematic integration of spatial data of different magnitudes and units through standardisation and weighting, and the visualisation of aggregated data to a single parameter output map. The study region is home to the WA grains industry, the largest agricultural contributor to the economy and one of the regions most impacted by climate change in Australia to date, experiencing consistent reduction in rainfall and recurrent drought over the last several decades. We modelled drought exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity for the region, incorporating spatially explicit climate, environmental, social and economic data, and produced a suite of priority areas maps that were sense-checked against a participatory mapping process. The maps highlight the northern and eastern Wheatbelt of WA as areas at high risk from drought and have the potential to serve as a powerful tool for local-level drought resilience decision-making. Most of the data we used are publicly available, and the vulnerability framework applied allows for wide replication within and beyond southwest WA.

Keywords: Multi-criteria analysis; Climate vulnerability assessment; Participatory mapping; Future drought fund; Regional drought resilience planning; Decision support tool (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-023-06065-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:118:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-023-06065-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-023-06065-z

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().