The Department of Planning and Environment – Water is working to make models and data publicly available. These can be grouped into three high level categories:

1) Climate Data: The fundamental input for Water models is climate data in the form of daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration. This data is input to water models of varying types, purposes, and complexity. The water models transform this input data to produce a range of water related modelled data. There are three sub-categories of climate data used in our water models:

• observed data: The observed data is downloaded from the Silo database https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/silo/ which has data from 1889-present based on recorded rainfall at thousands of locations, and derived data for various evapotranspiration data sets. We use patched-point rainfall, Morton’s wet area potential evapotranspiration, and Morton’s lake evaporation from Silo

• stochastic data: The stochastic data are 10,000-year daily data sets of rainfall and potential evapotranspiration generated using observed data sets combined with palaeo-logical climate data. This work has been undertaken by researchers at University of Adelaide and University of Newcastle and used in Regional Water Strategies.

• stochastic data perturbed by results from climate models for projected greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The climate change perturbed data (1c) are 10,000-year daily data sets of rainfall and potential evapo-transpiration developed by combining the stochastic data with results reductions changes in climate based on results of the NARCliM climate models that show the greatest reductions in rainfall. Note: The Department does not own the IP of NARClim products to release any climate data (such as stochastic data perturbed) with NARClim climate projection. NARClim data is available on public domain for users to download directly such as https://climatedata-beta.environment.nsw.gov.au/

2) Water Models: (Not yet released) There are three subcategories of water models that we develop and maintain with catchment models the fundamental unit. These can be linked to form pre-development models of river systems, which are further developed by adding water infrastructure, demands, and management arrangements to form a full unregulated or regulated river system model.

3) Modelled Data: (Partially released) The dataset comprises the outcomes generated by water models, encompassing a comprehensive array of findings pertaining to various aspects of the water balance. These findings encompass, but are not restricted to, factors such as flow, diversions, water storage, and allocations, with an initial emphasis on flow.