Managing Australian landscapes to reduce house loss during bushfires. The number of houses destroyed by bushfires in Australia is increasing. This project aims to undertake the first comprehensive analysis of links between land management practices and house loss during bushfires across Australia. Results from this research are expected to improve the ability of authorities, industry and individual home owners to quantify risk from bushfires, and to identify ways that Australian landscapes can b ....Managing Australian landscapes to reduce house loss during bushfires. The number of houses destroyed by bushfires in Australia is increasing. This project aims to undertake the first comprehensive analysis of links between land management practices and house loss during bushfires across Australia. Results from this research are expected to improve the ability of authorities, industry and individual home owners to quantify risk from bushfires, and to identify ways that Australian landscapes can be managed to reduce house losses during bushfires. Results from this research will be communicated directly to key stakeholders including government agencies, industry and home owners.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100922
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$408,490.00
Summary
Foresight: Anticipatory decision-making in water resource management. Long-term planning is vital to secure Australia’s water resources in the face of environmental disruption. This project aims to contribute to sustainable and equitable water management by examining the efficacy of anticipatory decision-making approaches. Qualitative research will be used to examine how scientific knowledge is used or contested in water reform within the Murray-Darling Basin. Intended outcomes include improved ....Foresight: Anticipatory decision-making in water resource management. Long-term planning is vital to secure Australia’s water resources in the face of environmental disruption. This project aims to contribute to sustainable and equitable water management by examining the efficacy of anticipatory decision-making approaches. Qualitative research will be used to examine how scientific knowledge is used or contested in water reform within the Murray-Darling Basin. Intended outcomes include improved capacities to plan for future change and establishing anticipatory decision-making within Australian natural resource management. This should provide significant benefits based on an integrated approach to science and decision-making that addresses trade-offs between stakeholders to identify shared action pathways.Read moreRead less
The ecological impact of large carnivore restoration. This project aims to assess the ecological changes that have arisen due to the repatriation of estuarine crocodiles to Australian ecosystems. It is significant because the restoration provides a rare opportunity to empirically test changes in ecosystem processes under varying degrees of large carnivore predation pressure. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of the processes that govern the strength of predator-ecosystem interacti ....The ecological impact of large carnivore restoration. This project aims to assess the ecological changes that have arisen due to the repatriation of estuarine crocodiles to Australian ecosystems. It is significant because the restoration provides a rare opportunity to empirically test changes in ecosystem processes under varying degrees of large carnivore predation pressure. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of the processes that govern the strength of predator-ecosystem interactions and an ability to quantify the biomass, social structure, and behaviours of predators required to influence these processes. Benefits should include improvements in how the ecological role of large carnivores is measured, and when and where carnivore populations should be culled or conserved.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100924
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Living with bushfires: generating essential evidence for sustainable fire management. Planned burning is a crucial tool for bushfire management yet a side effect is smoke pollution. This research will use ambulance data to assess the acute community health impacts of smoke from wild and planned fires to provide essential evidence for increasing the safety and acceptability of planned burning operations in Australia.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101129
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$438,479.00
Summary
Assessing the risks of extracting metals for the global energy transition. This project aims to produce the first of its kind online atlas that systematically documents the social, environmental and economic impacts in mining locations around the world. Analysing impacts at the source of metal supply chains is crucial to comprehend the implications of transitioning to metal-intensive low-carbon energy technologies. The project would deliver insights on available pathways to achieve a ‘just’ ener ....Assessing the risks of extracting metals for the global energy transition. This project aims to produce the first of its kind online atlas that systematically documents the social, environmental and economic impacts in mining locations around the world. Analysing impacts at the source of metal supply chains is crucial to comprehend the implications of transitioning to metal-intensive low-carbon energy technologies. The project would deliver insights on available pathways to achieve a ‘just’ energy transition, meaning a transition that successfully tackles climate change without placing unacceptable burden on mining communities and environments. The goal of the research is to generate evidence-based recommendations so that future metal supply can be both reliable and responsible.Read moreRead less
Does fire control vegetation in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area? Aims: This project aims to discriminate between competing explanations for vegetation patterns in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area: (a) fire (the legacy of Aboriginal burning), or (b) soil. We will do this through a novel, transdisciplinary research program.
