Hamilton’s CLIMsystems Ltd. Scores National Innovator of the Year Award

26 August 2009

Hamilton, New Zealand

Richard Warrick, the Chairman of the Board and a Director of CLIMsystems Ltd., was awarded the prize of Innovator of the Year in the category of Agriculture and Environment at this week’s Bayer-National Business Review ceremony in Auckland. The award represents the culmination of 15 years of research and development, most undertaken with the University of Waikato. The competition was very strong with CLIMsystems competing against a range of brilliant ideas that have been brought to the market place in recent years.

Richard commented that his initial idea for the SimCLIM software system, that models current and future climates for risk and adaptation assessments, came to him while working overseas in the early 1990s. It was only upon coming to New Zealand and engaging with the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and a host of Crown Research Organisations and other academics that the funding was available to build on his dream. With time and additional research contracts both in New Zealand, and importantly, internationally, did the what was then known as the CLIMPACTS software system begin to evolve. A major push came in 2004 when with the encouragement of the Foundation and the University of Waikato the commercial entity CLIMsystems was formed and the user-friendly, yet scientifically robust SimCLIM software system was launched.

Since SimCLIM’s inception it has been used in groundbreaking work. For example, the first assessment of the incremental costs of climate change to development projects was undertaken with Asian Development Bank support in two Pacific Island countries. That project and its comprehensive report are still widely cited and attract additional clients to CLIMsystems. Recently staff of CLIMsystems have work very closely with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce the very latest change patterns for sea level rise around the world as related to climate change. A new report that summarises the world’s knowledge of sea level rise and its climate is soon to be released and the maps informing that document have been produced using CLIMsystems technology. Richard Warrick, one of the authors of that report is a leading figure in the sea level rise and impact modeling field. He was recognized for his contribution to global climate change science when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with other key players in the IPCC in 2007. The SimCLIM system and CLIMsystems Ltd was recognized for its global reach in business and its innovative integration of various scientific principles that allow the users of the software to bridge important gaps in knowledge and to do so in a manner that permits the results to be easy displayed, often times as maps, that can then be used to inform decisions that are made on a daily basis by planners, policy makers, engineers, agriculturalists and a host of others.

The ease of customization of the system means that numerous country or region-specific version of the software have been developed and applied. Our near neighbours in the Pacific like Tonga, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands are all working closely with CLIMsystems and are running customised versions of SimCLIM for their country risk assessments and development planning. New water supplies, roads and bridges are being ‘climate proofed’ (engineered for the consideration of future climate change) as national governments move to protect their countries infrastructure and social systems from the impact of extreme climatic events and longer term climate change. Several versions of the SimCLIM system are in use across Australia, primarily in the risk assessment area for local and regional councils. The outputs in map form and statistically robust in terms of being quantitative (including probabilities and return periods for extremes with and without climate change) have meant that Southeast Queensland recently released long term strategic development plan was in part informed by SimCLIM climate modeling. Similarly, the City of Adelaide’s long term plans have been based on SimCLIM modeling undertaken by a major Australian consulting firm using CLIMsystems models. These applications complement work done in the United States, for example, the major study of sea level rise and storm surge and its impacts on the Chesapeake Bay done by CH2M Hill, a major partner of CLIMsystems in the North American market. Nearly every week a new version of SimCLIM is being released; in this year alone: India, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, Malaysia, and a new and updated version for New Zealand. Requests are in from New Caledonia, South Korea, Taiwan, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Viet Nam, Cambodia and a very special request from Nagaland in Northeast India.

The BAYER – National Business Review Innovator of the Year award will only enhance the place of CLIMsytems in the rapidly growing market space of climate risk and adaptation assessment. Future plans include more engagement with the New Zealand market and the continued enhancement of tie-ups of CLIMsystems with other related market leaders like the Danish Hydraulic Institute who are active around the globe. As Richard Warrick has acknowledged the future pressure points for adaptation will in his opinion fall into two areas: food and water security. Richard’s innovative thinking will continue and enhance the range of uses for SimCLIM and other CLIMsystems software services in these primary and other secondary, yet important areas.

http://www.bayerinnovators.co.nz/