Extreme rainfall events have a major impact on the Australian environment and society. From a risk assessment and impact planning perspective, knowledge of the potential changes in the magnitude and frequency of these events is extremely valuable. Disaster risk management planners must necessarily consider the full range of possible impacts related to extreme rainfall events under a changing climate in order to adequately meet the needs of the communities and sectors they are working within.

Here we present mid- and late-21^st century projections of daily rainfall extremes from CMIP5 models under emission pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 for regions of Australia. By late in the 21^st century annual maxima and 20-year return levels of one-day rainfall amounts are projected to increase significantly for almost all of the Australian continent. The magnitude of the projected changes are found to be strongly dependent on the emissions pathway providing the climate forcing. Changes also vary spatially with some areas of the continent showing notably larger changes than others.

Further regional differences in our projections are discussed, as are the differences between the climate response of rainfall extremes against that of mean rainfall, with extremes projected to increase even in regions where mean rainfall declines. Here we present projection information in a contextualised manner, further enhancing uptake and usage by the adaptation and mitigation community for making risk assessments.