EDIS stands for the “Enhanced Drought Information System.” EDIS was developed by the NSW DPI Climate Branch in 2016 to monitor drought to improve the awareness, monitoring and forecasting of seasonal conditions across NSW.
Since 2018, EDIS Version 1 has been monitoring seasonal conditions, including the major drought event from 2017-2020, and supplying regional level information for many stakeholders.
As of October 2022, EDIS Version 2 has replaced EDIS Version 1, providing higher resolution and more accurate seasonal conditions monitoring information.
A key feature of EDIS is the NSW DPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI). The CDI integrates meteorological, hydrological and agronomic definitions of drought using indexes for:
From these, a fourth index, the Drought Direction Index (DDI), is developed. Used together, these indices classify the five phases of drought:
For more information see “Understanding CDI Phases”.
Information from the CDI underlies the NSW DPI’s State Seasonal Update to describe drought and seasonal conditions across NSW.
EDIS is a computer model that works by incorporating climate and remote sensing data from a range of sources (Figure 1). The primary climate data source for EDIS Version 2 is 1 km resolution dataset from ANUClimate, developed by the Australian National University. The climate data is processed through the DPI AgriMod crop-climate soil water balance model, and outputs meteorologic, hydrologic, and agronomic drought indices.
These indices combine to form the NSW DPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI), a classification system to classify the five phases of drought based on rainfall effectiveness. New data for the CDI arrives every day, but this is for four days prior to the current date to allow time for data transfer from the field and quality control. Summary outputs are pushed to the cloud for web-services, or to a data portal providing open access.
EDIS is a computer model that works by incorporating climate and remote sensing data from a range of sources (Figure 1). The primary climate data source for EDIS Version 2 is 1 km resolution dataset from ANUClimate, developed by the Australian National University. The climate data is processed through the DPI AgriMod crop-climate soil water balance model, and outputs meteorologic, hydrologic, and agronomic drought indices.
These indices combine to form the NSW DPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI), a classification system to classify the five phases of drought based on rainfall effectiveness. New data for the CDI arrives every day, but this is for four days prior to the current date to allow time for data transfer from the field and quality control. Summary outputs are pushed to the cloud for web-services, or to a data portal providing open access.
Figure 1. Technical schematic of the Enhanced Drought Information System (EDIS) used to calculate the NSW DPI Combined Drought Indicator.
In 2008, a national review of drought policy recommended drought assistance be restructured to better help farmers plan and prepare for drought. Under the consequent Intergovernmental Agreement on National Drought Program Reform, the NSW Government established the Regional Assistance Advisory Committee (RAAC) in 2013 to oversee the production of State Seasonal Updates to help landholders prepare for worsening seasonal conditions and advise the government on impacts of adverse climatic conditions.
The RAAC worked to develop a consistent method of determining when farmers are being seriously adversely affected by drought, initially using a 'trigger' system based on remote measurements of rainfall, soil moisture and pasture growth, supplemented by on-ground data and observations provided by NSW Local Land Services.
NSW DPI’s 2015 review of seasonal conditions reports identified a need for a staged approach to seasonal conditions assessment using a comprehensive drought index (or indices) to describe both the onset of deteriorating conditions and recovery. Such an approach could deliver a graduated advisory system similar to the familiar fire danger warnings seen beside many roads in NSW. Each level of warning could be accompanied by a set of advisory actions and could support specific socioeconomic interventions.
The outcome of the review was the development of the Enhanced Drought Information System (EDIS) to track all phases of drought onset and production recovery. EDIS aims to:
The CDI map represents a daily snapshot of the current seasonal conditions as aggregated over the last 12 months by the CDI drought indicators. At the end of each month, the CDI information is verified, and quality controlled for use in the State Seasonal Updates to provide the official drought status summary for the state.
The Combined Drought Indicator is one source of information that informs policy and Government responses to changing seasonal conditions, including drought. The map provides a snapshot of conditions at a point in time and is not used to determine eligibility for assistance measures offered by the NSW Government.
The CDI currently provides information to a parish level, which is a composite of 10-20 farms. The underlying monitoring of conditions occurs at 1km resolution (ANUClimate), which is currently the best available data for tracking climatic condition across NSW.
ANUClimate has been developed by the Australian National University. Information is not reported at an individual farm level to maintain commercial confidentiality however, you can request information for your property. Work is also underway to integrate climate forecast information into EDIS.
Currently the CDI does not predict or forecast drought. While the Drought Direction Index (DDI) indicates a wetting or drying trend over the past 150 days, it is not a predictive index. It is best used for describing the direction of drought category. Work is currently underway to integrate a Seasonal Climate Forecast into EDIS.
Data can be obtained by establishing a third-party license agreement with the Department of Primary Industries. Depending on data use, administration and commercial fees may apply.
A range of products are also available on the Seasonal Conditions Information Portal.
For more information contact seasonal.conditions@dpi.nsw.gov.au.
The underlying data informing the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) is now at a higher resolution of 1km. This improved resolution underpins the delivery of genuine farm scale climate information service.
The improved resolution and processing of the data means that the accuracy of the CDI maps is improved. There will be little difference in what you see as the improvements are in the underlying data quality. View the previous CDI map at the 5km resolution.
The EDIS portal is built, maintained and hosted by 
The data supporting EDIS is made available by third parties. Acknowledgement is also given to the Australian National University for provision of ANUClimate used for the currently operating EDIS framework. Special acknowledgement is given to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for provision of the Australian Water Availability Program (AWAP) data sets for the previous version of EDIS (operating to October 2022).
Other third-party data sets used in EDIS and Seasonal Conditions reporting are listed in the following table.
| Class | Item | Source | Properties |
|---|---|---|---|
| Climate | Australian Water Availability Program (Rainfall, Max/Min Temperature, Radiation, Potential Evaporation) | BoM | Gridded, 5km resolution, daily |
| ANU Climate | TERN/ ANU | Gridded, 1km resolution, daily | |
| Remote Sensing |
MODIS and derived products Fraction of photosynthetically absorbed Radiation (fPAR) (1km) Leaf area index (LAI) (1km) National Dynamic Land Cover Dataset (250m) Actual Evaporation (250m) Vegetation Indices (250m, 500m) Gross Primary Production (250m) | CSIRO/ TERN/ GeoScience Australia | Gridded, various resolutions, dekads and months |
|
Landsat Vegetation Indices Landsat Water Bodies | Geoscience Australia | Gridded 30m | |
| Soils | Australian Soil Landscape Grid | CSIRO/ USyd/ TERN | Gridded, 90 meter |
EDIS and CDI are trademarks owned by the NSW Department of Primary Industries, an office of the State of New South Wales through the Department of Regional NSW. Copyright in EDIS and CDI vests in the State of New South Wales through the Department of Industry, Skills and Regional Development, 2016.
Any use of EDIS, CDI or any related material must be underwritten licence on terms approved by the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Administration and commercial fees may apply. For more information contact seasonal.conditions@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Disclaimer: The information contained in this web portal is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of development. Because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date and to check currency of the information with the appropriate officer of the Department of Primary Industries or the user’s independent adviser.
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To obtain EDIS data or initiate a development project, contact seasonal.conditions@dpi.nsw.gov.au