Benefits of Doppler radars
Strategic investment into Doppler radar infrastructure enables more informed decisions ensuring farm inputs are applied more efficiently and effectively.
Doppler radars offer short-term weather forecasting and accurate climatic information at a localised level that enable farm businesses to make more informed decisions. This means farm businesses can make timely, strategic and tactical decisions around time of sowing, chemical and fertiliser applications and movement of stock, potentially resulting in significant savings.
A study in the Orana region of New South Wales found the cost of spraying at the wrong time, such as just before rainfall, on a single property could range from $50,000-$100,000.
DPIRD’s extended network of automated weather stations, with data streamed on the DPIRD Weather Website, will be a critical part of the successful deployment of the Doppler technology. Information from modern Doppler radars, when combined with data provided by the state’s weather station network, will provide farm businesses with extremely valuable and more precise farm level information on areas such as rainfall, wind strength, temperature and soil moisture.
In a broader community setting this technology will result in improved protection of lives and livelihoods in regional Western Australia particularly when confronted with fires, storms and floods.
This technology enables insurance products to be developed to better farm business incomes and boost opportunities for additional capital investment in the industry.
