Victoria and NSW feature prominently on a global map revealing areas of vegetation most sensitive to the ravages of climate change.
The map, produced by Norwegian and British scientists from 14 years of satellite observations, and published in the journal Nature, shows most parts of south-eastern Australia are least able to cope with the changes in air temperature, water availability and cloud cover wrought by global warming. The crop lands, grasslands and woodlands of eastern Australia on the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range will be most affected. These areas receive between 700 and 1000 millimetres of rainfall a year. 
"They are among our most productive areas for agriculture," Professor Roger Jones, of Victoria University's Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, said. "If conditions worsened, they could be among those areas most at risk."
Appropriate management responses could limit potential losses.
"But it's an indication of the potential for widespread loss of productivity that could happen fairly fast," Professor Jones cautioned.
Vegetated regions of the Murray Darling Basin are wildly shifting between drought and wet cycles.
"The dry-wet swings seem to be intensifying," climate scientist Dr Alfredo Huete, of the University of Technology in Sydney, said. "This will present major challenges for water and crop management."
By contrast, Victorian vegetation would not experience exceptional levels of eco-stress, he said.
Near Australia, areas of key tropical forest, such as those in Indonesia, also show high sensitivity.
Other regions of the world sensitive to variations in climate include the Arctic tundra, vast swaths of the boreal forest belt, the tropical rainforests, alpine regions worldwide, specific steppe and prairie regions and the Caatinga forest in eastern South America.
Grassland regions, in general, were found to be most sensitive to variations in water availability, while alpine regions displayed strong sensitivity to temperature.