Improved methods for predicting species' distributions under environmental change. Understanding the impacts of climate change and invasive species on the distribution and persistence of species is an issue of global and national significance and concern. This project will provide tools essential for the effective management of Australia's ecosystems by delivering clear guidelines and practical methods that will substantially improve the modelling of future species distributions.
Robust prediction and decision strategies for managing extinction risks under climate change. Climate change is a principal threat to biodiversity and ecosystem health. The loss of ecosystem services from loss of species and ecosystem change may have serious social and economic repercussions. Unreliable predictions of climate change impacts and inefficient adaptation decisions result in wasted public resources and unnecessary loss of natural assets. In addition to direct benefits of efficient ad ....Robust prediction and decision strategies for managing extinction risks under climate change. Climate change is a principal threat to biodiversity and ecosystem health. The loss of ecosystem services from loss of species and ecosystem change may have serious social and economic repercussions. Unreliable predictions of climate change impacts and inefficient adaptation decisions result in wasted public resources and unnecessary loss of natural assets. In addition to direct benefits of efficient adaptation strategies for case-study ecosystems, techniques arising from this research will improve the way we respond to uncertain, but potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change. Bringing state-of-the-art modelling and formal decision methods to climate change adaptation is a central aim of this research.Read moreRead less
Active-passive microwave soil moisture remote sensing: Towards sustainable land and water management from space. Soil moisture is a highly critical resource for the Australian agricultural economy which is stressed by climate change. Daily monitoring of paddock scale soil moisture from space represents a powerful tool to inform land management, allowing accurate crop yield and pasture growth predictions. At the continental scale, soil moisture information will result in better weather, climate a ....Active-passive microwave soil moisture remote sensing: Towards sustainable land and water management from space. Soil moisture is a highly critical resource for the Australian agricultural economy which is stressed by climate change. Daily monitoring of paddock scale soil moisture from space represents a powerful tool to inform land management, allowing accurate crop yield and pasture growth predictions. At the continental scale, soil moisture information will result in better weather, climate and extreme flood prediction skill and the ability to assess the effects of future climate change on Australia. It is therefore imperative that active-passive soil moisture retrieval algorithms be developed specifically for the Australian environment in order to take full advantage of the SMAP remote sensing mission when it is launched in 2012.Read moreRead less
High resolution mapping of surface and root zone soil moisture. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal variation of surface and root zone soil moisture content at high spatial resolution is critical to achieving more efficient water utilisation practices in agriculture. Australia's main river basins are under mounting pressure to satisfy a wide range of competing economic, social and environmental needs for water, particularly in terms of environmental flows and efficient irrigation. A better u ....High resolution mapping of surface and root zone soil moisture. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal variation of surface and root zone soil moisture content at high spatial resolution is critical to achieving more efficient water utilisation practices in agriculture. Australia's main river basins are under mounting pressure to satisfy a wide range of competing economic, social and environmental needs for water, particularly in terms of environmental flows and efficient irrigation. A better understanding of the soil moisture distribution at sub-farm scales will allow farmers to better utilise both the moisture in their soil and their limited allocation for irrigation. This will help alleviate soil moisture related problems in some of the nation's key catchments, such as the Murray Darling Basin.Read moreRead less
Impacts of deforestation and afforestation on greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon and water resources in the Daly River catchment, north Australia. Over the last decade, north Australia have been viewed as a potentially exploitable resource, given issues of salinisation, soil acidification, over-allocation of water resources and rainfall declines in south Australian agricultural regions. Improved pastures and plantation forestry are two land uses that may expand in the NT. Clearing of savanna v ....Impacts of deforestation and afforestation on greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon and water resources in the Daly River catchment, north Australia. Over the last decade, north Australia have been viewed as a potentially exploitable resource, given issues of salinisation, soil acidification, over-allocation of water resources and rainfall declines in south Australian agricultural regions. Improved pastures and plantation forestry are two land uses that may expand in the NT. Clearing of savanna vegetation would be required, with implications for greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, water resources and dry season environmental flows. This project will track greenhouse emissions and water use from uncleared and cleared savanna that has been converted to pasture and timber plantations, providing critical understanding of the environmental implication of such land use change in savanna.Read moreRead less
Optimal environmental monitoring under severe uncertainty. Environmental monitoring is a type of quality control that informs managers about the health of the environment and about how well their management systems are performing. Because it is a critical, but expensive, component of sustainable management, it is important to ensure value for resources spent on monitoring and that environmental impacts will be detected if they are occurring. We argue that current approaches to environmental mana ....Optimal environmental monitoring under severe uncertainty. Environmental monitoring is a type of quality control that informs managers about the health of the environment and about how well their management systems are performing. Because it is a critical, but expensive, component of sustainable management, it is important to ensure value for resources spent on monitoring and that environmental impacts will be detected if they are occurring. We argue that current approaches to environmental management ensure neither efficiency nor environmental security. The aim of the project is to develop theories and techniques to make monitoring both cost effective and reliable, thereby providing monetary savings and better environmental outcomes.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
Change ecology - gaining broad-scale, timely biodiversity knowledge in a time of uncertainty. Australians are confronted daily with the consequences of changes wrought by human over-exploitation of natural resources. Our capacity to track and respond to change is very limited and slow. Thus, rapid deterioration of ecologically important aspects is detected late and is not reflective of the general state because knowledge is derived from small-scale measurements that are difficult to generalize. ....Change ecology - gaining broad-scale, timely biodiversity knowledge in a time of uncertainty. Australians are confronted daily with the consequences of changes wrought by human over-exploitation of natural resources. Our capacity to track and respond to change is very limited and slow. Thus, rapid deterioration of ecologically important aspects is detected late and is not reflective of the general state because knowledge is derived from small-scale measurements that are difficult to generalize. We will build a capacity for providing large-scale knowledge of vegetation condition and flow-on effects on biodiversity, which also will allow us to make informed assessments of the ecological consequences of some existing (climate change, drying) and imminent (biofuel plantings) drivers of change.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
Fire Scar Impacts on Surface Heat and Moisture Fluxes in Australia's Tropical Savanna and Feedbacks to Local and Regional Climate. Fire burns as much as 250,000 km2 of northern Australia every year, mostly tropical savanna land. The atmospheric impacts of burning extend beyond the direct emissions of aerosol and trace gases to include the effects of land surface alteration on atmospheric circulation. Using observation and modelling, this study examines the modification of surface heat and mois ....Fire Scar Impacts on Surface Heat and Moisture Fluxes in Australia's Tropical Savanna and Feedbacks to Local and Regional Climate. Fire burns as much as 250,000 km2 of northern Australia every year, mostly tropical savanna land. The atmospheric impacts of burning extend beyond the direct emissions of aerosol and trace gases to include the effects of land surface alteration on atmospheric circulation. Using observation and modelling, this study examines the modification of surface heat and moisture fluxes to the atmosphere caused by fire scars, along with the impact of such changes on atmospheric motion and precipitation at a range of scales. This unique work is of fundamental scientific interest and significance for current and future management of this important national resource.Read moreRead less