Goal: A Bureau delivering $1 billion in added economic impact and value for Australia, 2017–2022.

The Business Solutions Group leads the Bureau in improving customer engagement and business systems to deliver an outstanding experience for its customers. The Group has an enterprise-wide focus on improving the Bureau’s customer-facing skills, systems and processes to promote customer interactions that are more responsive and businesslike. It also leads the enterprise in customer engagement across focus sectors, namely: agriculture; aviation, land and maritime transport; energy and resources; national security; and water. By strengthening the Bureau’s relationships and service offerings, the Group aims to ensure that customers value the Bureau as an essential business partner, delivering measurable impact and value every day.

The Business Solutions Group consists of six Programs as illustrated below.

Throughout 2018–19, the Business Solutions Group focused on the delivery of three outcomes that support the delivery of the Bureau’s Strategy and purpose. The Group’s achievement in delivering each of these outcomes is discussed below.

Number of aviation forecasts deliveredUsage of key water servicesAttendance and satisfaction of the Bureau's water and climate webinarsNumber of products provided to the ADF

Outcome 1 - A Bureau that deeply understands our customers.

Achieving the outcome

Building our team of industry specialists

As well as continuing to embed its own staff in partner and customer organisations, the Bureau has undertaken a series of reverse placements by hosting staff from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia. Staff placements in both directions have helped the Bureau to enhance its understanding of industry customers’ needs and the challenges they face.

Better understanding customer needs

The Bureau has established an enterprise discovery framework and developed comprehensive discovery plans for the agriculture, energy and resources, and aviation sectors to identify its customers’ requirements. The Bureau is also analysing customer experiences through user-centred design studies for its products and services.

Building partnerships that deliver impact and value

The Bureau strengthened relationships with key partners including through:

• a collaborative relationship understanding with CSIRO;
• a strategic partnership with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO);
• a strategic relationship agreement with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads;
• a strategic relationship agreement with Hydro Tasmania; and
• a long-term alliance with Sydney Water.

Bureau CEO Dr Andrew Johnson and Hydro Tasmania CEO Stephen Davy at a joint press conference at the launch of the strategic relationship agreement in December.

Deepening our Defence and national security engagement

The National Security Program has connected more closely with governance systems within Defence and now attends the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Board to better understand and deliver to their needs. A subcommittee to the Board is also being established for deeper engagement on Defence requirements.

Building customer focus

More than 30 Bureau staff have completed intensive training in customer engagement and product development via Australia’s national science and technology accelerator, CSIRO’s ON Program. Following this successful pilot program, this training will be rolled out to additional Bureau staff in 2019–20.

A new meteorologist joins the AEMO decision-support team

It was a busy summer for Tim Oates, the Bureau’s Energy and Resources decision-support meteorologist for AEMO, based in Brisbane. Australia’s hottest summer on record was testing for AEMO with a number of heatwaves, significant cool changes and load-shedding in Victoria on 24–25 January. Working with the Bureau’s meteorological forecasts and data, Tim was able to provide timely and accurate, tailored information to meet the needs of this critically important customer who services around 90 per cent of Australia’s population.

Naomi Benger has joined Tim to perform the decision-support meteorologist role from AEMO’s Adelaide office. To prepare for the 2019–20 summer, Naomi has provided a trial advisory service for the SA Power Networks.

Tim Oates and Naomi Berger provide decision-support to the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Next steps

Key activities to be delivered in 2019–20 to help achieve Outcome 1 include:

• completing water and energy and resources sector discovery plans; and
• using customer discovery plans to inform resource allocation decisions in the Public Services Transformation and ROBUST programs.

Outcome 2 - Customers engage with a business-like Bureau to increase their productivity and reduce risk.

Achieving the outcome

Collaborations that increase productivity and reduce risk

A new, more accurate forecast product for the Bureau’s agriculture customers was created in collaboration with CSIRO. Combining weather observations captured ‘on-farm’ with Bureau forecasts has made it possible to increase the accuracy and reliability of forecasts for events such as frost.

The Water Program has reduced the costs of regulatory compliance by partnering with the Australian Bureau of Statistics to create a joint platform for urban water customers to submit data required by the Water Act 2007. The Bureau also partnered with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries to create a single portal for New South Wales water utilities to fulfil their State and Federal regulatory requirements.

The Bureau joined forces with the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to boost Australia’s water resource management capability (see below).

The Bureau is working with customers to build weather literacy by providing an Introduction to Meteorology Course tailored to their needs.

Intergalactic collaboration

In December, the Bureau joined forces with NASA to improve management of Australia’s water resources. The integration of the Australian Water Resources Assessment’s (AWRA) landscape modelling system with the NASA land information system (LIS) has improved the accuracy and timeliness of the water resource observations that are used to forecast water availability in Australia’s river systems.

