Unlocking the environmental archives of the Kimberley’s past. This project aims to reconstruct the environmental history of Australia’s Kimberley region spanning the past 60,000 years. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the project will provide new understanding of the causes of environmental change and impacts on this region since the arrival of Australia’s earliest inhabitants. This will inform the development of conservation policy to ensure preservation of the region's globally significan ....Unlocking the environmental archives of the Kimberley’s past. This project aims to reconstruct the environmental history of Australia’s Kimberley region spanning the past 60,000 years. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the project will provide new understanding of the causes of environmental change and impacts on this region since the arrival of Australia’s earliest inhabitants. This will inform the development of conservation policy to ensure preservation of the region's globally significant rock art against environmental change and economic development.
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Life ways of the first Australians. The project will enhance national cultural heritage assessment and management in the west Kimberley. This is a Australian Government priority because of planned Liquid Natural Gas and other developments in this region. Through the project officer positions, Indigenous communities will gain training and skills that will lead to sustainable livelihoods in cultural tourism or employment opportunities in government cultural heritage agencies. The project directly ....Life ways of the first Australians. The project will enhance national cultural heritage assessment and management in the west Kimberley. This is a Australian Government priority because of planned Liquid Natural Gas and other developments in this region. Through the project officer positions, Indigenous communities will gain training and skills that will lead to sustainable livelihoods in cultural tourism or employment opportunities in government cultural heritage agencies. The project directly addresses the National Research Priority goal of responding to climate change and variability by advancing knowledge and understanding of past climates, and assisting in better modelling of future climate change in our region. The project will provide postgraduate training in fieldwork and analysis for four APAIs.Read moreRead less
Unravelling how aquatic coastal networks regulate nitrogen removal . The aim of this project is to determine the nitrogen removal pathways of the coastal zone using a number of innovative field and modelling approaches. Little is known about how the complex coastal landscape controls trade-offs that maximise nitrogen removal but minimise nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions. The outcomes of this study will significantly advance our understanding of the coastal zone in regional and g ....Unravelling how aquatic coastal networks regulate nitrogen removal . The aim of this project is to determine the nitrogen removal pathways of the coastal zone using a number of innovative field and modelling approaches. Little is known about how the complex coastal landscape controls trade-offs that maximise nitrogen removal but minimise nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions. The outcomes of this study will significantly advance our understanding of the coastal zone in regional and global nitrogen budgets. This will provide significant benefits such as a new science-based quantitative framework to facilitate best practice management to reduce terrestrial nitrogen loads and associated downstream impacts such as eutrophication, and reduce nitrous oxide emissions and associated global warming.
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Transitions to a Sustainable City, Geraldton WA: an applied study into co-creating sustainability though civic deliberation and social media. Creating sustainable cities and better linking citizens with government under a National Broadband Network future are national priorities. This project integrates these two priorities by pioneering and researching local cooperative governance through deliberative democracy as a means to create a sustainable city. The project (i) collaboratively designs, i ....Transitions to a Sustainable City, Geraldton WA: an applied study into co-creating sustainability though civic deliberation and social media. Creating sustainable cities and better linking citizens with government under a National Broadband Network future are national priorities. This project integrates these two priorities by pioneering and researching local cooperative governance through deliberative democracy as a means to create a sustainable city. The project (i) collaboratively designs, implements, and assesses inclusive deliberations; (ii) develops an innovative social media platform using supercomputer facilities that can assist informed public deliberation, translating scientific findings into easy to understand formats; (iii) researches the transformative effects of this deliberation on individual, community and Geraldton City carbon footprints.Read moreRead less
Southeast Asia's global economy, climate and the impact of natural hazards from the 10th to 21st centuries. This project's scope is uniquely broad and multidisciplinary, comprising collaborations between historians, archaeologists, seismologists and others. The aim is to analyse the development of south east Asia's vast and sophisticated economic system within the context of human-environment interactions, over a scale and time period which has been inadequately investigated.
Geodetic determination of the amount and spatial-scale of land subsidence and/or uplift in Australia. Heights can change with time, although most users assume that they are static quantities. Geodetic techniques will be employed to produce a vertical velocity model to make time-varying heights consistent and also to correct sea level change estimates at tide-gauges installed on land, that is either sinking or rising.
Geodetic and hydrogeological investigations of groundwater abstraction from confined aquifers: elastic response, heights, and sea level change. Parts of Perth are subsiding by as much as 5 millimetres (mm) per year, thus accelerating sea level rise relative to the land from 3 mm per year to 8 mm per year. The subsidence is most likely due to increased groundwater abstraction. This project aims to extend subsidence mapping in time and space using satellite-borne synthetic aperture radar, calibrat ....Geodetic and hydrogeological investigations of groundwater abstraction from confined aquifers: elastic response, heights, and sea level change. Parts of Perth are subsiding by as much as 5 millimetres (mm) per year, thus accelerating sea level rise relative to the land from 3 mm per year to 8 mm per year. The subsidence is most likely due to increased groundwater abstraction. This project aims to extend subsidence mapping in time and space using satellite-borne synthetic aperture radar, calibrated by complementary geodetic techniques, and coupled with new hydrogeological inputs from the Western Australian Department of Water. The research aims to provide science-based information to planners and managers on coastal vulnerability and determine the land response to groundwater abstraction. This will also allow for the correction of sea level change measurements from tide gauges.Read moreRead less
Climate-related regime shifts in inland semi-arid ecosystems through ecohydrological proxies. This project will investigate the dynamics of climate, especially rainfall, of the northwest of Australia over the last few thousand years. Our findings will increase understanding of climate variability and contribute to sustainable management of water and biodiversity in semi-arid Australia.
Fisheries genomics of snapper in Australia and New Zealand Waters. This industry-driven project aims to assemble a strategic research alliance to generate and apply knowledge to a highly significant fisheries resource. It involves collaboration between the five major state government fisheries agencies in Australia, the New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute for seafood and two Australian labs with leadership in fish genetics and genomics. It expects to generate and integrate genomic, environmen ....Fisheries genomics of snapper in Australia and New Zealand Waters. This industry-driven project aims to assemble a strategic research alliance to generate and apply knowledge to a highly significant fisheries resource. It involves collaboration between the five major state government fisheries agencies in Australia, the New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute for seafood and two Australian labs with leadership in fish genetics and genomics. It expects to generate and integrate genomic, environmental and phenotypic datasets for snapper populations from across vast coastal regions of the two countries. The outcomes should substantially enhance intra- and inter-jurisdictional fisheries management and aquaculture initiatives, providing commercial, social and environmental benefits for many stakeholders.Read moreRead less
Hazards, Tipping Points, Adaptation and Collapse in the Indo-Pacific World. The project aims to provide a new understanding of Indo-Pacific history post-1000 based on an improved understanding of the interrelationship between natural environmental cycles and events, and social and political cycles and events. By employing specialists and methodologies in both the social and natural sciences, the project aims to identify tipping points or thresholds beyond which both social and natural systems ch ....Hazards, Tipping Points, Adaptation and Collapse in the Indo-Pacific World. The project aims to provide a new understanding of Indo-Pacific history post-1000 based on an improved understanding of the interrelationship between natural environmental cycles and events, and social and political cycles and events. By employing specialists and methodologies in both the social and natural sciences, the project aims to identify tipping points or thresholds beyond which both social and natural systems change irrevocably. The anticipated outcome of the project highlights the importance of natural hazards as potential catalysts of historical change. Current societies might learn from these experiences to better understand disaster risk reduction in the context of anticipated climate variability.Read moreRead less