Climate change and water
With our naturally variable rainfall and existing water resource management challenges, climate change will have a significant impact our water availablity.
Climate change projections indicate that we can expect:
- increased temperatures
- reduced rainfall across eastern and far south west Australia
- increased rainfall variability
- increased evaporation
- significantly increased frequency and severity of drought
- changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, including flooding.
These factors will combine to put increasing pressure on our water resources, which are already struggling to keep up with demand.
Water reform activities being undertaken through the National Water Initiative (NWI) will help us prepare for and deal with the impact of climate change on our water supplies. These activities include:
- increasing our knowledge and tools to help water planners and managers deal with climate change
- better understanding of ecosystem responses to flow regulation and water diversion
- building in resilience to ecological and agricultural systems
- water planning arrangements that can accommodate worst scenarios.
On 16 July 2008, the Australian Government released the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper .
The Commission's submission addressed potential water supply impacts arising from carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) incentives for land use change.
On 15 December 2008, the Government released the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Australia's Low Pollution Future White Paper .