James Geiger (NASA), David Mocko (NASA), Andrew Frost (Bureau), Eric Kemp (NASA), Shugong Wong (NASA) and Wendy Sharples (Bureau).

Managing customer relationships

A pilot customer relationship management (CRM) system has been developed and will be deployed early in 2019–20 to optimise the Bureau’s customer service by carefully managing all information relating to customers and their needs. The CRM will enable the organisation to share, analyse and utilise customer data, improving efficiency, transparency and accessibility.

Weather knowledge from the source

The Bureau’s Introduction to Meteorology course is empowering its customers to make better informed weather-based decisions for more resilient and efficient operations.

During 2018–19, the two-day Introduction to Meteorology course was undertaken by 201 external customers, while a customised one-day course was undertaken by over 300 customers. The one-day program was developed to meet the needs of strategic partners, such as the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads and AEMO, as well as other emergency services and industry customers including water authorities, the Department of Defence, the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority, local governments and Sky News. Materials and content have been developed with the customer in mind and are tailored to their learning needs. Course content assumes little to no prior understanding, with scientific content explained using real-life analogies.

The course covers the science of how the weather works and how to correctly interpret tools on the Bureau’s website, such as satellite and radar images, weather maps and cloud imagery, along with website navigation for forecasts and warnings. Specific phenomena of interest are also covered, such as thunderstorms, lightning, tornadoes, flooding, tropical cyclones, fire weather and heatwaves. The course also covers commonly known climate drivers such as El Niño/La Niña, but also less-known but influential climate drivers like the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Madden-Julian Oscillation.

Feedback from course participants has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants appreciating the practical, localised examples and the presentation of complex information in a very accessible form.

Philip Perkins, meteorologist, delivering the Introduction to Meteorology course during May.

Supporting Australia’s Antarctic interests

A new sea ice advisory service developed by the University of Tasmania has been integrated into the Bureau’s suite of services. By using satellite-borne active radar sensor data, the service can precisely detail ice conditions down to 5 metres, directly informing voyage planners and ship’s masters navigating the icy seas of the Australian Antarctic region. The Bureau also welcomed an ice research expert into its Hobart-based operations, to enhance services through the merging of weather, ocean and ice information across the Southern Ocean. Our participation in a major Southern Ocean observation program will continue to strengthen Antarctic weather and ocean services.

Science leading to better services in Antarctica

The Bureau joined a mass-scale observation program in Antarctica over the 2018–19 summer as part of the Year of Polar Prediction, deploying extra staff into Australia’s Antarctic expedition to release nearly twice as many weather balloons and maintain expanded ground- based measurement arrays. This intensive observing period was the culmination of five years of international planning and marks the midway point of the World Meteorological Organization’s Polar Prediction Project, which aims to serve the growing demand for skilful and reliable predictions in polar regions.

Australian icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis.

Establishing product management capability

The Bureau is building product management capability to more effectively manage the life-cycle of its products and services, ensuring that they are fit for purpose and delivered efficiently. More than 30 staff have undertaken training with the Association of International Product Marketing and Management to become certified product managers.

Next steps

Key activities to be delivered in 2019–20 to help achieve Outcome 2 include:

• undertaking pricing reviews in accordance with the Australian Government’s outputs and charging review roadmap, underpinning the growth and sustainability of Bureau’s industry services; and
• establishing a strategic, multi-year partnership with the ADF.

Outcome 3 - A Bureau creating $1 billion in added economic value for Australia.

Achieving the outcome

More profitable and resilient primary industries

The Bureau assisted drought-affected farmers across Australia through the development of regional climate guides (see below). The guides, developed in partnership with agricultural producers, FarmLink and CSIRO deliver agriculturally specific climate, weather and water insights to rural communities to help them better manage risks and opportunities.

Tailored daily updates on the impact of tropical cyclone Trevor to the northern beef industry were provided to customers and channel partners to inform decisions during the cyclone’s impact period.

A new tailored frost service was delivered to key wine and citrus industry customers, helping to mitigate the potentially damaging impact of frosts on grape and citrus crops.

Climate guides rolling out

Under the Climate Guide project, the Bureau’s Agriculture Program has partnered with FarmLink, CSIRO and farmers to deliver agriculturally specific climate, weather and water insights to help rural communities identify the climatic assets and risks in their local area.

The guides, part of the Australian Government’s Drought Assistance Package, have been co-designed with users via community workshops held in each of Australia’s 56 Natural Resource Management regions.

