Adelaide Laboratory Public Seminar Series
- Abstracts 2010
Impacts of stressors on aquatic food webs and ecosystem functioning
Sally Hladyz
Post doctoral fellow in the Catchment and Aquatic Systems research program of CSIRO Land and Water is based in Wodonga at The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre.
Abstract
Freshwater ecosystems have high biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services to humans such as the provision of clean drinking water and a utility for waste disposal. However, we are living in a time where ecosystems are being degraded and biodiversity is being lost at rates not seen in human history and such changes will have significant consequences for the goods and flow of services ecosystems provide.
Threats induced by human activities to freshwater ecosystems include pollution, habitat loss and ⁄ or degradation, flow modifications, exotic species invasions and climate change. She will discuss aspects of her work that have investigated the impacts of some of these stressors on aquatic food webs and ecosystem functioning.
About the speaker
Dr Sally Hladyz is originally from Australia, studied for her PhD in Aquatic Ecology at University College Cork, Ireland as part of a pan-European EU project, RivFunction, which attempted to develop and disseminate a methodology for assessing the functional component of river quality status, based on litter decomposition assays.
After her PhD she worked as an environmental consultant in the UK in Southampton. She was then subsequently successful in applying for a CSIRO post doctoral fellowship based in Wodonga at The Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre. Her recent research involves examining the influence of flow variability on riverine food webs in order to understand how flow variability influences riverine-floodplain sources of carbon, trophic structure and energy flow.
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Prioritising robust and cost-effective regional
investment in natural capital and ecosystem services
Dr Brett Bryan
Principal Research Scientist,
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
Abstract
Identifying good investments is complex for environmental agencies as several prioritisation strategies may be used and significant uncertainty often surrounds their costs, benefits, and available budgets.
In this seminar Dr Bryan will present a model for robust portfolio selection based on preference programming developed to support cost-effective environmental investment decisions under uncertainty and applied it to the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin.
Benefits and costs of 46 investment alternatives (or targets) for managing natural capital and ecosystem services were quantified and the associated uncertainty estimated. Thirty-six non-dominated investment portfolios were selected using mathematical programming under four investment prioritisation strategies (cost-effectiveness (E-max), cost-effectiveness including core costs (E-max*), cost-only (C-rank), and benefit-only (B-rank)), three decision rules (pessimistic, most likely, and optimistic), and three budget scenarios (minimum, most likely, maximum).
Compared to the optimally performing investment strategy E-max, E-max* and C-rank only slightly reduced portfolio performance and altered portfolio composition. However, the B-rank strategy reduced performance by half and radically changed composition. Uncertainty in costs, benefits, and available budgets also strongly influenced portfolio performance and composition. I conclude that in this case study the consideration of uncertainty was at least as important as investment strategy selection in effective environmental decision-making. Targets whose selection was less sensitive to investment strategy and uncertainty were identified as more robust investments.
The results have informed the allocation of AU$69 million in the study area and the techniques are readily adaptable to similar conservation and environmental investment decisions in other jurisdictions at a variety of scales.
About the speaker
Dr Brett Bryan is a principal research scientist in CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. Through analysis of socio-economic and environmental processes, he takes an integrated approach to delivering cost-effective policy and management options for complex issues including conservation, land and water resources, energy, and food security, under climate change.
Dr Bryan has a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, Masters of Environmental Studies and his PhD thesis was on strategic revegetation planning.
He is currently a stream leader in the Sustainable Agriculture Flagship and leads several projects across other portfolios. His projects include integrated spatial and temporal decision-making for allocating water resources for ecological and social benefits in the River Murray floodplains; investment, risk and decision analysis for sustainable agricultural landscapes, and the integrated assessment of climate change vulnerability. His projects aim to help key clients target investment in natural resource management to achieve greater benefit from limited resources.
He has authored over 100 publications.
