Research communication for immediate impact: climate adaptation in Australia

Abstract Research into climate change adaptation is challenged by funding organisations to demonstrate immediate research impact through near term reference in sector- specific communication and policy documents. Critically, research funded to inform decision makers and current policy about adapting to climate change must engage with end users and implement communication initiatives that lead to research adoption. Moreover, researchers need to better understand the components that contribute to effective engagement and communication to plan successful strategies to engage with the range of vulnerable sectors affected by climate change. Given the importance of research application, Primary Investigators for National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) funded projects had to consider end user engagement and communication. This paper identifies some common factors in three NCCARF cases which successfully demonstrated swift access to climate adaptation research in three sectors; human health, emergency management, and settlements and infrastructure. Early and ongoing engagement between researchers and the intended knowledge users shaped both the research focus and output formats. Stakeholders involved in coordinated and sustained communication programs disseminated and promoted the research through multiple channels. These agents of dissemination included; funders (NCCARF, universities and industry bodies); information users (government agencies and professional bodies), and both mass media and social media

From risk to return: investing in climate change adaptation

[Extract] Executive Summary. Too often, climate change is thought about as a challenge for future generations. But as records continue to be broken, it is increasingly clear that the effects of climate change are being felt today. There is no doubt that the Paris Agreement was a major milestone in establishing the framework for tackling climate change, by setting the global goal of limiting global warming to less than 2°C and moving to a net zero emissions economy by the second half of the century. But we should not lose sight of the fact that 2°C warming still involves substantial change for our infrastructure, our economy and our communities. For investors, this means that the physical risk dimensions of climate change must be part of the risk assessment process, and that increasing investment into adaptation to ameliorate the effects of climate must accelerate. Given that climate change has been such a dominant topic in public debate for a number of years now, it is perhaps surprising that relatively little work has focused on the practical aspects of adaptation, particularly on how to finance it. Where this work has taken place, it is predominantly focused on public finance, while the hard yards of increasing private sector investment into adaptation is only now beginning. This report looks explicitly at how to increase investment into adaptation. Developed through a multi-stakeholder climate adaptation finance consultation process, it aims to identify real world investment barriers and recommend potential solutions, with the goal of enabling the finance sector to access adaptation investment opportunities. It also sets out a pathway ahead with specific recommendations that IGCC will be taking forward. Comments of participants in this process are included throughout the report. Throughout this guide, we have sought to identify practical examples of investment models currently being applied or with the potential to be adopted to meet the challenges to adaptation investment identified through this consultation process. By looking at what works today, we are better able to identify solutions for scaling up investment

A database of marine phytoplankton abundance, biomass and species composition in Australian waters

There have been many individual phytoplankton datasets collected across Australia since the mid 1900s, but most are unavailable to the research community. We have searched archives, contacted researchers, and scanned the primary and grey literature to collate 3,621,847 records of marine phytoplankton species from Australian waters from 1844 to the present. Many of these are small datasets collected for local questions, but combined they provide over 170 years of data on phytoplankton communities in Australian waters. Units and taxonomy have been standardised, obviously erroneous data removed, and all metadata included. We have lodged this dataset with the Australian Ocean Data Network (http://portal.aodn.org.au/) allowing public access. The Australian Phytoplankton Database will be invaluable for global change studies, as it allows analysis of ecological indicators of climate change and eutrophication (e.g., changes in distribution; diatom:dinoflagellate ratios). In addition, the standardised conversion of abundance records to biomass provides modellers with quantifiable data to initialise and validate ecosystem models of lower marine trophic levels

Integration modelling and decision support: A case study of the Coastal Lake Assessment and Management (CLAM) Tool

Decision Support Tools (DSTs) are designed to assist in making more informed management decisions, through prediction of the outcomes from various future scenarios and as an education resource. The many coastal lakes in New South Wales, Australia are areas where DSTs are able to assist in making management and planning decisions. A variety of economic, ecological and social demands on the lakes and their catchment's finite resources are increasing conflict over their use and sustainable management. The issues are intricately linked, so that understanding trade-offs and making management decisions about coastal lakes and their catchments requires knowledge of the processes and interactions between all key components of the system. This is a complex problem requiring the integration of, often minimal, information, from various disciplines. This paper describes an approach for developing a DST to provide information about the potential impacts of management decisions on key components of a coastal lake system. Integration of the catchment components was completed using a Bayesian Decision Network (BDN). This paper uses a case study of a DST for Merimbula Lake on the east coast of Australia to illustrate the strengths of the BDN approach, and to show how the design of the DST helps to address some of the limitations inherent in the integrative method

An investigation of coastal climate change risk assessment practice in Australia

Local government organisations in coastal Australia have historically commissioned studies aimed at understanding risks in their locality to future sea level rise as a starting point for developing adaptation strategies to climate change. Therefore, the success of the overall adaptation activities of local government are strongly influenced by the way those initial risk studies are scoped and conducted, and how the outputs of those studies underpin subsequent adaptation planning activities within the organization. Mainstreaming of adaptation planning activities within local government is critical in terms of getting stakeholder support and required resources for its implementation. This paper analyses a sample of these coastal risk assessment studies across seven states and territories in Australia, with an aim to critically investigate the current state of practice among coastal local governments. First, we develop a typology of studies that have been undertaken by or for practitioners to understand coastal climate change risks, and discuss the applicability of the studies within the policy making context of local government. Second, we identify a set of sample studies from the 'grey literature' through a systematic process and investigate to what extent they adhere to best practice risk management guidelines and principles, such as IS031000. Third, we interview stakeholders from top performing studies to identify how/if the risk studies helped their organization in progressing their adaptation planning. We find that there is a significant inconsistency among terminologies in the coastal climate change risk assessment unpublished literature as studies use "risk", vulnerability" and "hazard" concepts interchangeably despite their separate objectives and aims. Most studies perform poorly in evaluating risk against broader organizational criteria. Subsequently, it is difficult to integrate the findings of such studies into a broader organizational risk register, limiting opportunities for identified coastal climate change risks to be integrated into councils' long-term strategic decision making. Conversely, the follow up interviews of studies that performed well in scoping and consultation in our assessment demonstrate that these aspects were beneficial to stakeholders in terms of informing adaptation planning. Importantly, the findings presented in this paper confirm the need for a consistent risk assessment approach for local councils in the coastal zone to underpin successful adaptation planning. This is a critical issue, not only for Australia, but for local government organisations globally given that sea level rise is a projected threat for all populated coastal regions worldwide

The ecology of scyphozoan jellyfish in Lake Illawarra

The scypbozoan jellyfish of Lake Illawarra are well known to most people who use Lake Illawarra for research, commercial fishing or recreation. Here we review the biology and ecology of the two most well-studied species, Catostylus mosaieus and Phyllorhiza punetata, and present preliminary results of studies that investigated their role in the trophic and nutrient dynamics of coastal lagoons. Specifically we show that C. mosaicus is a voracious\ud predator of zooplankton and that the presence of medusae may promote production of phytoplankton either via\ud excretion of inorganic nutrients or because grazing by C. mosaicus on zooplankton, in turn, reduces grazing by zooplankton on phytoplankton. Comparisons of rates of excretion by C. mosaicus and P. punctata show that\ud C. mosaicus excretes substantial amounts of NH3 which, during times of their peak biomass, may account for\ud 8% of the NH3 required by phytoplankton. In contrast P. punctata exhibits no net excretion of NH3, probably because its excretory products are predominantly translocated to symbiotic zooxanthellae within its tissues. Hence these species have contrasting roles in nutrient regeneration. Current gaps in our knowledge of the ecology of these\ud species are identified