CSIRO Senior Research Scientist Patrick Mitchell, then Federal Agriculture and Water Resources Minister David Littleproud and Bureau Agriculture Program officer Luke Shelley met with farmers in Dalby late February as part of the development of a Climate Guide for the region.

Supporting safe and efficient aviation

The Bureau continued to provide world-class meteorological services and insights to its aviation customers, enhancing the safety and economy of aviation operations, connecting communities and ensuring the profitability of businesses. The Bureau met the service level required by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), with more than 1.9 million meteorological products delivered, including graphical and text products, aerodrome forecasts, and warnings and advices.

Several service improvements were made during the year that enhance safety and help to reduce diversions and airborne holding, including provision of:

• more detailed, higher resolution volcanic ash advisories based on a new ‘strength of evidence’ approach;
• gridded data for wind and temperature, along with the graphical area forecast product; and
• meteorological insights for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth airports via a collaborative decision-making process.

Significant progress was also made on automating aerodrome observations, establishing an ICAO space weather centre within the Bureau (see below) and conducting a large area trial of a new algorithm for predicting areas of high ice water content that can disrupt an aircraft’s flight management system.

The Aviation Meteorological Services Transformation Program is proceeding on schedule and will be fully implemented by mid-2020 to deliver a more flexible, responsive and cost-effective service to Australia’s aviation industry, and to meet the growing needs of the sector within national and international frameworks. Important achievements made during the year include:

• recruitment of over 80 meteorologists from within the Bureau to deliver aviation services from the two new Aviation Forecasting Centres, to be established in Brisbane in July 2019, and in Melbourne by June 2020; and
• development and testing of a new suite of aviation applications and tools to assist aviation specialists to more effectively deliver digital products to aviation customers.

International space weather centre

The Bureau’s space weather service is well down the path to becoming an ICAO space weather centre. Space weather impacts the operation of modern civil aviation via its disruption of GPS availability, satellite-based communication, HF radio communication, and radiation hazards to flight crews, especially for aircraft flying in the arctic and polar regions where solar storms transfer more energy into the atmosphere.

In February 2018, the Bureau’s space weather services passed a World Meteorological Organization audit of compliance against ICAO aviation space weather centre requirements

Since then, the Bureau has been busy working with its partners in Canada, France and Japan to implement the systems required to generate and disseminate aviation advisories for space weather. Together with its partners, the Bureau will act as one of three global centres designated by ICAO to provide space weather services to the aviation industry.

An aircraft flies through an aurora.

Improved automation of aviation observations

The Bureau completed its Trial Automation of Observations at Cairns, Canberra and Coolangatta (TAOCCC) project that aimed to assess the capability of instrumentation to automatically produce ICAO-compliant observations at major airports in Australia. The Bureau’s aviation observations, referred to as METAR and SPECI, are largely based on information originating from automatic weather stations (AWS). At major aerodromes, qualified observers and forecasters enhance observations through the manual observations of conditions that are difficult to automate, including thunderstorms, and present weather phenomena such as fog, dust and smoke.

The project involved the development and trial of new algorithms which ingest observations from a range of meteorological sensors to optimally identify thunderstorms at, or in the vicinity of the aerodrome, along with other present weather conditions.

Following the successful trial, the aviation observations at Cairns, Canberra, Coolangatta and Coffs Harbour airports have been fully automated. Working with its aviation industry partners, the Bureau plans to rollout additional meteorological sensors and the enhanced algorithm to the entire aviation AWS network during 2019–20.

Aerial view of the Cairns airport runway.

Transport on the move

A new agreement with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads will increase the safety of road users and improve traffic efficiency along the 1700 km Bruce Highway. Bureau specialists have been providing expert advice about observed and forecast data to the Bruce Highway Operational Improvements Project, improving situational awareness of weather, flood and traffic issues from Cairns to Brisbane. The project will be completed by 2023 and give traffic management centres a much greater awareness of weather impacts and flooding on the Bruce Highway. Other interactions with the department include provision of meteorology training courses, ad hoc specialised weather services and data integration activities.

Flood preparedness and response will be improved by a new early warning flood system project for the Buntine Highway in the Northern Territory, and federal funding for a new rainfall radar at Tennant Creek has been announced as part of the Barkly Regional Deal.

Supporting secure, stable and reliable energy

The Bureau has entered agreements with AEMO and Hydro Tasmania to harness its expertise for the energy sector. Under the agreement with AEMO, the Bureau has a meteorologist embedded at AEMO’s control centre to assist with decision-making around likely energy demands as a result of extreme heat and severe weather and the flow-on effects for the energy grid. The Bureau launched its partnership with Hydro Tasmania in December, with the Bureau providing insights into national weather conditions that enable Hydro Tasmania to consider how it can best support national electricity needs.