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Field roots and their rhizospheres
Dr Michelle Watt
Research Scientist and Stream Leader,
CSIRO Plant Industry.
Abstract
Plant productivity and soil resource use in managed and natural landscapes depend on the functioning of the root systems and their interactions with the soil, within the rhizosphere. The rhizosphere is the volume of soil that surrounds the root that is directly influenced by the root, mainly through the release and uptake of many chemicals (>700) with specialised functions including solubilising nutrients, inhibiting pathogens, detoxifying elements and feeding and signalling to soil microorganisms (~1 million per mm of rhizosphere).
Our knowledge of root systems and their rhizospheres in the field is very limited – most information comes from young, laboratory roots grown in simplified media. In order to manage crop and native vegetation for improved productivity, and conserve water, nutrients and soil, we need a much better understanding of roots and rhizospheres in the field.
This talk will describe how we use mainly imaging and microscopy methods to understand the spatial and temporal processes within and around field roots, and then apply that knowledge to sustainable cropping by modifying both the plant and agronomic practices.
About the speaker
Dr Michelle Watt is a Research Scientist based at CSIRO Plant Industry, at the Black Mountain Laboratories in Canberra. She is a Group (Root growth and soil biology) and Stream Leader (Root architecture and rhizosphere processes).
She came to Australia from Canada in 1996 to do her PhD at the Australian National University, and joined CSIRO in 2001.
She is a recipient of a CSIRO Julius Award which funded recent visits to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to study root-bacterial community interactions with live imaging.
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Characterisation and Agronomic Benefits of Wine and Citrus Industry Derived Biochars
Dr Wendy Quayle
Research Scientist, CSIRO Land and Water, Griffith Laboratory
Abstract
A pot trial is being conducted to investigate the effect of four different biochars produced from wine and citrus industry by-products on the yield of sweetcorn and the soil quality of a Chromosol. Two rates of biochar (45 and 90 t/ha) with and without additional nitrogen and phosphorous application are being investigated.
Information on the characteristics of the feedstocks, biochars and amended soil, the experimental design, and preliminary yield results will be presented.
About the speaker
Dr Wendy Quayle is a research scientist (water quality/soil) at CSIRO Land and Water, Griffith Laboratory, Griffith, NSW, Australia.
Her primary research interests lie in the characterisation, monitoring and management of organic elements, salt and nutrients in irrigation drainage water and soils for agricultural and environmental sustainability.
She was awarded a PhD (The Diagenesis of Nitrogen in Recent Sediments) from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK in 1995 and subsequently worked for a large UK water corporation (1 year) followed by the British Antarctic Survey (5 years). She moved to CLW, Griffith in 2001.
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Cool science and rotting leaves: Using Synchrotron FT-IR micro-spectroscopy to investigate aquatic leaf decomposition by fungi
Ms Janice Williams
PhD Candidate, Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre (MDFRC), Albury Wodonga
Abstract
Research into fungi in Australia has to date focused on terrestrial macro-fungi, soil flora and plant pathogens. However, a rich diversity of fungi is also found in aquatic ecosystems such as rivers and wetlands, where these organisms are important in food webs and carbon cycles. Of particular interest is the role of fungi in decomposing submerged plant material and how the activity of their enzymes might influence carbon cycles. When fungi colonise submerged leaf material, it is known as leaf conditioning. This process modifies the chemical composition of a leaf, adding protein and other nutrients to a carbohydrate dominated food source. For this reason, fungal leaf conditioning is an important component of aquatic food webs.
We used high resolution infra-red micro-spectroscopy at the Australian Synchrotron to show chemical changes occurring during leaf conditioning in a river and wetland as a result of fungal activity. This spatially explicit data shows that changes in the content and distribution of lignin and polysaccharides in a leaf cross section that are consistent with fungal extracellular enzyme activity. Leaf protein enrichment is shown to be spatially correlated with fungal tissues. The high resolution gained using Synchrotron FTIR has allowed us to demonstrate the importance of fungi in breaking down refractory leaf components in the aquatic environment.
