If you needed confirmation of the crisis ahead for Australia and New Zealand’s water management, the Think Future Round Table, Working Together for our Climate Technology Future, was a great place to start the conversation.
“Spoiler alert! We have no good news. The impact of climate change is now observable” said Professor Rory Nathan.
Chaired by Mick Liubinskas, CEO and Co-founder of Climate Salad and Professor Rory Nathan, Expert Hydrologist, we navigated the disturbing facts surrounding the alarming extremes predicted for weather patterns in the years ahead. We are bracing ourselves for more and more drought, bushfires and floods and will have shorter horizons or warning time to prepare in between.
Nathan is a hydrologist with 40 years of experience in the consulting and public sectors. For the past eight years, he has divided his time between research into the impacts of climate change on floods and the environment, private consulting, and expert review and advisory roles for the federal government.
He is a co-editor of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (the national guidelines on flood estimation). Nathan is currently assisting in its revision to incorporate climate change guidance better. He has published almost 300 papers in referred journals and conference proceedings on engineering and environmental hydrology. In 2000, Nathan was recognized as the national “Civil Engineer of the Year” by Engineers Australia. As the 2018 Munro Orator, he is recognized as one of Australia’s most influential engineers eminent in water resources.”
The news about the weather
The repeated narrative of ‘unprecedented’ weather events can no longer be claimed. Typical weather as we experience it today will become abnormal. Nathan said Australia would be lucky to get an ‘average’ year of rainfall. The overall effect of changing and more erratic rainfall patterns means it will be harder to manage uncertainty. Water supply reliability will be impacted.
It is clear from Nathan’s evidence that we are in for some serious challenges ahead due to the compounding impacts of more frequent severe droughts and floods. The prediction based on the evidence is a siren call because the data says we can expect wild swings between droughts and floods, which will intensify in magnitude.
Thermodynamics impact water management in Australia
Furthermore, the thermodynamic influence of the extra water vapour in the air due to an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius is a big problem. As Nathan explained in simple thermodynamic terms, “the air gets warmer, and the atmosphere can store more water.” Essentially, there is more rainfall, and all the extra heat in the atmosphere changes the weather patterns. The standard narrative of referring to a 1.5°C increase in global temperature is not helpful. It is hard for people to associate a 1.5°C increase in temperature with the crisis. But unfortunately, as we unpacked, it is.
”In fact, storm rainfalls that pose a threat to life and property are expected to increase between 15 to 40 per cent by the end of this century. Projected increases in rainfall are heavily dependent on the rate at which we can reduce our emissions in the near term.”- said Nathan
In short, this means the more we reduce our emissions, the lesser the projected increase in rainfall.
So, why should we be concerned? Even though we have dams aplenty located throughout Australia and particularly on the coastline, those dams were designed and built at a lower capacity using out-of-date precipitation models and guidance. Predicted scenarios, extrapolated from the current data models, indicate that we will need to progressively upgrade the capacity of the dams as the world continues to warm. If we do not, the risk of failure due to overtopping by floods increases, and any such event would have catastrophic consequences on downstream communities.
Front-loading
The term, front loading, does not relate to washing machines. Front loading relates to weather fronts. It is a term used in the weather world to describe the impact of climate change on weather patterns. As horizon times shrink for severe weather warnings, the term front loading will become normalized.
We need to get much better at predicting climate conditions. Ultimately erratic weather and increased flooding events mixed with increased droughts will require a complete shift in thinking and an increased need for adaptive approaches to weather mitigation as the magnitude and risk of either becomes steeper.
It’s time to collaborate for resilience
It is clear we need to collaborate. But how? That was the purpose of our conversation. Amongst a room full of answers, all leading to the need for greater collaboration – indeed radical collaboration, the audience reflected on the seriousness of Nathan’s message. And the question was asked, ‘how do we get government to make water a national portfolio?’
It seems obvious, yet it is not so easy due to the nature of politics. With a disconnect between planning functions and fragmented and siloed departments looking after the various aspects of water management in Australia, there is no easy answer. It has long been acknowledged that we have no shortage of resources. What we need most is competent leadership. So, who is going to take the lead then? Decision-making needs to include the community who have not been informed and communicated with in a way that makes the science accessible or easy to have a commonsense debate. We are at a watershed moment now where we need to make a choice.
EITHER
”we spend more effort on engaging communities to participate in the decisions affecting them. As Nathan wisely said, ”we don’t want to be having these conversations in the aftermath or during an emergency. Then it is too late’’.
OR
“We need to get used to infrastructure failure and mentally prepare for it.”- Nathan
Resilience balance between data and narrative
Nathan believes the balance lies between data and the narrative. We must get ahead of the curve, engage the community early before a flood disaster or drought, and plan for resilience. Continuous constructive dialogue is what is required. Unfortunately, despite our most recent catastrophic floods, we are none the wiser due to class actions and threatened litigations stifling the much-needed commentary to learn lessons from such events. He emphasized, “We need to design our infrastructure to withstand the pressure without everything stopping.”
Logically, we need to prioritize investment in prevention by using technology and more reliable sensors. AI and other digital technology enable water managers to see where infrastructure like Australia’s dams need reinforcement. Using existing sensor technology, water flows can be diverted when a flood or drought is forecasted.
There are also new and innovative solutions that can be explored, such as those offered by Restore Blue with an offer to turn unusable farmland into mangrove farms.
There was a consensus that we must collaboratively disrupt the status quo of water management in Australia by our federal and state governments. We need to empower ourselves at the community level by harnessing the power of data to provide real-time information to anyone, making it publicly accessible so the community can make informed decisions. Society must demand government transparency, decision making and funding of solutions and ensure the community is informed and has a say on how taxpayers’ money is spent.
We can learn from our ancestors
It became clear to participants that new strategies are required for sustainable development and water resilience. Aside from the obvious benefits that can be derived from today’s technologies and perhaps those yet to be uncovered, we have a lot to learn from our ancestors, who could live sustainably for 60,000 years.
Many of the participants in the room also attended Oz Water which was running concurrently. One elder at Oz Water, Phil Duncan, offered his wisdom, saying’ There are the data and the tools. Then there are the people”.
The practice of yarning circles by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples was a key theme at the conference. Yarning is a way to listen and invite cross-cultural reflection on solutions to our crises. It’s time to listen to each other and work together to be better prepared for future challenges.
“For those of you who are unfamiliar, yarning is a way to share knowledge, to speak, and to listen from the heart – or, as I like to say, to listen in colour,” -Yawuru/Bunuba woman, Cara Peek
Coming together to overcome boundaries
‘’At the end of the day water doesn’t care about boundaries so why should we? We should act accordingly.”- Don Holland, GHD
Operating from silos is like paddling a canoe upstream. It doesn’t get you far, and it is a waste of time and precious energy. The only way to approach this crisis is to do so collaboratively.
We need to turn the collective canoe downstream. By listening to each other, we will naturally synchronize our precious resources and effort. This is a real paradigm shift, an exciting opportunity to do things differently. The technical solutions already exist. All we need to do is take the oars and lead ourselves.
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