Climate change impacts on future water allocation in Tasmania

Tasmania is fortunate to have been the focus of two major climate change studies in recent years, the Tasmanian Sustainable Yields Project (TasSY) conducted by CSIRO and the Climate Futures for Tasmania Project undertaken by Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) and partners. Both projects identified regions where future water resources are likely to be reduced. The future is likely to see increased competition for water resources in the state and the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) has strategies in place to avoid over allocation in Tasmanian catchments in the future. The outputs from the TasSY project for a future dry scenario have been incorporated into the departments' catchment models. The resulting data set has been used as the basis for determining allocation limits for the main irrigation areas within Tasmania, and has been incorporated into the Departmental web application (Water Assessment Tool) used for assessing new water allocations.

This paper provides detail on the impact of the use of projected climate change data on water resource availability and allocation.