About the speaker
Ms Janice Williams is a PhD Candidate through the
Department of Environmental Management and Ecology at
La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga.
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Quantifying the uncertainty in pollutant loads in Great Barrier Reef catchments
Dr Petra Kuhnert
Research Statistician, CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics
Abstract
The export of pollutants from coastal catchments has important implications for the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). As a result, there is a strong need to identify appropriate statistical methods for reliably estimating annual pollutants loads (with some measure of uncertainty) based on monitoring data and assessing progress towards defined loads targets.
Through funding from the Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility (MTSRF), we have developed a statistical methodology for estimating pollutant loads with uncertainties. The approach is regression based and incorporates a four step process: (1) method for flow regularisation to correct for sampling bias; (2) statistical model for concentration; (3) the load calculated at regular time intervals; and (4) an estimate of the uncertainty in the loads estimate. The statistical model incorporates terms for flow, and other characteristics of flow (e.g. rising or falling limb or flow history), in an attempt to mimic some of the hydrological phenomena observed in these complex systems, while two different sources of uncertainties are captured by the model to address error in the concentration samples and error in the flow measurements. The regression approach is flexible and can be shown to encompass other existing load estimation methods such as the average estimators.
The methodology has been implemented in the R programming language as the LRE package, which we demonstrate using monitoring data captured in the Burdekin. The current version (1.0) is the result of two workshops with end-users and various iterations around the method’s implementation, the inputs required and outputs produced to ensure ease of uptake. The choice of estimation method is often a difficult decision, and there has been a strong focus here on guiding the user through that decision process. We will outline the main features of the package and highlight a number of features that could be potentially explored to improve its use.
About the speaker
Dr Petra Kuhnert is a research statistician in the Environmental Informatics theme within CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics and works on a wide range of risk, marine and aquatic ecosystem problems.
She has a PhD in applied statistics, focussing more recently on incorporating uncertainty into deterministic models, elicitation practices with experts on risk related issues and the translation and synthesis of expert opinion into priors to inform Bayesian models.
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The Australian Integrated Carbon Assessment System: Assessing land-use trade-offs from carbon policy
Dr Brett Bryan
Principal Research Scientist,
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
Abstract
AICAS is the proposed Australian Integrated Carbon Assessment System. Within this broader umbrella, Dr Bryan will talk about the direction of the land use trade-offs project. This project is premised on the introduction of market-based climate policy and the significant opportunities that may arise for landholders to adopt a range of land use and management options (e.g. bioenergy, carbon forests, minimum tillage, livestock and vegetation management, soil carbon and biochar) for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. However, these changes may generate collateral impacts (positive and negative, direct and indirect) for regional development, energy security, food production, land and water resources, biodiversity conservation, and other ecosystem services. There is a strong need for the evaluation of the impact of alternative policy options at a high spatial resolution to maximise cost-effectiveness of land use and management change for GHG mitigation in Australia’s agricultural landscapes under climate change scenarios. This is required to inform decision-making for Australia’s transition to a low carbon economy. Three key questions we will seek to answer are:
- What changes in land use and management may be motivated by various climate policy options? Where and when might these occur under alternative climate change scenarios?
- What might be the impacts and trade-offs associated with these changes in terms of GHG mitigation, economics, supply chains, regional development, food production, energy security, biodiversity, and land and water resources?
- What policy options (e.g. spatial planning, incentives) are available to cost-effectively achieve both GHG mitigation and other collateral benefits, and avoid unforseen costs?
We propose the spatially-explicit, integrated assessment and modelling of the costs, benefits, and trade-offs of alternative land use and management options for GHG mitigation and adaptation in Australia. Working with key stakeholders and policy-makers, we will assess the potential impact of changes in land use and management for GHG mitigation under a range of policy options and climate change scenarios, and effectively visualise and communicate the results.
