Stuart Mark Howden

• BSc, PhD
• CEO at Australian National University

Climate is one of the key factors determining the suitability of land for agricultural production and influencing the spatial transition between grazing and cropping-dominated farming systems in Africa. We identified the climate indices that best align with the margin between the Agropastoral and Pastoral Farming Systems in the historical climate (...

Background Integration of traditional knowledge (TK) to decision making in agriculture is a continued practice of the smallholder farmers in the tropics. There is a knowledge gap in the use of TK in weather or climate prediction by farmers to minimize climate risks. Hence, a field survey was conducted using a pre‐tested questionnaire coupled with k...

The feasibility assessment (FA) presents a systematic framework to assess adaptation and mitigation options organised by system transitions. This Cross-Chapter Box assessed the feasibility of 23 adaptation options across six dimensions: economic, technological, institutional, socio-cultural, environmental-ecological, and geophysical to identify fac...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas...

Agriculture is the largest single source of global anthropogenic methane (CH 4 ) emissions, with ruminants the dominant contributor. Livestock CH 4 emissions are projected to grow another 30% by 2050 under current policies, yet few countries have set targets or are implementing policies to reduce emissions in absolute terms. The reason for this lim...

Real-world experience underscores the complexity of interactions among multiple drivers of climate change risk and of how multiple risks compound or cascade. However, a holistic framework for assessing such complex climate change risks has not yet been achieved. Clarity is needed regarding the interactions that generate risk, including the role of...

Australia is no stranger to disasters; they have shaped this continent and its peoples. But, what we know from the past cannot be used as a reliable guide for what we can expect for the future. This is because the climate is changing, and human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are accelerating this change in a way that is unprecedented in human...

Managed temperate grasslands occupy 25% of the world, which is 70% of global agricultural land. These lands are an important source of food for the global population. This review paper examines the impacts of climate change on managed temperate grasslands and grassland-based livestock and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options and their...

This is the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC Special Report on Land and Climate Change, as approved by the IPCC member countries at the Plenary in Geneva, Aug 2-7 2019.

This paper identifies critical lessons from the climate change experience to guide how communications and engagement on negative emissions can be conducted to encourage functional public and policy discourse. Negative emissions technologies present a significant opportunity for limiting climate change, and are likely to be necessary to keep warming...

Participatory research approaches are increasingly advocated as an effective means to produce usable climate adaptation science, and increase the likelihood that it will be beneficially incorporated into decision-making processes. However, while the implementation of participatory research approaches, such as those associated with knowledge co-prod...

Executive summary Malnutrition in all its forms, including obesity, undernutrition, and other dietary risks, is the leading cause of poor health globally. In the near future, the health effects of climate change will considerably compound these health challenges. Climate change can be considered a pandemic because of its sweeping effects on the he...

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is widely promoted as an approach for reorienting agricultural development under the realities of climate change. Prioritising research-for-development activities is crucial, given the need to utilise scarce resources as effectively as possible. However, no framework exists for assessing and comparing different CSA r...

The challenges of climate change adaptation in agriculture are examined through the lens of priorities for research, and the use of best management practices (BMPs) to better manage climate risks. The methods and results have two parts. Firstly, a case study from the northern grains region examines the use of BMPs for managing climate risks associa...

Climate variability is a key source of livelihood risks faced by smallholder farmers in drier environments in many developing countries. Climate information provided on seasonal time-scales can sometimes improve agricultural decision-making. However, there are many barriers to the effective dissemination, communication and use of such information o...

Climate change effects are accelerating, making the need for appropriate actions informed by sound climate knowledge ever more pressing. A strong climate science–policy relationship facilitates the effective integration of climate knowledge into local, national and global policy processes, increases society’s responsiveness to a changing climate, a...

This study documents the importance, and changes in the importance, of a suite of synoptic to large-scale drivers of minimum temperature variability across the Australian region. The drivers investigated are the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as measured by the Southern Oscillation Index, atmospheric blocking, the Southern Annular Mode, and...

