“A little bit obsessed with the weather”: Leveraging Australian farmers’ online weather practices to inform the design of climate services

Abstract

Farmers’ local knowledge represents an important yet underutilised resource in climate adaptation. The emergence of online region-specific climate projections presents an opportunity to leverage farmers expertise in reading and responding to short-term weather forecasts as a design input into longer-term climate services. This paper leverages insights gained through a detailed exploration of existing everyday weather application (app) practices from 25 Australian farmers across different commodities. Through the lens of Social Practice Theory, the paper details how farmers chose, accessed and utilised online weather information in decision-making. Farmers accessed between one and six weather apps daily, with perceived accuracy the largest determinant of adoption. The paper provides detailed knowledge of farmers’ practices accessing online weather information and based on these practices, recommends four considerations for the design of multi-decadal online climate services including: (1) Leveraging tacit knowledge and existing practices of tinkering and appropriation. (2) Supporting the triangulation and comparison practices common to use of weather apps. (3) Setting expectations regarding the perceived accuracy of climate projections. (4) Ensuring climate information is available and salient when climate-relevant decisions are made. Through these considerations, the paper aims to benefit end-users of climate services by ensuring climate information responds to user needs and fits within existing practices.