| Researcher(s) |
Kate Coffey |
|---|---|
| Year(s) | 2023 |
| Contributor | Riverine Plains |
| Trial location(s) |
Riverine Plains Office, NSW
|
The Supporting climate resilience throug weather stations project is investigating how an integrated network of 80 on-farm weather stations across central and southern NSW and northern Victoria could better support the community, emergency services and farmers in bushfire and flood management. Currently, emergency services are reliant on Bureau of Meteorology Weather Stations, which can be located up to 200km apart and do not provide local climate information when fires start. On-farm weather stations have the potential to fill information gaps where no alternative weather information is available.
As part of the project, a business case was developed to evaluate the potential economic and environmental benefits of providing more localised, accurate weather and soil moisture information to farmers and emergency services in the region though the Robust Weather Station Network. The business case compared benefits to baseline information provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed to provide an estimate of the return on investment for developing a network of weather stations and soil moisture probes.
• Privately owned, on-farm weather stations provide real-time data that informs and supports decision-making by farmers
• A connected, robust regional network of on-farm weather stations has the potential to support decision-making for a wider range of farmers and emergency services
• Having access to real-time climate and soil moisture data through on-farm weather stations can provide a range of private benefits to farmers
• On-farm weather stations can help inform crop choice at sowing, helping to prevent crop failure in high-risk crops and improve returns from grain marketing; these benefits can increase profit by between $36/ha to $655/ha, with the largest benefit occurring when crop failure in canola is prevented
• Public benefits from a weather station network include the prevention of dust storms, achieved by maintaining ground cover, which has an estimated public benefit of $300 million per year
• Further work is required to determine the return on investment for how connecting on-farm weather stations through Robust Weather Station Network will increase the sustainability and profitability of grain growers.
| Lead research organisation | N/A |
|---|---|
| Host research organisation | N/A |
| Trial funding source | Australian Government |
| Related program | N/A |
| Acknowledgments |
This article is an extract from a report prepared by Agrista Pty Ltd and is a component of the More Robust Weather Stations Network to Support Climate Resilience project, which is funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, through the Preparing Australia Program – Local Stream. |
| Other trial partners | Not specified |
| Crop type | None: No crop specified |
|---|---|
| Treatment type(s) |
|
| Trial type | Article/commentary |
| Trial design | Not applicable |
| Sow date | Not applicable |
|---|---|
| Harvest date | Not applicable |
| Plot size | Not specified |
| Plot replication | Not specified |
SILO weather estimates sourced from https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/silo/
Jeffrey, S.J., Carter, J.O., Moodie, K.B. and Beswick, A.R. (2001). Using spatial interpolation to
construct a comprehensive archive of Australian climate data , Environmental Modelling and Software, Vol
16/4, pp 309-330. DOI: 10.1016/S1364-8152(01)00008-1.
