Thursday 8 October 2009

1-2pm, in FORESTRY LECTURE THEATRE, Forestry building 48

EXCLAIM2 - A tool for assessing climate change impacts on natural resources at a regional scale

Dr Baihua Fu

Research Fellow, iCAM, Fenner School of Environment and Society

Abstract

Climate change has been identified as a potentially important element to be considered in natural resource management in the NSW Central West Catchment. A properly-designed decision support system (DSS) can be a useful tool to help managers compile and integrate knowledge and information to identify the potential risks of climate change.

To assist the Central West Catchment Management Authority (CMA) in their NRM planning, the prototype of Macquarie EXCLAIM DSS has been developed by iCAM in 2007, which helped explore how plausible climate scenarios could impact on hydrology, water quality, and ecological health. Since then, updated information and knowledge have been developed. To incorporate these new information, the EXCLAIM prototype (EXCLAIM1) has been substantially improved, hence EXCLAIM2.

This presentation introduces the framework of EXCLAIM2, and the modelling approaches underlying the DSS. Five major components of the model are described:

• climate (Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields climate projections)
• hydrology (IQQM model)
• water quality (historical data)
• inundation (SWIMP model)
• ecological health
  • vegetation and bird habitat conditions (CCARP database)
  • fish habitat conditions (MFAT model)

Some key outcomes from the Macquarie Marshes case study are also discussed.

Bio

Dr Baihua Fu is now a Research Fellow in iCAM, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU. She completed her PhD study in December 2008 at the Fenner School. She has published five conference and two journal papers during her study, in areas such as integrated modelling, sediment budget modelling, road erosion modelling and sediment tracing. She is also currently a member of the ANU Water Initiative, Canberra R Users Group, and the coordinator of the Fenner School Seminar Series.

The Fenner School Seminar Series is held in the Forestry Lecture Theatre, Forestry Building 48, Linnaeus Way (comes off Daley Road), ANU (Acton) campus, ACT

The seminar will start at 13:00 and finish at 14:00