Climate change

There have been changes in rainfall and climate since the current water plans commenced over a decade ago. We will review the region’s hydrology (the scientific study of how water moves, is distributed and is managed) to determine how water availability has changed since then.

We will combine hydrological modelling and climate change projections to evaluate possible future impacts for the region’s water availability and environment.

Read a summary of how we manage climate change risks.

Queensland’s water plans in a variable and changing climate report (PDF, 19MB) shows climate impacts across each of the water plan areas. For example, on pages 34, 40 and 48 there's a snapshot of observed and projected climate trends for the three existing water plan areas. These snapshots include two scenarios – high greenhouse gas emissions (RCP8.5) and lower greenhouse gas emissions (RCP4.5) – for the years 2030 and 2050. They indicate:

• average daily temperatures are projected to increase for all seasons by 0.8 to 1 degree by 2023 and up to 1.8 degrees by 2050.
• average annual rainfall is projected to decrease from 0 to -5 percent by 2050.
• average annual potential evapotranspiration (PET) is projected to increase between 9 and 16 per cent.