The treatment of agriculture has evolved over the lifetime of the IPCC, as tracked by the assessment reports. Efforts to quantify crop yield impacts and mitigation potentials have increased significantly, as has adaptation research. However, there remains a dearth of experimental and observational studies.

Crop and water productivities of rice-based cropping systems and cropping patterns in the irrigated lowlands of Sri Lanka have not been researched to the degree warranted given their significance as critical food sources. In order to reduce this knowledge gap, we simulated the water requirement for rice, maize, and mungbean under rice-based croppin...

Despite growing rhetoric regarding the potential benefits of using knowledge brokers in relation to environmental challenges and decision-making processes, the evidence in support of such claims is mostly anecdotal. This is, in part, due to the lack of established methods to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge brokers. To address...

Despite there being considerable research and knowledge surrounding the risks of climate change on agricultural productivity, fewer studies have examined risks from a whole-of-chain perspective (i.e. from producer to consumer) and the perceptions of consumers about the climate adaptation strategies of food businesses. This paper presents the findin...

The current paradigm of global economics with exponential and continuous economic growth is unsustainable as far as Earth system ecology is concerned. To support the Earth system and boost sustainable development, a functional and operational linkage between global ecology and economics should be established – which we term 'carbonomics'. The simpl...

Diversity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are now recognized as vital to tackling wicked problems such as those presented by a changing climate (Nature editorial 2015, Ledford 2015; Dick et al., 2016). Including diverse disciplines in science projects enables a range of different views which often facilitate the creation of innovative...

As part of part of a special issue on natural hazards, this paper explores recent changes in Australian minimum temperature extremes. Using minimum temperature data from the 112 observation locations making up the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) data set, as well as the Scientific Information...

Frost damage remains a major problem for broadacre cropping, viticulture, horticulture and other agricultural industries in Australia. Annual losses from frost events in Australian broadacre agriculture are estimated at between $120 million and $700 million each year for this sector. Understanding the changing nature of frost risk, and the drivers...

There is increasing interest in transformational adaptation to climate change in agriculture, i.e. adaptation that involves large-scale, novel responses to reduce vulnerability to climate risks. Transformational adaptation is less well understood than incremental adaptation, since there are few studies of agricultural enterprises making transformat...

Livestock play a key role in the climate change debate. As with crop‐based agriculture, the sector is both a net greenhouse gas emitter and vulnerable to climate change. At the same time, it is an essential food source for millions of people worldwide, with other functions apart from food security such as savings and insurance. By comparison with c...

The impacts of climate change are felt along the whole chain of actors that produce, handle, process and market agri-food products. This project aims to help agri-food companies to systematically identify, assess, prioritise and act against risks and to seize opportunities that extreme weather and a changing climate might offer to their chains usin...

Climate change is projected to constitute a significant threat to food security if no adaptation actions are taken(1,2). Transformation of agricultural systems, for example switching crop types or moving out of agriculture, is projected to be necessary in some cases(3-5). However, little attention has been paid to the timing of these transformation...

Well-targeted scientific assessments can support a range of decision-making processes, and contribute meaningfully to a variety of climate response strategies. This paper focuses on opportunities for climate assessments to be used more effectively to enhance adaptive capacity, particularly drawing from experiences with the third US National Climate...

The resilience perspective has emerged as a plausible approach to confront the increasingly devastating impacts of disasters; and the challenges and uncertainty climate change poses through an expected rise in frequency and magnitude of hazards. Stakeholder participation is posited as pivotal for building resilience, and resilience is not passive;...

Climate change is a major threat to food security in Pacific Island countries, with declines in food production and increasing variability in food supplies already evident across the region. Such impacts have already led to observed consequences for human health, safety and economic prosperity. Enhancing the adaptive capacity of Pacific Island comm...

There is growing recognition that routine climate change framing is insufficient for addressing the challenges presented by this change, and that different framings of climate change shape stakeholders' practices and guide policy options. This research investigated how stakeholders conceptualise climate change in terms of its seriousness and relate...

