Climate Change Adaptation
Apdating to the changing climate of the Hepburn Shire
The climate is changing and, with more frequent and severe climate-related events like bushfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves, we need to make sure our community is ready to adapt. In 2022 Hepburn Z-NET mapped out our local climate data and investigated how to build our community’s adaptive capacity and resilience in the face of climate change.
The project put together a guide to climate adaptation in Hepburn Shire. This is a public resource which can be used for ongoing public engagement, education, awareness raising, collation and amplification of community project ideas.
View the guide to adaptation action here.
The adaptation project was funded by: DELWP Grampians to Hepburn Shire Council and Hepburn Energy, delivered by: Hepburn Energy and Little Sketches and has formal partnerships with DJAARA and Central Highlands Water.
Veiw our toolkit hereCommon questions
01
What does adaptation mean?
Adaptation is where we adjust to actual or predicted climates and their effects. In practice, this means making sure our community is ready for the impacts of climate change.
02
What are climate hazards?
Hazards represent threats to our community that will be amplified under all climate change scenarios. This project considers four major hazards: heat, drought, bushfire, flooding and storms.
03
What climate change hazards do we face in the Hepburn Shire?
There’s a lot of uncertainty around climate change, but we can be confident that our region will experience:
- More extreme heat
- Greater bushfire risk
- Longer and more intense droughts
- More storms and flooding
04
What do we mean by climate risks?
Climate risks are not just determined by hazards and the likelihood of extreme events but how human and ecological systems interact with these.
05
What do we mean by climate resilience?
As part of this project we have thought of climate resilience as efforts or states that reduce our vulnerability to hazards.
06
What can we do about it?
The Hepburn Z-NET Adaptation project identified 6 focus areas, where we can make a difference and have community supported projects/programs:
- Agriculture
- Biodiversity
- Economy
- Healing Country
- Health & wellbeing
- Water
There’s a lot we can do to adapt to climate change. So far, we’ve mapped out 67 actions that could help our shire reduce risk and increase resilience to these hazards. Our online tool and guide offers information on our adaptation potential.
07
Where can we start?
- First step: Review the Hepburn Z-NET adaptation toolkit context and concepts
- Second step: Check out understanding adaptation actions
- Third step: Click on actions for more detail and see their information postcards
- Fourth step: Stay engaged and listen out for project updates. Let us know if you have an adaptation action we should add to our database.
- Explore our Adaptation Toolkit here View More