The initial work will concentrate on creating a scientifically robust, comprehensive and granular view of Australian GHG emissions and a first cut of the key drivers of emissions in integrated scenarios, eg population growth, impacts of climate change, societal preferences as a first stage of AICAS. It will provide the first integrated and granular map of carbon emissions and what we can do about it across the whole continent. It will also provide the foundation for future integrated assessment work.
About the speaker
Dr Brett Bryan is a principal research scientist in CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. Through analysis of socio-economic and environmental processes, he takes an integrated approach to delivering cost-effective policy and management options for complex issues including conservation, land and water resources, energy, and food security, under climate change.
Dr Bryan has a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, Masters of Environmental Studies and his PhD thesis was on strategic revegetation planning.
He is currently a stream leader in the Sustainable Agriculture Flagship and leads several projects across other portfolios. His projects include integrated spatial and temporal decision-making for allocating water resources for ecological and social benefits in the River Murray floodplains; investment, risk and decision analysis for sustainable agricultural landscapes, and the integrated assessment of climate change vulnerability. His projects aim to help key clients target investment in natural resource management to achieve greater benefit from limited resources.
He has authored over 100 publications.
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Evaluation of a dual isotope technique to trace sources of nitrate in catchments
Dr Payton Gardner
Postdoctoral Fellow, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Multiple environmental tracers measured in cold, warm and hydrothermal springs are used to understand the dynamics groundwater flow in areas of large hydrothermal discharge. Springs in and around the Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park were sampled for major and trace elemental chemistry, stable isotopes of water, CFCs, 3H and dissolved noble gas isotopes. Limits placed on mixing of shallow water and boiling during hydrothermal ascent constrain the deuterium composition of hydrothermal parent water, and indicate that the parent water is similar in composition to local shallow water.
At the regional scale, the groundwater system is characterised by a binary distribution of flowpaths and a lack of intermediate flow paths. Water age and chemistries are best explained as a binary mixture of 1) young, shallow, cool and 2) old, deep, hydrothermal water types. Numerical models of coupled groundwater and heat flow are able to reproduce subsurface temperatures as well processes inferred from environmental tracers and hydrograph analysis.
Numerical simulations provide a geologically plausible model of local to regional groundwater flow which honor the complex physics of heat and fluid flow in the Norris Geyser Basin area, and integrate the hydrothermal system into a broader model of local to regional scale groundwater and heat flow in the area.
About the speaker
Dr. Payton Gardner is an OCE post doctoral fellow for CSIRO Land and Water. Payton did his undergraduate work in Geology and Mathematics at the University of Montana, and completed his masters and PhD in Geophysics from University of Utah. His area of study is the use of environmental tracers is groundwater hydrology, with an emphasis on noble gas geochemistry of natural waters. He did his dissertation work on the groundwater systems surrounding large geothermal basins in Yellowstone National Park, USA.
Payton recently joined CSIRO as a post doctoral fellow focused on developing radiogenic helium as a groundwater tracer. Payton's role in CSIRO includes developing analytical systems, sampling techniques, and improved data interpretation for dissolved noble gases in groundwater. He is currently working on projects using radiogenic helium as a tool for studying groundwater-stream water interactions, and determining diffusive discharge through the Great Artesian Basin Aquitards.
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Evaluation of a dual isotope technique to trace sources of nitrate in catchments (Download PDF, 2.5 MB)
Dr Kirsten Verburg
Senior Research Scientist and Project Leader,
CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Prioritisation and targeting of natural resource management for catchment water quality requires knowledge of how a ‘catchment works’: identification of the sources, flow paths and sinks of nutrients and sediments within a catchment. Multi-isotopic tracing approaches can in this context provide useful evidence, often conclusive, about pathways or sources of water and nutrients. A 15N and 18O dual isotope technique specific to nitrate appears particularly powerful for agricultural catchments as it has the potential to separate different sources of nitrate in stream water. The analysis technique is, however, not currently available in Australia, and even in the U.S. and Europe it is mostly applied within research projects.