Funded through the Department of the Environment and Energy, the Electricity Sector Climate Information (ESCI) project is designed to improve the reliability and resilience of the national electricity market to the risks from climate change and extreme weather. The project will improve information on likely future changes to extreme weather events such as heatwaves, wind and maximum temperature thresholds. It will also consider concurrent and/or compounding events, to inform analysis of long-term climate risk.

Enabling safe and profitable resource extraction

The Bureau’s services supported oil, gas and mining operations including surveying and drilling, construction, production and ongoing maintenance. Tailored forecast updates were provided to more than 20 customers during tropical cyclone Trevor, helping resource companies to improve safety, avoid down time, and support more efficient flight and vessel scheduling.

During 2018–19, the Bureau provided a new visualisation tool to a major resources customer to enable better management of offshore weather risk and is developing another tool to enable rapid visualisation of cool changes in time for the 2019–20 summer.

Supporting national security

During 2018–19, the Bureau continued to deliver meteorological, oceanographic and space weather advice to the ADF in support of its vital mission to defend Australia and its national interests. Specialised forecasting and advisory services are provided for day-to-day operations and exercises in Australia and overseas. This includes ocean forecasting services for the Royal Australian Navy and meteorology advice on Royal Australian Air Force bases at Pearce, Tindal, Townsville, Amberley, Williamtown and East Sale and at the Oakey Army base.

The Bureau supports strategic decision-making by the ADF to better prepare for international security activities where climatic events such as droughts can affect food security leading to conflict and migration. It also supports the Department of Home Affairs National Resilience Task Force through the secondment of a Bureau Officer to assist in coordination of a major weather and climate resilience project. The Bureau provided detailed briefings to the Department of Foreign Affairs in preparing for severe weather events such as cyclones and to support aid delivery to the Pacific.

Managing our precious water resources

The Bureau’s water information services monitored and forecast the availability, condition and use of water to underpin water planning and allocation, as well as investment in and maintenance of water infrastructure. Highlights in 2018–19 included:

• the release of Rainfields 3, a tool that provides flood managers and urban water utilities with real-time quality-controlled rainfall estimates and forecasts using radar, rain gauges and numerical wealth prediction models;
• the provision of customised advice on inflows in the Murray-Darling Basin to State, Territory and federal government water managers following rainfall associated with tropical cyclone Trevor;
• delivery of custom analysis to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office to inform the delivery of environmental water during the drought in the northern Murray-Darling Basin;
• the delivery of a number of services under the new strategic relationship agreement agreed with Hydro Tasmania; and
• fulfilment of 210 bespoke requests for Australian Resources Water Assessment data from customers across the water, agriculture, emergency services and research sectors.

The Bureau also provided water, weather and climate information and analysis to the independent expert panel established to determine the causes of major fish death events in the Lower Darling River in December and January. The Bureau’s advice on the weather and water conditions at the time of the deaths helped support the panel’s investigations into the causes of the hypoxic conditions that resulted in the deaths. The panel made a series of recommendations, which highlighted gaps in monitoring that the Bureau can contribute to improving.

Bureau supports the ADF

Combining world-class meteorological, climatological and hydrological support, the Bureau’s Defence Weather Services provides direct environmental intelligence to the ADF to aid in decision-making for any scenario.

The Bureau coordinates this response from the Defence Meteorological Support Unit (DMSU) located in ADF’s Headquarters Joint Operations Command. The team at DMSU work closely with Defence specialist meteorologists, who provide specific military aviation support on the ground at ADF sites nationally.

In 2018–19 the Bureau’s services supported responses to the Townsville floods, tropical cyclone Trevor and Exercise Talisman Sabre. Tropical cyclone Trevor necessitated tailored evacuation flight briefings and forecasts to enable the safe provision of flights in and out of Groote Eylandt and Borroloola in the Northern Territory.

For Exercise Talisman Sabre, a new meteorological planning product was used across all ADF services, with the Bureau providing 331 specific forecasts and 1307 standard products in support of the two-week event.

An RAAF C-130J Hercules transport aircraft supporting the emergency evacuations out of East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory during tropical cyclone Trevor. Image courtesy of the Department of Defence.

Next steps

Key activities to be delivered in 2019–20 to help achieve Outcome 3 include:

• establishing a world-first landscape water balance forecasting service to provide continental forecasts of runoff, root zone soil moisture and evapotranspiration from mid-2020;
• completing implementation of the Aviation Meteorological Services Transformation Program, providing new aviation forecast centres, aviation specialists, enhanced safety and efficiency for the aviation industry; and
• establishing two major national security ecosystem partnerships.