Canberra Laboratory - Public Seminar Series Abstracts 2010
Modelling carbon and nitrogen dynamics in agro-ecosystems with a process-based model Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) model
Professor Changsheng Li,
Complex Systems Research Center, Institute for the Studies of Earth, Oceans and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA
Abstract
The Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) model was originally developed for estimating soil carbon (C) sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. agricultural soils in the late 1980s. During the past two decades, DNDC has been enhanced by a wide scope of international collaborations to serve grassland, forest and wetland studies worldwide.
The core of DNDC is a module of soil C and nitrogen (N) biogeochemistry, which describes the coupled cycles of C and N in the plant-soil systems. Classical lows in physics, chemistry and biology as well as laboratory experiment-induced empirical equations were incorporated in DNDC to simulate the transport and transformation of C and N in the terrestrial ecosystems.
DNDC has been tested against observations on plant growth, soil climate, and soil biogeochemistry including trace gas emissions with encouraging results. DNDC is now being applied for quantifying impacts of climate change or alternative management practices on ecosystem production, C sequestration, greenhouse gas inventory and mitigation, and nitrate leaching loss at site or regional scales.
About the speaker
Prof Changsheng Li's primary research areas include developing biogeochemical models for terrestrial ecosystems and assessing the impacts of climate change and alternative management on sustainability of agricultural, grassland and forest ecosystems by integrating biogeochemical models, GIS databases and remote sensing analysis.
Prof Changsheng Li obtained his PhD in biogeochemistry in University of Wisconsin and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1988. From 1985 to 1988, he was the Deputy Director of the CAS Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences in Beijing. In 1988 he became the senior administrator of the National Environmental Protection Agency of China. One year later, he moved to the Bruce Company, Washington, D.C., consulting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with Global Climate Change programs.
In 1992 he accepted a research associate professor position at the Complex Systems Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, to lead the development of a process-oriented model (DNDC) of carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry in agroecosystems. Since 1997, he is a research professor with research focusing on biogeochemical models for terrestrial ecosystems and impacts of climate change and alternative management on sustainability of agricultural, grassland and forest ecosystems.
Prof Li's work on biogeochemical concepts and methodologies have enhanced scientific understanding of impacts of chemical elements on human health, urban pollution control, forest conservation, greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural sustainability. He has established strong, collaborative, academic ties between the environmental research communities in the U.S., China, Germany, the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and other countries through various projects, including the EU nitrogen biogeochemistry projects NOFRETETE and NitroEurope and training of other international groups for DNDC applications.
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Mapping Australian soil using visible-near infrared reflectance spectra
Dr Raphael Viscarra Rossel, Soil & Landscape Science, Pedometrics – Proximal Soil Sensing, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Australia lacks good quality soil information because, primarily, conventional methods of soil sampling and laboratory analyses are expensive, tedious and time consuming. The challenge is to develop techniques that are accurate, rapid and inexpensive. Visible–near infrared (vis–NIR) reflectance spectroscopy is a likely solution; it is accurate, rapid, inexpensive, can be used in situ, and a single spectrum contains information on the organic and mineral constituents of the soil. In this presentation, he will show that vis–NIR spectra can be used for soil mapping. He will provide examples showing that the spectra can be used to map:
- the composition of Australian soil
- the distribution of iron oxides and common soil minerals
- key soil properties, including soil carbon, pH, clay content and cation exchange capacity, across Australia.
About the speaker
Raphael Viscarra Rossel’s primary research areas include developing novel techniques for measuring, modelling and mapping soil.
After completing his PhD, Dr Viscarra Rossel undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Rennes, France. When he returned to Australia in 2002, he worked as a senior research fellow in the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at The University of Sydney. He joined CSIRO Land and Water in March 2008. Dr Viscarra Rossel is chair of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) Working Group on Proximal Soil Sensing (WG-PSS) and the treasurer of the NSW branch of the Australian Society of Soil Science (ASSSI).
In recognition of his work, Dr Viscarra Rossel has been invited to make keynote addresses, join scientific committees, author publications, and teach in a series of invited lectures and workshops. He received the ‘Best Paper’ award from the International Union of Soil Sciences Commission on Pedometrics in 2003 and 2007.
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Frontiers in community based transdisciplinary water science to solve wicked water problems
Professor Shahbaz Khan (UNESCO, Paris)
Abstract
Internationally it is recognised that human activities have become major drivers of change in the Earth’s biosphere.
The resulting deterioration of water quality, overexploitation of freshwater resources, adverse effects of hydrological hazards and landscape degradation, as well as sectoral management solutions, pose serious risks to human health and development.
The same activities also affect the functioning of ecosystems and their ability to provide goods and services, on which human well-being depends. There is a need for community based trans-disciplinary approaches to provide a better understanding of water as both an abiotic resource and as a service delivered by ecosystems.
This presentation aims to exemplify cost-effective solutions to complex water issues in variety of ecosystems and climatic zones using examples from a number of countries.
There are three key objectives of this presentation:
- Synthesise complex water systems in different geographical settings.
- Show how better knowledge of the interrelationships between the hydrological cycle, livelihoods and ecosystems can contribute to more cost-effective and environmental-friendly water management.
