ABSTRACT
The large State of Queensland, Australia, has the highest levels of naturally occurring year-to-year rainfall variability in the world. However, major droughts keep reoccurring and losses to the national economy, especially rural economies, keep increasing in Australia. The major drought periods mentioned here were all driven by the well-recognizable El Nino phenomenon in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Developing improved drought preparedness programs and processes in the State of Queensland has entailed a long process that originated in a more thorough understanding of the climatic mechanisms responsible for the extremely high levels of year-to-year rainfall variability in Queensland in the 1990s. The Queensland Drought Mitigation Centre (QDMC) will be a center of excellence for research, communication, and capacity-building in areas relating to the mitigation of the impacts of drought on agriculture and the wider community.
