National climate change adaptation research plan: primary industries

  The role of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility is to facilitate generation of the information needed  by policy and decision-makers in governments and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risks of climate change. Development of National Climate Change Adaptation Research Plans (NARPs) for each major sector is a key to this process. As national research plans, NARPs aim to provide critical knowledge for national policy purposes and national industry development and management, but they also provide a key sectoral research framework and prioritisation for all stakeholders.   This National Climate Change Adaptation Research Plan identifies priority research areas needed to enhance the capacity of agricultural, freshwater aquaculture and forestry industries, associated industries and organisations, rural communities, interested and concerned Australian residents and governments at all levels to make sound decisions about adaptation responses to climate change impacts. Identifying research priorities will provide an investment framework for local, state/territory and Australian governments and other research investors to deliver maximum benefit to the Australian community and provide a broad framework for longer-term research planning. Adaptation research is fundamentally about generating information, knowledge and tools concerned with determining why primary industry systems or parts of systems are vulnerable to climate change, what their adaptive capacity is, how this adaptive capacity can be increased, how an enterprise can move from adaptive capacity to adaptation actions and what adaptation technologies, options and understanding are needed implement these actions.  Addressing these components requires interdisciplinary research concerned with how management practices and production technologies can support adaptation within certain climate change limits, which changes to production systems will enable primary production to continue to adapt should climate changes be beyond these limits and the opportunities primary industry will have to transform enterprises, industry sectors or regions should significant climate change occur. This research is concerned with ensuring Australia’s primary industries will continue to be sustainable through under future climate change. This Research Plan identifies three broad categories of information necessary to enhance decision-making about adaptation in Australia. There is a need for research that advances understanding of:  1. What type of response is required by a particular enterprise, farm or region in response to projected or realised climate change impacts – that is, to what extent will incremental adjustments of current activities continue to be effective adaptation responses and at what point will changes to  production systems or transformations of primary production and regional primary industries be required;  2. How can adaptive capacity be determined and how can it be expanded; and  3. What is the key information required to support incremental, production system or transformational changes.  This Plan encourages research that engages with stakeholders and is solution-oriented, to deliver the relevant and effective outcomes for decision-makers.   Within the three broad categories, a number of information needs and research topics are identified.  As with all the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Plans, these research topics were prioritised according to: • the severity of the potential impact to be addressed,  • the immediacy of the response required,  • the degree to which research will lead to practicable interventions or responses,  • the potential for the research to produce benefits beyond informing climate adaptation strategies,  • the extent to which the research addresses more than one issue or sector, and  • the extent to which the research addresses the needs of the most vulnerable groups.  Writing team Prof Snow Barlow (Melbourne, Chair) Prof Peter Grace (QUT) Prof Roger Stone (USQ) Mark Gibbs (DAFF) Dr Mark Howden (CSIRO) Prof John Howieson (Murdoch) Dr David Ugalde (NCCARF) Dr Craig Miller (CSIRO) Ass Prof Richard Eckard (Melbourne) Dr Stuart Rowland (I&I NSW)  Mr Frank Stadler (NCCARF Secretariat