- Highlight systems solutions and technology transfer opportunities through North-South and South-South linkages using UNESCO demonstration site and global education networks.
About the speaker
Shahbaz Khan is currently the Chief of Water and Sustainable Development Section of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - UNESCO based at Paris, France currently. Shahbaz has an outstanding multidisciplinary background in water law and policy, management, civil engineering, IT, GIS & Remote Sensing, economics and integrating societal water demands with the environment. He received his Master and PhD degrees in water resources technology and management from the University of Birmingham, UK in 1992 and 1995 respectively. His other major qualifications include Master of International Environmental Law from the Macquarie University, and Master of Applied Environmental Economics, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
Since joining UNESCO in April 2008, Shahbaz has won the accolade for international leadership in water management from the Director General of UNESCO as the co-leader of the 2009 UNESCO team award on “managing water hazards through an integrated approach” and 2008 Sato Prize from Japan for innovations in water management in paddy rice. For his outstanding contribution to the sustainable irrigation management in the Murray Darling Basin, he previously received many prestigious Australian awards for example the Peter Cullen Land and Water Australia’s Eureka Prize and CSIRO Science Excellence Medal.
Shahbaz’s recent relevant achievements include global assessment of water education needs for urban and rural communities across the UN member states, leadership of the Water Allocation Chapter of the World Water Assessment Program (WWAP), setting up of Asian water smart cities with UNESCO’s office in Jakarta and policy advice to the member states on integrated water resources management plans. He is actively working on water smart initiatives in a number of UN member states in collaboration with prestigious organizations such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, US Army Corps of Engineers and the Polish Academy of Sciences. Globally he is credited for stakeholder driven water research that is now recognised as the world’s best practice through the UNESCO’s Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) Program which is now active in 91 river basins in 67 countries working with over 600 organisations.
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Global Drought in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Historic Reconstructions, Realtime Monitoring and Future Climate Projections
Prof Eric Wood, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
Abstract
Drought is one of the most damaging of natural disasters. It occurs as a result of extremes in climate driven by natural variability but may be exacerbated or dampened by anthropogenic influences.
Recent and potential future increases in global temperatures are likely to be associated with impacts on the hydrologic cycle, including changes in drought. We summarize recent work on large scale drought in the context of our ongoing research on the global terrestrial water cycle.
This has focused on three distinct but interrelated areas:
- Analysis of historic global reconstructions of drought
- Drought monitoring and seasonal forecasting
- Changes in drought under future climate projections
About the speaker
Eric Wood is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. He received his Sc.D. in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research areas include hydroclimatology with an emphasis on land atmospheric interactions, terrestrial remote sensing, and seasonal hydrologic climate forecasts, including land-climate teleconnections.
Professor Wood is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and has received the European Geosciences Union’s John Dalton Medal, AMS’s Jules G Charney Award and Robert E. Horton Memorial Lectureship, AGU's Robert E. Horton Award, and Princeton's Rheinstein Award.
He is a Science Team member on the NASA Aqua/Terra AMSR-E and MODIS instruments, the NASA Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) and the HYDROS soil moisture ESSP mission. He is involved with the proposed NASA mission (SWOT) to map inland waters (rivers and lakes) using a swath radar altimetry.
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Impacts of climate change and catchment development on surface water availability in Tasmania (The Tasmania Sustainable Yields Project)
Dr David Post, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Following on from the success of the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project, The Tasmania Sustainable Yields Project was commissioned by COAG (Council of Australian Governments) in March 2008 with the aim of determining current and future water availability in Tasmania. The project delivered its final reports in January 2010.
This seminar will outline the key science underpinning the project, including the derivation of climate change projections from 15 IPCC AR4 Global Climate Models and the downscaling of these results using the CSIRO-CCAM (Cubic Conformal Atmospheric Model) model.
It will also cover the estimation of runoff in ungauged areas of Tasmania, as well as the use of river models to deal with the extractions and use of water.
Historical and recent surface water availability and use will be presented, along with estimates of how these are projected to change by ~2030 due to climate change and catchment development (commercial forestry and irrigation expansion).
Results from this study are currently being used by the Tasmanian and Australian governments to guide the development of a sustainable irrigated agriculture industry in Tasmania.
About the speaker
Dr David Post is the Tasmania Sustainable Yields Project Leader at CSIRO Land and Water (CLW). His primary research areas include the regionalisation of hydrologic response to ungauged areas and the impact of landuse and climate change on catchment-scale hydrologic response.
Post has carried out research on most areas of the hydrologic cycle, beginning with atmospheric chemistry at the University of Newcastle, moving through Oceanography at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, and onto hydrology at the Australian National University, Oregon State University and then CLW. He has now come full-circle, examining the impacts of climate change on catchment-scale hydrology.
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Understanding and modelling flow, nutrients and benthic plants in a perennial tropical river
Dr Barbara Robson, Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Many of Australia's tropical rivers are relatively pristine in comparison with their temperate counterparts, but also relatively little studied. Now, however, there is pressure for further development of tropical land and water resources.