With limited global resources, and in the face of environmental changes, meeting future food security challenges will first require a shift in thinking from just ‘producing food’ (and other sectoral interests) to ‘food systems.’ Solutions will need to be applied at local and regional levels, but still be interlinked through dialogue and alliances b...

Well-targeted scientific assessments can support a range of decision-making processes, and contribute meaningfully to a variety of climate response strategies. This paper focuses on opportunities for climate assessments to be used more effectively to enhance adaptive capacity, particularly drawing from experiences with the third US National Climate...

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) and canola (Brassica spp.) are significant crops worldwide. Vegetable oil extracted from the seed of these crops offers the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) through conversion into biodiesel to displace GHG associated with fossil-fuel diesel, or, by feeding the oil to cattle to reduce enteric methane emissi...

Wheat is one of the main grains produced across the globe and wheat yields are sensitive to changes in climate. Australia is a major exporter of wheat, and variations in its national production influence trade supplies and global markets. We evaluated the effect of climate change in 2030 compared to a baseline period (1980-1999) by upscaling from f...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) production in Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on the rainfall distribution pattern of the cultivating season. Estimation of the variation in yield and resource use efficiency of commonly grown rice varieties will be of immense importance when predicting yields under variable and changing climate. In this context, a modelling a...

Background and AimsWhich characteristics make future climate change information valuable for on-ground decision making for adaptation in the winegrape sector? And at what spatial and temporal scales will it be needed by Users?Methods and ResultsThis paper presents the results of a two-stage mixed methods study conducted with viticulturists, winemak...

Given the significant and irreversible impacts of climate change on communities and the environment, there is increasing focus on how to best support decision-makers to adapt to climate change. Generally, the research on this tends to focus on assessing how decision-makers navigate elements of risk and uncertainty in deciding to what extent they sh...

The wine industry in southern Australia faces potential threats from climate change. This article examines how grape growers in this region perceive and prioritize climate change adaptation as an issue for their industry. Analysis of a survey of 50 growers reveals themes contributing to stress and worry overshadow planning for climate change. Growe...

This research is novel as not only investigated how stakeholders frame, but also make sense, of resilience in the context of disaster management and climate change.•Stakeholders interviewed construct the meaning of resilience differently and even in contradictory ways, embedded in diverse storylines.•Self-reliance emerged as one of the paramount di...

Climate is one of the main determinants of agricultural productivity in Sri Lanka. Of the major climatic parameters, temperature, rainfall, and humidity are of special significance, as these cause a substantial impact on the agricultural productivity of the country. Consequently, farming systems and agronomic practices in most agricultural regions...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) production in Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on the rainfall distribution pattern of the cultivating season. Estimation of the variation in yield and resource use efficiency of commonly grown rice varieties will be of immense importance when predicting yields under variable and changing climate. In this context, a modelling a...

5: (based on the Nature Climate Change paper 'Scaling up transformative impact' theme Empowering transformational adaptors, in the agricultural sector, to plan and implement novel strategies and options using traditional 'best practice' stakeholder identification and engagement approaches risks being misdirected. We have found that transformational...

The effects of climate change on crop and terrestrial food production are evident in several regions of the world (high confidence). Negative impacts of climate trends have been more common than positive ones. {Figures 7-2, 7-7} Positive trends are evident in some highlatitude regions (high confidence). Since AR4, there have been several periods of...

December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th century monthly average, with February 1985 the last time mean temperature fell below this value. Even given these and other extraordinary statistics, public acceptance of human induced climate change and confidence in the support...

Research regarding climate change impacts and adaptation in primary industries has traditionally been focused on the production activities of individual sectors. Whilst there are a number of cases where impacts have been scaled from local to national and global scales, very few have employed a whole-of-systems approach to capture post farm gate val...

