Victoria’s climate is changing.
Victorians all rely on water for drinking, recreation, irrigation and industry, as well as for a healthy environment and to support cultural values.
However, Victoria’s water resources are under pressure from increasing demand and decreasing supply.
And this is impacting our catchment storage levels and how we manage our water resources.
This is where the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative comes in.
The Initiative was a four-year scientific research program led by the Victorian Government, an innovative partnership between the Department of Environment Land, Water and Planning, the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO and The University of Melbourne.
Victoria’s water sector is a leader in the state’s response to climate change. The initiative is pivotal to understanding and applying climate science to water management for all Victorians.
Our research has found that reduced supplies are driven by factors like how our catchments are responding to drought, a decline in cool-season rainfall, and increasingly hotter and drier conditions. We also found that we are getting an increase in extreme rainfall at times in some locations.
These scientific findings have implications across the Victorian water sector, in areas such as flooding, drainage, urban runoff, water availability and infrastructure investment. They provide a foundation for state-wide water resource policy and planning.
With variable water supply and increasingly hotter and drier conditions, the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative provides the critical science to understand past changes in climate and runoff, and what we can expect into the future.
This knowledge provides the evidence base to enable the water sector to prepare and plan for the future outlook.
To find out more, visit water.vic.gov.au.
Page last updated: 22/11/23