The national Managing Rangelands for Drought Resilience project was a collaborative cross-hub project that demonstrated and built pastoralists’ confidence in applying new digital tools and management systems in their businesses. It shared unbiased information and rangeland managers’ insights into potential technologies for their businesses through the Hubs' combined networks to reduce the risk around adopting data-driven management technology.
Project lead
Northern Hub (Northern WA and NT Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub)
Hub project partners
Southern NSW Innovation Hub, South-West WA Hub, Southern QLD and Northern NSW Hub, and Tropical North Queensland Hub
Using technology for improved drought preparedness in Western NSW
The Southern NSW Innovation Hub’s Managing Rangelands for Drought Resilience project focused on working with pastoralists from Western NSW to test and demonstrate how satellite-based mapping technology can predict groundcover changes up to six months ahead of drought.
Pastoralists Bill and Pip Ryan worked with Dr John Leys of Wind Erosion Consulting to assess how to use the freely available satellite vegetation cover data from the Geoglam Rangeland and Pasture Productivity (RaPP) mapping tool to set an on-farm trigger point to prepare in advance for drought.
In December 2023, a workshop held at Booligal in western NSW gathered insights from local pastoralists about how they use AgTech, the value of the RaPP mapping tool, and other digital tools for monitoring and managing rangelands. Southern NSW Innovation Hub and NSW Farmers hosted the workshop and partnered with Agrista and Wind Erosion Consulting to gather feedback and assess awareness and understanding of key technology tools.
Find out more about the project in 'Tapping into data and technology for drought resilience', published in the October 2023 edition of The Farmer magazine from NSW Farmers. Or download the full project case study and report.
Read the impact case study
NSW project partners
Wind Erosion Consulting, NSW Farmers and Agrista.
Project funding
This project is funded by the Future Drought Fund's Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs
