Climate Change Impacts on Drinking Water Security: A Comparative Study in Australia’s Remote Central Australia and Torres Strait Islands

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are well adapted to the many different environments in which they have lived for thousands of years. However, their environments and communities are highly vulnerable to impacts of anthropogenic climate change, including increasing threats to the security of drinking water supplies. Climate change is intensifying the significant social and economic disadvantage Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities face from poverty, poor housing, and poor health including high exposure to infectious and other diseases. Lack of sufficient safe, clean, drinking water could force Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to leave their homelands, adding the hardship of displacement to the devastating legacies of colonisation, with profound consequences for people’s identity, culture, and rights as Traditional Owners. As governments, industry, and communities are making decisions about the end use and allocation of finite water resources, including for new agribusiness, gas and mining developments, which might exacerbate an already stressed system, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and organisations in the Barkly and Torres Strait Islands are becoming actively engaged in water security issues, and they are demanding a strong voice over the governance of water resources. This case study highlights that, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, a precautionary approach to water policy links sustainable water management with community demands for effective adaptation and mitigation strategies and aspirations for climate justice.