In the lead up to the University's "Festival of Ideas: Climate Change, Cultural Change", Visions looks at new research being completed at the School of Land and Environment into the impact of climate change on Australia's viticulture industry.
In January and February 2009 south–eastern Australia was subject to record high temperatures that, in many regions, also persisted for record durations. Unfortunately for the wine industry, these areas are home to Australia’s key wine-growing (viticulture) regions.
With climate change projections indicating extreme weather events will become more frequent and occur with greater intensity, researchers in the University of Melbourne Viticulture Group (VitUM) are using the wine industry as a model to examine potential adaptation strategies for food production more generally, with encouraging results.