A tool to inform and build resilience
The Drought Resilience Self-Assessment Tool (DR.SAT) will enable farmers to work through an assessment of their exposure to future drought and other climate risks based on economic, social, and environmental indicators. Based on their personal circumstances, the tool will suggest ways in which farmers can build their resilience and adaptive capacity.
The assessment will be based on farmer-supplied information, as well as best available data, such as the climate projections available through the Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) platform. DR.SAT is a supplement to existing tools, bringing together data from a range of sources to create new insights.
Explore the prototype
We’ve been talking to farmers around Australia on the design and development of DR.SAT. We’ve used that information to develop a prototype enabling users to explore the potential look and feel of the tool, and proposed functionality and information resources.
Please explore the DRSAT prototype and provide your feedback on the tool.
A live tool will be available towards the end of 2021.
User engagement in pilot regions
8 pilot regions have been identified to focus engagement with farmers on the development of CSA and DRSAT.
The initial 4 pilot regions announced in March 2021 include:
- Queensland Dry Tropics – including the Burdekin Dry Tropics Region. Key centres include Townsville, Charters Towers and Bowen.
- Condamine and the Northern Tablelands – including the Condamine catchment and Northern Tablelands NRM regions. Key centres include Toowoomba, Stanthorpe, Warwick, Armidale and Glen Innes.
- Victorian Mallee and south-east South Australia – including the Sunraysia and Wimmera / Mallee regions of Victoria and Riverland and Mallee regions of South Australia. Key centres include Mildura, Swan Hill, Renmark, Berri, Ouyen and Horsham.
- Western Australian Wheatbelt – including the Wheatbelt NRM region and surrounding areas. Key centres include Northam and Narrogin.
The additional 4 pilot regions announced in November 2021 include:
- Tropical North – including coastal Queensland between Townsville and Cooktown, the NT Katherine region and north-eastern WA in the Ord River region. Key centres include Cairns, Darwin, Katherine, and Kununurra.
- Central West New South Wales – including the broad-acre cropping regions. Key centres include Dubbo, Parkes, and West Wyalong.
- Riverina and Goulburn-Murray – including the irrigated area within the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Key centres include Shepparton and Griffith.
- Gippsland and Northern Tasmania – including the irrigated and non-irrigated dairy and vegetable growing regions. Key centres include Bairnsdale, Sale, Yarram, Burnie, and Launceston.
Indicative boundaries are shown on the map below:
For further information on how you can provide feedback, look in the Questions and Answers below or contact DroughtResilience@agriculture.gov.au.
Questions and Answers
|
March 2021 |
|
|
July 2021 |
|
|
July - November 2021 |
|
|
December 2021 |
Live tool launched. Farmers anywhere in Australia will be able to:
In pilot regions, farmers with dryland cereal crops and cattle graziers will also be able to complete environmental resilience assessments |
|
January – May 2022 |
Further engagement with farmers in pilot regions to support development of the platform (including joint workshops with CSA). |
|
April 2022 |
Live tool updated.
|
|
July 2022 |
Live tool updated.
|
|
July 2022 – June 2024 |
Tool further developed to include additional resilience assessment modules for more commodities and regions. |
We’re looking for people working in agriculture in each pilot region to participate in user-engagement activities up until June 2023.
This includes farmers, farm advisers and natural resource managers, as well as businesses servicing agriculture, such as agricultural suppliers and people working in business financing and banking.
Different options will be available for participation, depending on your time, interest and availability.
Once you’ve registered your interest by completing this survey, we’ll be in touch with further details.
- Take a look at the DRSAT prototype and provide your feedback.
- Otherwise, you can register your interest to participate by completing this survey.
As a participant, you may be invited to attend regular workshops or participate in interviews with product developers from November 2021 to June 2023. Depending on your time, interest and availability, you could be involved in:
- helping to develop climate information products, to assist farm businesses understand future climate and how that could impact the key commodities in their region
- providing input into the design, function and content of the new CSA digital platform
- defining information needs and designing the look and feel of the DR. SAT
Key activities are likely to include:
- online and/or face-to-face group workshops
- one-on-one interviews
- website testing, surveys and other online activities.
Recordings of the first series of online workshops held in pilot regions in October and November 2021 are available on request by emailing DroughtResilience@agriculture.gov.au.
This will depend on the type of activity you are involved in, your interests and availability.
Activities could occur online, in-person or over the phone.
Once you’ve registered your interest by completing this survey, we will be in touch to provide further details and discuss options for participation
You can still get involved, even if you live outside of a pilot region. The CSA platform includes regional scale climate projections for all of Australia. You can explore the CSA prototype and provide feedback in the tool.
You can explore the DR.SAT prototype and provide feedback or register your interest to participate by completing this survey.
Funding information
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have been selected to design and deliver the tool within a select number of pilot regions over the next 12 months. A prototype will be available for user testing by from 1 July 2021, with fully developed tool roll out in pilot regions by December 2021.
The table below details the payment information for the DR SAT program, as required under the Future Drought Fund Act 2019.
| Total amount payable (Excl GST) |
Date of first payment | Amount of first payment | Total amount paid | Total amount still to be paid (by June 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2,880,000 | 1 March 2021 | $130,909 | $1,309,090 | $1,570,910 |
Download
If you have difficulty accessing these files, please visit web accessibility.