Hazard Drought

Sheep beside a water hole on an Australian farm during summer. Credit Nils Versemann via iStock

We support Australia’s ability to observe the impact of drought and water availability and are committed to optimising and sustaining its use.

Image of dry Australian landscape. Photo by Fiona Smallwood.

Our role

We identify the location, quantity and quality of Australia’s groundwater resources to support sustainable water management and the wellbeing and prosperity of our agricultural and regional communities.

Our data enables better understanding of where water is usually present, where it is seldom observed and where inundations have occurred.

Our land cover information describes 22 classes of land cover types that offer insights into drought, water and ecosystem changes.

Our archive of over 30 years of Landsat satellite imagery is used to identify where almost 300,000 waterbodies are in the Australian landscape and tells us the wet surface area within those waterbodies.

Our products, tools and data provide a better understanding of Australia’s landscape and water vulnerabilities for all sectors to plan, prepare and reduce exposure to natural hazards, improving community safety now and into the future.

Emerging capabilities

We engage with different sectors to provide assessments and address new challenges as they emerge and are collaborating to deliver a complete understanding of our changing landscape and the nations surface and groundwater resources.

  • We are working towards a complete map of Australia’s groundwater system with estimated resource volumes.

  • Our Researchers are committed to growing our knowledge base to prepare for challenges of the future.

  • Our open-source data is accessed to develop new technology to solve Australia’s challenges of drought, water vulnerability and exposure to natural hazards, that are exacerbated with a changing landscape.

Flooded road

Case study Developing accessible flood models to reduce flood vulnerability

Developing accessible flood models to reduce flood vulnerability

Transforming detailed flood impact models into scalable models for broader use in the community