- Title
- Assessing techniques for reconstructing paleoclimate rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, in the absence of in-situ archives
- Creator
- Ho, Michelle; Kiem, Anthony S.; Verdon-Kidd, D. C.
- Relation
- 36th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium: The Art and Science of Water (HWRS2015). Proceedings of the 36th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium (Hobart, Tas. 7-10 December, 2015) p. 1553-1560
- Publisher
- Engineers Australia
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Hydroclimatic risk assessments are typically based on relatively short instrumental records ( 100 years) limiting the ability to understand and quantify the risks of experiencing persistent extreme events like droughts and pluvials. Paleoclimate records present an opportunity to extend hydroclimatic records and subsequently improve estimates of hydroclimatic risk. However, there are few in situ paleoclimate archives of rainfall or streamflow suitable for assessing hydroclimatic risk in Australia and none are available in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). A review of currently available paleoclimate records is conducted and three paleoclimate reconstruction techniques are assessed. Two different instrumental rainfall networks are examined as model inputs: (1) corresponding to rainfall at locations where rainfall-sensitive Australian paleoclimate archives currently exist and (2) corresponding to rainfall at locations identified as being optimal for explaining MDB rainfall variability. It is shown that the optimised rainfall network results in a more accurate model of MDB rainfall, which emphasizes the importance of first identifying key locations where existing or as-yet-unrealised paleoclimate records will be most useful in characterising hydroclimatic variability. This work also serves to identify the reconstruction techniques best suited to modelling MDB rainfall using the available paleoclimate records.
- Subject
- paleoclimate rainfall; hydroclimatic risk assessment; Murray-Darling Basin; water management
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1330864
- Identifier
- uon:26493
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781922107497
- Language
- eng
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