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Department of Agriculture

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  2. Agriculture and land
  3. Farming, food and drought
  4. Drought and rural support
  5. Future Drought Fund
  6. Drought Resilience Self-Assessment Tool

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Drought Resilience Self-Assessment Tool

A tool to inform and build resilience

The Drought Resilience Self-Assessment Tool (DR.SAT) is a free tool that enables farmers to assess their resilience against climate change including drought and other climate risks. Resilience assessments include financial, personal & social, and environmental indicators. Based on farmers’ individual assessments, the tool provides tailored options and resources to support farmers to build resilience.

The assessment is be based on farmer-supplied information, farmers have complete control over their information to maintain their privacy. The tool also contains:

  • regularly updated satellite imagery
  • remote sensed data
  • climate projections that inform resilience assessments and supports decision making on physical climate change risks.

DR.SAT is designed to supplement (rather than replace) existing tools, programs, networks, and extension support.

Explore the live tool

We’ve been talking to farmers around Australia to help design and develop DR.SAT. The live tool is now available, please explore the DR.SAT. It would be great to hear your feedback, particularly so we can continue to improve the tool for future updates and releases

User engagement in pilot regions

8 pilot regions have been identified to focus on engagement with farmers before scaling to other regions. These DR.SAT pilot regions are also consistent with Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA).

The first 4 pilot regions announced in March 2021 are the focus of the beta version of DR.SAT. They 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.

In November 2021, an additional 4 pilot areas were announced. DR.SAT will expand into these regions in future releases:

  • 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:

The map shows the 8 pilot region boundaries. Pilot regions include:  Queensland Dry Tropics, Condamine and Northern Tablelands, Victorian Mallee and south-east South Australia, Western Australian Wheatbelt, Tropical North, Central West New South Wales, Riverina and Goulburn-Murray, Gippsland and Northern Tasmania.

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
  • Initial pilot regions established.
  • User engagement commenced to support the development of prototype.
July 2021
  • Web-based prototype launched to collect feedback on DR.SAT look and feel, proposed functionality, the information resources it might contain and resilience assessment approaches.
July - November 2021
  • Prototype open for comment throughout this period.
  • Ongoing engagement with farmers in pilot regions to test and refine farmer needs, refine the design of the tool, and consult on sector and regionally specific resilience assessment approaches (including joint workshops with CSA).
  • Built the live tool, incorporated user feedback.
December 2021 Live tool launched. Farmers anywhere in Australia are able to:
  • Use the tool to view regularly updated satellite images of their farm, and remote-sensed data (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index or NDVI in the first release)
  • Complete assessments of their personal social, and financial resilience. This includes tailored exploration of pathways to build resilience – for example, connecting users to support tools and networks
  • View climate projections for their farm.
  • Environmental resilience assessments, pathways, and specific climate impacts will be available for a select number of commodities in the first release. This is because environmental resilience is considered more specific to local land conditions and management practices. First release environmental content covers:
    • Dryland cereal croppers in both the Western Australia Wheatbelt region and the Victorian Mallee & south-east South Australian region
    • Cattle graziers in the Queensland Dry Tropics region and Condamine & Northern Tablelands region
January – May 2022 Further engagement with farmers in pilot regions to support development of the platform (including joint engagement with CSA).
April 2022 Live tool updated.
  • Enhancements will include adding environmental resilience assessments, pathways, and climate impacts for both new commodities and scaling existing commodities.
    • New commodities will include sheep and & wool production as well as dairy. Cattle grazing will be scaled across Northern Australia too, allowing DR.SAT to reach more farmers.
  • Additional tool functionality will also be added.
July 2022 Live tool updated.
  • Enhancements will include pilot regions being able to complete environmental resilience assessments for more commodities, including oilseed crops, sheep and wool.
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, advisers, extension officers, natural resource managers, as well as businesses supporting agriculture, such as suppliers, financiers, insurers and other industry and community networks.

Different options will be available for participation, depending on your time, interest and availability.

You can register your interest by contacting DroughtResilience@agriculture.gov.au or through the ‘Help’ function within the tool. We’ll then be in touch with further details.

As a participant, you may be invited to attend regular workshops or participate in interviews with product developers 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
  • 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 or 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.

Yes, it is intended that the tools will be extended beyond pilot regions to reach additional commodities and farmers.

In the initial release of DR.SAT our focus is on two key commodities across the first four pilot regions, however the tool can be used by other farmers. Farmers anywhere can use DR.SAT to complete a self-assessment on their personal/social and financial resilience, review remote-sensing data about their farm and view farm-scale climate projections.

You can provide feedback within the tool or by emailing DroughtResilience@agriculture.gov.au.

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.

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 2024)
$9,994,899 1 March 2021 $130,909 $3,956,636 $6,038,263

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Last updated: 04 April 2022

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