Responding to Climate Change: Australia's Environmental Law and Regulatory Framework. Climate change presents Australia with unparalleled sustainability challenges. Impacts on environmental resources will require an integrated legal and socio-economic regulatory response. An effective and adaptable environmental law framework will be crucial for adaptation and mitigation measures. The project addresses this need by undertaking a comprehensive, interdisciplinary evaluation of Australia's legal ca ....Responding to Climate Change: Australia's Environmental Law and Regulatory Framework. Climate change presents Australia with unparalleled sustainability challenges. Impacts on environmental resources will require an integrated legal and socio-economic regulatory response. An effective and adaptable environmental law framework will be crucial for adaptation and mitigation measures. The project addresses this need by undertaking a comprehensive, interdisciplinary evaluation of Australia's legal capacity to respond to climate change, so identifying appropriate governance structures and regulatory tools. This analysis is vital to positioning Australian environmental law to manage climate change impacts and associated social, ecological and economic costs and to ensure compliance with international obligations.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354740
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,000.00
Summary
CaGaWaLo: regulation of carbon gain and water loss by woody vegetation. Trees and shrubs are widely perceived as central to solving problems of national and international significance. Seed funding is sought to facilitate establishment of a research network focused on their ability to sequester carbon and transmit water to the atmosphere. The proposed network is broadly based in plant physiology and ecology and contains a strong cross-section of leading international expertise in relevant sub- ....CaGaWaLo: regulation of carbon gain and water loss by woody vegetation. Trees and shrubs are widely perceived as central to solving problems of national and international significance. Seed funding is sought to facilitate establishment of a research network focused on their ability to sequester carbon and transmit water to the atmosphere. The proposed network is broadly based in plant physiology and ecology and contains a strong cross-section of leading international expertise in relevant sub-disciplines. By leveraging the huge pool of international expertise and focusing on a range of scales (from molecular to biosphere scales), this network will yield new ideas and approaches that will produce outputs and outcomes of national significance.Read moreRead less
Cellular automata model of forest stands to predict size-class distribution and survival. Existing forest growth models predict well stand level processes such as growth. However, they provide little information on forest structure and how this affects commercial forest products, risks of growing plantations and stand dynamics that determine carbon sequestration and water-use and result in age-related decline in productivity and self-thinning. By using newly developed technology to quantify in ....Cellular automata model of forest stands to predict size-class distribution and survival. Existing forest growth models predict well stand level processes such as growth. However, they provide little information on forest structure and how this affects commercial forest products, risks of growing plantations and stand dynamics that determine carbon sequestration and water-use and result in age-related decline in productivity and self-thinning. By using newly developed technology to quantify inter-tree competition, tree level resource supply, between tree genetic differences and the importance of chance events this project will draw on complexity theory to develop an innovative model that partitions stand level production to forecast the growth and size of individual trees.Read moreRead less
Balancing Water Quality and Ecosystem Health with Water Yield -- Ecosystem Response to Thinning in Wungong Catchment. Reduced rainfall in past decades and future climate uncertainty have added a sense of urgency in Australia to search for new water resources to sustain a growing economy and population. A forest thinning trial is planned in the Wungong Catchment, Western Australia, to substantially increase water yield. Thinning is attractive as a low-cost option, and is potentially suitable for ....Balancing Water Quality and Ecosystem Health with Water Yield -- Ecosystem Response to Thinning in Wungong Catchment. Reduced rainfall in past decades and future climate uncertainty have added a sense of urgency in Australia to search for new water resources to sustain a growing economy and population. A forest thinning trial is planned in the Wungong Catchment, Western Australia, to substantially increase water yield. Thinning is attractive as a low-cost option, and is potentially suitable for other catchments. However the potential environmental and ecological impacts, which are major community concerns, must be investigated. This project will assess the levels of impact, associated ecosystem responses and the capacity of catchment ecosystems to sustain such management intervention.Read moreRead less
Understanding the impact of global environmental change on Australian forests and woodlands using rainforest boundaries and Callitris growth as bio-indicators. Human-caused climate change is a fact but the ecological responses are uncertain. These could include accelerated tree growth, expansion of rainforest, and thickening of woodlands, although cessation of Aboriginal firing may be equally important. We will provide a historical context to understand how and why Australian forests have change ....Understanding the impact of global environmental change on Australian forests and woodlands using rainforest boundaries and Callitris growth as bio-indicators. Human-caused climate change is a fact but the ecological responses are uncertain. These could include accelerated tree growth, expansion of rainforest, and thickening of woodlands, although cessation of Aboriginal firing may be equally important. We will provide a historical context to understand how and why Australian forests have changed. Our results will inform management and policy debates about (i) rainforest conservation (ii) the role of fire in forest management (iii) the likely impact of increased CO2 ('fertiliser effect') of forest productivity (iv) national carbon accounting and (v) the consequences of climate change on forest ecosystems, particularly the respective wetting and drying trends in the north and south of Australia.Read moreRead less
Non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions in afforested ecosystems in southeastern Australia - fluxes, processes and regional budget. There are no data available about the extent of emissions of the non-CO2 greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane from soils of forest ecosystems in Australia and the current methodolgy to quantify these emissions contains high uncertainties. Using the latest technology available we propose to i) measure emission rates of afforested ecosystems for non-CO2 greenhouse gase ....Non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions in afforested ecosystems in southeastern Australia - fluxes, processes and regional budget. There are no data available about the extent of emissions of the non-CO2 greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane from soils of forest ecosystems in Australia and the current methodolgy to quantify these emissions contains high uncertainties. Using the latest technology available we propose to i) measure emission rates of afforested ecosystems for non-CO2 greenhouse gases in relation to previous land-use in southeastern Australia, ii) identify the processes controlling the emissions, iii) use the obtained data to calibrate a biogeochemical model, and iv) use the model to estimate regional inventories for non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions in southeastern Australia.Read moreRead less