The NCCARF consortium has developed a suite of historical case studies to examine present-day management of climate variability and the lessons that can be learnt for adaptation to future climate. These projects examine case studies of seven historical extreme events:

• • Cyclone Tracy, which struck Darwin on Christmas Day 1974;
• • Drought in small inland agricultural communities: Donald, a dryland agricultural community in central Victoria, and Mildura, an agricultural community dependent on irrigation water from the Murray;
• • Drought in mining communities: Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie;
• • Heatwaves, taking the case of the late January early February 2009 heatwave in Melbourne and Adelaide;
• • Queensland floods in 2008, looking at Charleville in southern central Queensland, which was flooded from Bradley’s Gully in January, and Mackay, which experienced a flash flood in February;
• • Storm tides, looking at the period from the 1950s to the mid 1970s when there was a series of severe storm tides along the coast of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales;
• • An East Coast Low: the Pasha Bulker storm that struck Newcastle in June 2007.

Decision makers at all levels, from the community to the Federal Government, can relate their experience to historical events, and the successes and failures achieved. In this way, historical case studies provide a tool for planning adaptation measures for future climates.

Visit publication page for full synthesis report

This photo “boatlight” is copyright © 2007 Debbi Long and made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license