What can 150 years of census data tell us about population impacts from extreme weather in sparsely populated Northern Australia?

This paper examines how extreme weather events have influenced population trends in sparsely populated settlements across Northern Australia over a 150-year period. The authors analyse historical population and hazard data to “identify and profile the scale of population loss across settlement types from extreme weather events” and to understand how past events have affected settlement populations under conditions of climate change. The study synthesizes three national datasets: historical census data covering 23 census points between 1871 and 2021, and two national hazard event databases. The authors merged records to create a dataset of 86 extreme weather events, including cyclones, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and bushfires, and examined their relationship with population change across 181 remote settlements in Northern Australia.

The findings show that impacts differ according to settlement type and hazard. Overall, remote settlements experienced population growth over the study period, and population decline was more often associated with “systemic issues such as boom-and-bust economic cycles rather than to extreme weather events.” However, hazard events frequently acted as triggers for changes in population trends through existing vulnerabilities. Larger and more economically diversified settlements were impacted primarily by floods and cyclones, while Indigenous communities appeared less disrupted by floods but more likely to experience longer-term demographic impacts from cyclones. The study also finds that remote towns have become more resilient to extreme weather events over time, likely reflecting improvements in infrastructure, governance, and adaptive capacity.