In this seminar she reports back on a visit* to Dr Carol Kendall who leads the Isotope Tracers Project at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, CA. Her group has applied the 15N and 18O nitrate dual isotope technique in combination with other isotope techniques in a range of catchment studies in the U.S. I will present an overview of the approach and examples of its application in catchment water quality studies. My evaluation of the dual isotope technique is intended to inform a discussion about introducing this capability in Australian laboratories.
*Funding from the Australian Academy of Sciences and CSIRO gratefully acknowledged.
About the speaker
Dr Kirsten Verburg is a Senior Research Scientist in the Soil and Landscape Science program within CSIRO Land and Water. She leads a Commonwealth Environment Research Facility (CERF) Landscape Logic project that develops and evaluates methods to identify sources of nutrients and sediments within catchments and their pathways to the waterways.
She travelled on a grant from the Australian Academy of Science to the U.S.A. to work with Dr Carol Kendall and her group at the U.S. Geological Survey.
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Water use by Eucalyptus globulus plantations over shallow groundwater on the Fleurieu Peninsula
Dr Kate Holland
Research Scientist,
CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
The swamps and wetlands of the Fleurieu Peninsula have been recognised as a critically endangered ecological community that support the Endangered Southern Emu Wren (Stipiturus malachurus intermedius). These wetlands are sustained by a combination of surface and ground-water inflows (including springs). Therefore, changes to the catchment water balance pose a threat to the extent and persistence of these wetland areas. Plantation forestry is one example of intensified land use in the region, which increases demand and pressure for water resources. Eucalyptus globulus (blue gum) plantations in the lower South East of South Australia are known to use low salinity groundwater when the water table is less than 6 m deep (Benyon and Doody, 2004). The aim of this project was to quantify the volume of groundwater used by blue gum plantations overlying a low salinity, local groundwater flow system on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
To quantify E. globulus water use, two water balance plots were established in the Glen Shera blue gum plantation between Myponga and Mount Compass, one was established in a low lying area, where the water table was approximately 5 m below the surface, the second plot was established further up the slope, where the groundwater was approximately 12 m below the surface. Measurements of rainfall, tree water use (transpiration was measured continuously), soil water content to ~6 m depth, rainfall interception and soil evaporation were measured every four to five weeks from 5th December 2008 to 12th April 2010.
Results from the Fleurieu Peninsula sites will be compared with previous observations of plantation water use from the Lower South East of South Australia.
About the speaker
Dr Kate Holland is an ecohydrologist who uses skills from the disciplines of plant ecophysiology and hydrology to understand the hydrological processes that affect the health of vegetation in water limited environments. Her research interests include tree ecophysiology in saline floodplain environments, regional scale floodplain salinisation risk modelling and vegetation water use strategies in water limited environments.
She has a BSc (Hons) in Zoology (University of Adelaide) and a PhD. in Ecohydrology (Flinders University).
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Adapting to Drought in the San Joaquin Valley of California
Dr Jim Ayars
Agricultural Engineer, U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service
Abstract
This is an overview of the strategies being taken by farmers in the San Joaquin Valley of California to cope with the current limited water supplies. It gives a brief case study of the response of one irrigation district.
About the speaker
Dr. Jim Ayars is a research agricultural engineer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service in Parlier, CA. He has 30 years of experience in research related to the integrated management of irrigation and drainage systems in arid irrigated agriculture. He has investigated the management of irrigation systems in the presence of shallow saline ground water and in-situ use of ground water by crops. He is currently studying the water requirements of horticultural crops grown in the saline soils of the San Joaquin Valley.
