NSW DPI technical specialist - Drought Information Systems, Kim Broadfoot, said the network is part of the NSW government's Future Ready Regions program, focused on improving the resilience of the rural economy in the face of climate extremes.
"The Seasonal Conditions Monitoring Network will consist of a number of highly instrumented sites in key locations that will gather meteorological and plant available water data," Broadfoot said.
"In this first stage of roll out, we will be focusing on establishing sites that fill important gaps in our existing monitoring network. This will target the western, central west, southeast and hunter areas in the state."
Broadfoot said over 200 farmers and advisors across NSW recently provided feedback on NSW DPI's climate and seasonal conditions information, which contributes to improvements like the roll out of the Seasonal Conditions Monitoring Network.
"Farmers have told us that a lack of trust and low accuracy of data is one of the main barriers to fully using climate information in decision making," she said.
"More localised data collection through infrastructure like our Seasonal Conditions Monitoring Network will enable DPI to more accurately assess what is happening across NSW."
NSW DPI says it continues to improve climate and seasonal conditions information available to farmers. The improvements are part of the Future Ready Regions EDIS Development Project which aims to provide farmers with world-leading weather and climate data so they can make better business decisions.
Growers and producers can submit an expression of interest to host the weather and soil moisture monitoring technology on their farm by visiting the DPI website: www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/dpi
Growers can see farm-scale seasonal conditions such as rainfall, soil moisture and crop and pasture growth indices here: https://edis.dpi.nsw.gov.au