Climate change (CC) is a major threat to food security and livelihood functions. Use of climate information in decision making process in smallholder cattle rearing in Sri Lanka has not been assessed, though smallholdings account for 95% of the dairy sector holdings. Present study was undertaken to determine climate-induced management decisions mad...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation in Sri Lanka is restricted by limited water availability. Increased variability of seasonal rainfall as a result of climate change will further exacerbate risk in rice cultivation. Knowing the onset of rainfall through forecasts, adjusting planting date based on the predicted rainfall onset, and efficient irrig...

Despite a broad pattern of warming in minimum temperatures over the past 50 years, regions of southeastern Australia have experienced increases in frost frequency in recent decades, and more broadly across southern Australia, an extension of the frost window due to an earlier onset and later cessation. Consistent across southern Australia is a late...

The food industry is vulnerable to climate change. Producers will need to adapt to climate change if they, and the communities dependent on them, are to remain viable. There are essentially two ways to adapt—incrementally and transformationally. We differentiate between incremental and transformative adaptation mostly on the basis of the size of th...

It has been argued that major, purposeful action often resulting in significant changes in structure or function, known as transformational adaptation, is required in some areas of the agricultural sector to adapt to climate change and other driving factors. Yet there is limited understanding of what factors instigate and facilitate this scale of c...

As the driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate, Australia has had a long and evolving history of drought management in agriculture. This paper analyses the changing roles of science in the management of climate risk and uncertainty and how this may continue into the future. Initially science had a role in documenting the underlyin...

Purpose – To confront the increasingly devastating impacts of disasters and the challenges that climate change is posing to disaster risk management (DRM) there is an imperative to further develop DRM. The resilience approach is emerging as one way to do this, and in the last decade has been strongly introduced into the policy arena, although it is...

Feeding a growing global population in a changing climate presents a significant challenge to society. The projected yields of crops under a range of agricultural and climatic scenarios are needed to assess food security prospects. Previous meta-analyses have summarized climate change impacts and adaptive potential as a function of temperature, but...

This book contains 17 chapters focusing on the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, food security, water resources and economic stability. Strategies to develop sustainable systems that minimize impact on climate and/or mitigate the effects of human activity on climate change are also presented.

This book contains 17 chapters focusing on the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, food security, water resources and economic stability. Strategies to develop sustainable systems that minimize impact on climate and/or mitigate the effects of human activity on climate change are also presented.

A key challenge for Australian farmers is the production of a sustainable, stable and sufficient quantity and quality of food. This must be done against a backdrop of numerous unprecedented changes in climatic, environmental, economic and social conditions. We consider the role that research and development (R&D) can play in facilitating effective...

By the end of the XXIst century, a global temperature rise between 1.5 and 4°C compared to 1980-1999 and CO2 concentrations in the range 550-900 ppm are expected, together with an increased frequency of extreme climatic events (heat waves, droughts, and heavy rain) that is likely to negatively affect grassland production and livestock systems in a...

The Murray dairy region produces approximately 1.85 billion litres of milk each year, representing about 20 % of Australia's total annual milk production. An ongoing production challenge in this region is the management of the impacts of heat stress during spring and summer. An increase in the frequency and severity of extreme temperature events du...

This paper explores heuristic methods with potential to place the analytical power of real options analysis into the hands of natural resource managers. The complexity of real options analysis has led to patchy or ephemeral adoption even by corporate managers familiar with the financial-market origins of valuation methods. Intuitively accessible me...

This paper explores why adaptation and mitigation have tended to be considered separately in agriculture-related R&D in Australia and around the world. It explores whether there are points of convergence indicating that the two issues can and should now be researched in a more integrated way. The paper does this by reviewing the institutional histo...

Primary resource industries considering adaptation action in response to current or future climate changes need to consider the adaptive capacity of their constituent members if an industry-wide response is to occur. In particular, they need to know the extent to which the capacity to adapt exists and whether it can be enhanced. We focus on the rol...

Effective adaptation of food systems to climate change is likely to become more important over time, requiring progress in both science and in adaptation (actual implementation) by decision-makers along the value chain. This chapter presents an exploratory analysis of the frontiers of science and of adaptation and by so doing it describes how scien...