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The economics of forage shrubs in Australian dryland agricultural systems: a whole-farm modelling approach
Dr Marta Monjardino
Agricultural Economist,
CSIRO Ecosystem Science
Abstract
In face of climate change and other environmental challenges, one strategy for incremental improvement
within existing farming systems is the inclusion of perennial forage shrubs. In Australian agricultural systems,
this has the potential to deliver multiple benefits: increased whole-farm profitability and improved
natural resource management.
The profitability of shrubs was investigated using Model of an Integrated
Dryland Agricultural System (MIDAS), a bio-economic model of a mixed crop/livestock farming system.
The modelling indicated that including forage shrubs had the potential to increase farm profitability
by an average of 24% for an optimal 10% of farm area used for shrubs under standard assumptions.
The impact of shrubs on whole-farm profit accrues primarily through the provision of a predictable supply
of ‘out-of-season’ feed, thereby reducing supplementary feed costs, and through deferment of use of
other feed sources on the farm, allowing a higher stocking rate and improved animal production. The
benefits for natural resource management and the environment include improved water use through
summer-active, deep-rooted plants, and carbon storage. Forage shrubs also allow for the productive
use of marginal soils.
Finally, we discuss other, less obvious, benefits of shrubs such as potential benefits
on livestock health. The principles revealed by the MIDAS modelling have wide application beyond the
region, although these need to be adapted on farm and widely disseminated before potential contribution
to Australian agriculture can be realised.
About the speaker
Dr Marta Monjardino joined CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems in April 2010 as an Agricultural Economist. She is working on research projects within CSIRO’s Sustainable Agriculture Flagship to address the critical challenges that Australian agriculture faces in the decades ahead such as: the need to reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint, the need to improve productivity to ensure prosperous rural industries and, on the global stage, to ensure food security, the need for long-term maintenance of healthy soils and ecosystems, making the best use of water, nutrient and energy resources, developing complementary land use options for agriculture, forestry and natural ecosystems. She has a background in the application of whole-farm bio-economic models, having previously worked on a range of issues, including the economics of integrated weed management, the relative value of crop and livestock enterprises, and the profitability of forage shrubs in farming systems.
Modelling Forest Sector Illegality: The Case of Forest Concessions in Brazil
Dr Onil Banerjee
Post doctoral fellow with the Natural Resource Economics Decision Science Group in CSIRO Ecosystem Science.
Web streaming verison of seminar
Abstract
The Brazilian forest sector has undergone crisis with complexities involved in investment in an insecure political environment, a regime of ambiguous property rights, forest sector illegality and enormous pressure for agricultural expansion. To address these challenges, Brazil’s Public Forest Management Law was approved in 2006 enabling private forest management on public forestland. Assessing the policy in a dynamic computable general equilibrium framework, we find that household welfare improves and legal forestry grows faster. In the absence of improved monitoring and enforcement, however, forest concessions are shown to have a depressing effect on the price of forest land and accelerate illegal forestry operations.
About the speaker
Dr Onil Banerjee is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Natural Resource Economics and Decision Science Group in Adelaide. He is currently working with Jeff Connor on water resources issues in Australia and Bangladesh. Onil has a PhD in forest resource economics and policy from the University of Florida and brings computable general equilibrium analysis and development skills to the Program. Prior to joining CSIRO, he led the development of a socially responsible business model for reforestation of degraded areas in Ecuador and was engaged in environmental and policy analysis with the State Secretariat for the Environment in Mato Grosso, Brazil.
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Base metal exploration in contaminated terrain - A multidisciplinary approach applied in an area impacted by historic mining, smelting and land clearance
Dr Andrew Baker
Research Scientist, Contaminant Chemistry and Ecotoxicology program, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Lead isotope and geochemical data were used to rank the prospectivity of sulfidic soil-regolith samples collected as part of a regional geochemical survey of the Adelaide Hills.