Significance: The project expects to create new knowledge essential for achieving evidence-based fire management, as well as to advance a globally important ecol ....Does fire control vegetation in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area? Aims: This project aims to discriminate between competing explanations for vegetation patterns in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area: (a) fire (the legacy of Aboriginal burning), or (b) soil. We will do this through a novel, transdisciplinary research program.
Significance: The project expects to create new knowledge essential for achieving evidence-based fire management, as well as to advance a globally important ecological theory.
Outcomes: Expected outcomes include significantly strengthened fire science and fire management capacity in Tasmania.
Benefit: Benefits should include the protection of globally significant cultural, biological and landscape values that sustain the vibrant Tasmanian tourist economy.Read moreRead less
Exploring the construction of memory and place in repeat disaster landscapes. Community disaster resilience requires active engagement from emergency management agencies and people in at-risk landscapes. There is tension between collaborative planning in preparing for emergencies and command-and-control procedures during actual emergencies. Communities and agencies need new ways to interact and adapt to future repeat disasters in changing landscapes. This innovative research project analyses com ....Exploring the construction of memory and place in repeat disaster landscapes. Community disaster resilience requires active engagement from emergency management agencies and people in at-risk landscapes. There is tension between collaborative planning in preparing for emergencies and command-and-control procedures during actual emergencies. Communities and agencies need new ways to interact and adapt to future repeat disasters in changing landscapes. This innovative research project analyses community-led planning projects underway nation-wide, identifying emergent theory, assessing opportunities and benefits, as well as barriers to change. It aims to build community resilience and shared responsibility by integrating and refining existing practices; strengthening civic society through social resilience to risk.Read moreRead less
Conservation of tropical forests for their carbon and biodiversity values. International efforts to save tropical forests for the carbon they store could help mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. This project will aid these efforts by developing methods to model future deforestation and extending decision theory for the new challenges presented by international carbon-payment schemes.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190101081
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$364,990.00
Summary
Mining the deep oceans: ensuring compliance with international obligations. This project aims to influence the development of an effective compliance regime to minimise environmental harm from deep seabed mining, a new industry that poses great risks to ocean environments. This project will contribute to the current development of international mining regulations by translating best available science on environmental management into law and policy recommendations. The project will also analyse w ....Mining the deep oceans: ensuring compliance with international obligations. This project aims to influence the development of an effective compliance regime to minimise environmental harm from deep seabed mining, a new industry that poses great risks to ocean environments. This project will contribute to the current development of international mining regulations by translating best available science on environmental management into law and policy recommendations. The project will also analyse what laws nations need to adopt to ensure compliance of their mining operators and thereby avoid liability. This project will advance law of the sea scholarship and generate key environmental benefits by helping to minimise harm to the oceans. It also creates economic benefits for states by avoiding risk.Read moreRead less
Fauna, fuel and fire: effects of animals on bushfire risk. This project aims to determine the extent that animals influence fire regimes through effects on fuel load and characteristics. Minimising the risk of large, severe bushfires, while conserving native species is one of the greatest challenges facing managers of fire-prone ecosystems globally. Using a powerful combination of landscape-scale field observations, experimental manipulations of animal densities, and modelling, the project expec ....Fauna, fuel and fire: effects of animals on bushfire risk. This project aims to determine the extent that animals influence fire regimes through effects on fuel load and characteristics. Minimising the risk of large, severe bushfires, while conserving native species is one of the greatest challenges facing managers of fire-prone ecosystems globally. Using a powerful combination of landscape-scale field observations, experimental manipulations of animal densities, and modelling, the project expects to quantify interactions between animals, bushfire fuel and fire regimes in south eastern Australian forests, woodlands and scrublands. This evidence should benefit the design of integrated, efficient, and complementary strategies for fire and fauna management in Australia’s extensive fire-prone ecosystems.Read moreRead less