Planning for Resilience: A Property-Level Approach

July 2025 - June 2026

 

Project Overview

This project trials a property-level approach to drought planning that aligns with regional strategies and supports long-term resilience for pastoral stations in northern WA.
 

Building on the foundations of the Future Drought Fund-supported Regional Drought Resilience Plans (RDRPs), the project focuses on translating regional priorities into practical, station-scale action. It explores both preparedness and response strategies, identifies barriers to adoption, and develops tools to support timely, informed decision-making at the property level.
 

A key output will be a practical planning tool that producers can use independently or with facilitation, designed to reflect local conditions and integrate with broader regional efforts. The Gascoyne Catchments Group (GCG) will pilot the approach in the Pilbara–Gascoyne region. Insights from the trial will support further development and potential scaling across the Northern Hub and beyond.
 

1. Support regional-to-local integration by aligning property-level drought planning with regional strategies, including the FDF Theory of Change and Northern WA's Regional Drought Resilience Plans (RDRPs).

2. Enable informed and proactive decision-making by identifying relevant strategies, tools, and mindsets that support preparedness and response across pastoral enterprises.

3. Strengthen producer capability through a practical, locally tailored planning tool and engagement process that reflects lived experience, supports ongoing learning, and encourages long-term thinking.

4. Identify barriers and opportunities for broader uptake and investment, including gaps in current RD&E systems, coordination challenges, and potential for regional scaling.

5. Test and refine a scalable model for station-level drought planning that can be adapted and adopted by other regions through collaboration with the Northern Hub and national networks.
    

OVERALL FRAMEWORK GOALS

1. Function: Create a usable, adaptable drought resilience planning framework tailored to Northern Gascoyne & Western Pilbara WA properties.

2. Usability: Ensure producers can easily use and adapt the tool independently or with support.  The tool should be a talking point making it easy to collect, collate and complete.

3. Alignment: Directly link tools and strategies to the Future Drought Fund (FDF) Theory of Change, Regional DRPs, FDF Hub Strategic outcomes and other relevant state/regional plans.

4. Barriers: Explore producer barriers to adoption, preparation, planning and support capacity building.

5. Scalability: Design outputs that can be scaled and applied across other rangeland regions.

 

KEY OUTPUTS BY END AUGUST 2025

• Kick off documentation & project scope summary

• Draft Drought Strategy Guide:

  • Govt + Research + Industry strategies

  • Lived experience and practical case studies

  • Mapped to FDF Theory of Change outcomes (Preparedness, Adaptation, Resilience)

  • Set up for integration into the planning tool

• Initial insight themes on barriers to adoption based on lived experience

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