The most prospective area was a saline-sulfidic wetland located in Rodwell Creek, near Strathalbyn. This area was selected for more detailed base metal exploration. Samples were collected from sulfidic seeps, the creek channel sediments and the creek overbank. Soil morphology, Pb isotope composition and geochemical composition were used to construct a conceptual model detailing the historical events at Rodwell Creek. This was used to help differentiate anthropogenic geochemical signatures from those that were likely to have originated from unidentified, hidden zones of sulfide enrichment. Thus, a sub-section of the Rodwell Creek was identified for further mineral exploration. Geophysical prospecting (IP and resistivity surveys) was carried out and a disseminated zone of potential sulfide enrichment was identified.
About the speaker
Dr Andrew Baker is a research scientist based at Urrbrae. He completed his PhD on inland acid sulfate soils in 2006 through CSIRO and Adelaide Uni. Andrew then worked as an environmental engineer in the east of England for 3 years. He returned to CSIRO in September 2009 and is currently working on issues relating to acid sulfate soils in the Murray-Darling Basin.
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Where is nitrous oxide produced in the rhizosphere, and by which microorganisms?
Dr Elizabeth Baggs
Senior Lecturer, Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences,
University of Aberdeen
Abstract
Soil is the main source of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. It is produced during several microbial processes which may occur simultaneously in different microsites of the same soil. As a consequence, there is often uncertainty as to which microbial groups are predominantly contributing to measured emissions, and how this varies spatially and temporally, but it is important to resolve this for the development of appropriate mitigation strategies.
In this seminar Dr Baggs will introduce the techniques they use to source partition nitrous oxide between different microbial processes, presenting results focused on the importance of plant-regulation of these processes, interactions between C and N cycles, and the location of denitrifier activity in the rhizosphere.
About the speaker
Dr Elizabeth Baggs is a Senior Lecturer in Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences,
University of Aberdeen. Read more: http://aberdeen.ac.uk/biologicalsci/staff/details/e.baggs
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Nitrogen Competition in the Rhizosphere
Dr Mark Farrell
Research Scientist within the Carbon and Nutrient Cycling team, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
TBA
About the speaker
Dr Mark Farrell is a
Research Scientist within the Carbon and Nutrient Cycling team in CSIRO Land and Water
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Thinking in parallel: high performance computing and the next generation of GIS
Dr Brett Bryan
Principal Research Scientist,
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
Webstreamed video available OR download his presentation (PDF, 1.4 MB)
Abstract
In the past, we have undertaken raster-based spatial and temporal analysis using expensive GIS and image analysis proprietary software, processed in serial on desktop computers. These packages have, and continue to, serve us well with the ability to manage and process very large databases. However, CPU clock speeds have plateaued and limited what we can do with serial processing, the number of cores is exploding, and memory is cheap. Our traditional software tools have not kept up with advances in hardware and have become too slow to implement the intensive analyses required to address complex, high priority national and global environmental issues at the required spatial and temporal resolution.
The capacity of the popular open source languages R and Python has progressed substantially during recent years and they are now becoming the standard (R is the benchmark for statistical analysis and Python + Numpy/Scipy rivals Matlab, IDL etc.). These highly accessible tools can perform a wide variety of scientific analyses beyond spatio-temporal modelling and analysis and they include packages for the development of parallel code utilising multiple CPU and GPU cores and clusters.
High performance computing environments are also becoming highly accessible. Initial experimentation on CSIRO's GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) cluster has resulted in an increase in processing speeds on a typical job of up to 1500 times on a single GPU on the cluster and much more is possible when parallelised over multiple CPU cores and GPUs. This offers a truly transformational performance improvement and can revolutionise how we model and analyse complex social-ecological problems in Australia's landscapes, and conduct spatio-temporal modelling in general. But it comes at a cost. Accessing these performance improvements is demanding. For us scientists and backyard programmers it requires a change in thinking from serial to parallel, it requires us to learn one or more new languages and operating systems (e.g. Linux), and there are many dead-ends along the way.
