Vulnerabilities for environmental water outcomes in a changing climate. This project aims to assess the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to extended droughts in a variable and changing climate. Governments around the world are investing in the restoration of regulated river systems with environmental water. However, the risks of climate change for environmental water management are seldom considered. This project will model the change in environmental and consumptive water use during exten ....Vulnerabilities for environmental water outcomes in a changing climate. This project aims to assess the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to extended droughts in a variable and changing climate. Governments around the world are investing in the restoration of regulated river systems with environmental water. However, the risks of climate change for environmental water management are seldom considered. This project will model the change in environmental and consumptive water use during extended dry periods, and couple this to models of ecological dynamics and failure thresholds. This will improve the success of Australia’s major environmental water programs in sustaining benefits through future multi-year droughts.Read moreRead less
How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environ ....How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental flows, and promote greater understanding of the links between flow patterns and river health. The project will build upon existing knowledge to create a sound framework for planning, monitoring, and evaluation of environmental watering decisions across regional Australia, greatly improving our ability to sustainably manage rivers into the future.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
Incendiary cultures: co-constructing resilience to engage with fire and risk in landscape management. Effective communication and management of bushfire risk can be hindered by wide divergence between expert views and community understandings. Building on resilience theory, this project will draw together experts from fire agencies and local communities to rethink fire from modelling to combat, and from resisting to engaging in response activities.
Reproducibility and open science in environmental research. The goal of this project is to improve the reproducibility and transparency of environmental science. Disturbingly low levels of reproducibility have recently been uncovered in other disciplines, and there are good reasons to suspect the same conditions in environmental science. However, it has thus far been excused from evaluation because of the large spatial scales, long time horizons and dependencies among processes that prohibit dir ....Reproducibility and open science in environmental research. The goal of this project is to improve the reproducibility and transparency of environmental science. Disturbingly low levels of reproducibility have recently been uncovered in other disciplines, and there are good reasons to suspect the same conditions in environmental science. However, it has thus far been excused from evaluation because of the large spatial scales, long time horizons and dependencies among processes that prohibit direct replication of empirical field research. The project plans to assess the reproducibility of environmental research and develop systematic review methods that account for bias in published research. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the standards for statistical inference and reporting in the discipline, and facilitate a cultural shift to ‘Open Science’ to ensure a more reliable evidence base for environmental decisions. Read moreRead less
Enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services in production landscapes. This project aims to develop new approaches using causal inference, optimal allocation theory, and spatial statistics to characterise impacts on a diverse suite of ecosystem services. It will endeavour to develop case studies from three continents and generalisations explicitly tested using simulated landscapes. Environmental and agricultural policies promote land sharing (biodiversity-friendly production) or land sparing (p ....Enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services in production landscapes. This project aims to develop new approaches using causal inference, optimal allocation theory, and spatial statistics to characterise impacts on a diverse suite of ecosystem services. It will endeavour to develop case studies from three continents and generalisations explicitly tested using simulated landscapes. Environmental and agricultural policies promote land sharing (biodiversity-friendly production) or land sparing (protected areas, with yield increases elsewhere). Yet the impacts of such policies in diverse contexts and for multiple outcomes are poorly understood. The project could advance our ability to deliver sustainable outcomes and more effective as well as equitable policies for production landscapes.Read moreRead less
Adaptive management of native vegetation condition. Environmental managers face severe uncertainty about how to best restore native habitats. This project will develop an adaptive strategy to improve vegetation management decisions by integrating expert knowledge with monitoring. This will improve the efficiency of management and provide an example of 'learning by doing' in two case study regions.