In this presentation, Brett will share his experiences from his 3 months in the wilderness experimenting with new software tools within a high performance computing environment in the hope that the path for others to potentially breathtaking performance increases will be somewhat smoother.
About the speaker
Dr Brett Bryan is a Principal Research Scientist in CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. Through analysis of socio-economic and environmental processes, he takes an integrated approach to delivering cost-effective policy and management options for complex issues including conservation, land and water resources, energy, and food security, under climate change.
Dr Bryan has a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, Masters of Environmental Studies and his PhD thesis was on strategic revegetation planning.
He is currently a stream leader in the Sustainable Agriculture Flagship and leads several projects across other portfolios. His projects include integrated spatial and temporal decision-making for allocating water resources for ecological and social benefits in the River Murray floodplains; investment, risk and decision analysis for sustainable agricultural landscapes, and the integrated assessment of climate change vulnerability. His projects aim to help key clients target investment in natural resource management to achieve greater benefit from limited resources.
He has authored over 100 publications.
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Two seminars of 20 minutes plus question time covering some of his most recent work in Australia and in Africa:
•
Supporting the process of land reform and emerging farmers in Southern Africa
Webstreamed video available
• Increasing the water use efficiency and managing risk in the low rainfall wheat-sheep zone of southern Australia
Webstreamed video available
Dr Anthony Whitbread
Research Scientist, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
Abstracts
Supporting the process of land reform and emerging farmers in Southern Africa
In the Republic of South Africa, there have traditionally existed dual agricultural sectors: commercial and subsistence based farming systems whose evolution is based on the land and social policies of pre-democracy governments. The post apartheid land reform policies of land restitution and redistribution have created opportunities for the previously disadvantaged population to own and farm land. These new farmers, together with farmers from the subsistence sector who are attempting to commercialise, now make up a third middle sector termed the 'emerging farmer' sector. Whilst much hope is vested in the emerging farm sector, there are significant barriers to, and few examples so far of, its success. This seminar will report on a CSIRO/ACIAR funded project that aimed to improve the sustainability of emerging farmers who operate in crop or livestock farming systems in the Limpopo Province and to support researchers and extension staff to develop systems based participative research and extension programs to assist land reform farmers make the transition to commercial farming.
Increasing the water use efficiency and managing risk in the low rainfall wheat-sheep zone of southern Australia
The Mallee environments of Southern Australia are among the most challenging regions of the world to farm profitably and sustainably, particularly in the last decade. Despite this, many Mallee farmers show that it is possible to do so with technology and an understanding of the environment. This seminar describes work funded by the GRDC Water Use Efficiency initiative which is showing that better decisions are made more often through an understanding of soil and season. This understanding can be informed by analysing the long term trends in rainfall and their interaction with soil type and by utilising in-season yield prediction models to assist in seasonal management decisions.
About the speaker
Dr Anthony Whitbread is a Farming Systems Scientist with CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences based in Adelaide.
In his 12 years at CSIRO, Anthony has worked in the mixed crop-livestock systems of NSW/QLD to develop and promote the use of pasture rotations as a means of maintaining soil fertility and profitability and over the past 4 years in low rainfall cropping systems of Southern Australia. Here he has worked with the Mallee team and led the application of crop and soil modelling to untangle the interactions of soil and season to help farmers better manage climatic risk.
Throughout his career Anthony has maintained an interest in helping the farmers of the developing world, having worked throughout southern Africa for a decade on the use of tropical legumes for improving forage and grain production and using cropping systems simulation (APSIM) to devise strategies to manage risk in maize-grain legume-based systems. Anthony was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy by the University of New England in 1997 for a thesis on the management of soil organic matter and soil structure in dryland cereal systems.
He has authored more than 30 journal articles and book chapters and >80 conference and industry publications. Anthony will take up a new role as a Professor of Crop Production in the Tropics based in the Georg-August Universität based in Göttingen, Germany.
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