The TRaCK (Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge) consortium is working to improve our understanding of these systems and improve our ability to manage and predict their responses to change. As part of this programme, we have studied flow, nutrients, and primary production in the Daly River (N.T.), a perennial tropical river maintained in the dry season by ground-water.
In the dry season, the waters of the Daly River are clear and oligotrophic (low in nutrients). Primary production is dominated by benthic algae and macrophytes, and growth is limited by nitrogen and phosphorus availability and flow-dependent flux rates across a benthic boundary layer. Flow also controls the rate of loss due to sloughing of algal biomass at relatively low velocities and scouring of the river bed at higher velocities.
This seminar will describe work to understand and model these dynamics, and will discuss what this might mean for the river's future.
About the speaker
Dr Barbara Robson joined CSIRO Land and Water as a Research Scientist in 2002. Prior to that, she was a Research Associate at the Centre for Water Research, University of Western Australia. Her main research interest is process-based modelling of nutrients, sediments and plants (especially phytoplankton) in aquatic systems such as rivers and estuaries. Dr Robson uses models to draw together scientific understanding of a system, quantify process rates and material fluxes, and predict how the system is likely to respond to change.
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The Condamine-Balonne project: Flood volume and continuous flow forecasting
Dr Ben Gouweleeuw, Dr Julien Lerat (CSIRO Land and Water) and Mr Peter Thew (CSIRO Information & Communication Technologies Centre)
Abstract
The Condamine-Balonne catchment is an area in Southern Queensland of approximately 140,000 square kilometres. The catchment is located at the upper reaches of the Murray-Darling river system and forms an important recharge area for that system.
The Condamine-Balonne project has the goal of developing a prototype decision-support system to continuously generate flow forecasts for the river system. The existing Sacramento and Integrated Quantity Quality Model (IQQM) models, as used by the Queensland Government, have been taken and integrated into the Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) modelling framework.
The final configuration will consist of 25 model instances, a data assimilation model to correct forecasting errors, an uncertainty processor to identify errors, and data feeds from Queensland and the Bureau of Meteorology. Forecasts will be generated daily along with an uncertainty assessment.
Another project goal is to estimate the volume of water in a flood using satellite imagery and a digital elevation model. The Condamine-Balonne flood plain, near the town of St. George, was used as a test case with a validation exercise performed for the flood in early 2004.
The presentation will discuss the project's progress to date and the results for the validation exercise.
About the speakers
Dr Ben Gouweleeuw, CSIRO Land and Water
Dr Gouweleeuw received his Doctor of Philosophy from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2000 for work related to drought monitoring in central Spain using satellite passive microwave technology.
After dedicating five years to flood forecasting at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Italy, he returned to microwave remote sensing at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, USA.
Dr Julien Lerat, CSIRO Land and Water
Dr Lerat has 10 years of expertise in surface water modelling. His first working experience in India provided him with a broad overview of the water sector and convinced him to start a career in this multi-faceted sector. Back in France, he joined a branch of the Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux group specialised in environmental engineering consulting (Safege).
There he managed projects dealing with flood risk mitigation for the benefit of French public authorities. Facing the shortcomings of existing hydrological and hydraulic modelling tools, he decided to join a research institute (Cemagref) to develop new methodologies in this field. His work has materialised with the realisation of a PhD entitled “Which hydrological inputs for hydraulic models? Toward an integrated model for flood modelling”. At the same time, he has participated in international projects dealing with rainfall-runoff modelling.
Mr Peter Thew, CSIRO Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Mr Thew has been in the computing industry for over 25 years, and has worked in Canberra, interstate and overseas. During his career he has worked on a large number of diverse projects including satellite tracking fishing vessels in the South Pacific, saving historical documents from World War Two and working on several personnel systems.
He is currently the project manager for the "Condamine-Balonne" project which is developing a continuous river-flow forecasting system for the Condamine-Balonne catchment area in Southern Queensland. The system also includes a process to estimate the water volume within a flood using satellite imagery and the CSIRO's Digital Elevation Model of Australia.
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Water yields and demands in South-west Western Australia in a drying climate
Dr Don McFarlane, South-west Western Australia Sustainable Yields Project Leader, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
CSIRO has recently completed a study for the Australian Government of the possible impacts that future climate change may have on surface and groundwater yields in the region and compared these with water demand scenarios. The study, costing $5.2 million, is one of four ‘Sustainable Yields’ projects commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments, the others covering the Murray-Darling Basin, Tasmania and northern Australia.
South-west Western Australia is distinguished by a climate shift in the mid 1970s which the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative believes has a component of climate change. It also has a dominance of groundwater and a relatively small percentage of its water being used for irrigated agriculture. In addition, it is undergoing rapid economic and population growth which is putting further pressure on water resources.
This talk will outline the results of modelling work on linking water resources to future possible climate scenarios and will identify areas where demands for water may be a problem by 2030.
About the speaker
Dr Don McFarlane is Regional Coordinator within CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship. He has degrees in geology, natural resource management and hydrogeology.
After a research career in the WA Department of Agriculture where he led the Soils and Catchment Hydrology Research groups, he became a Director within the Water and Rivers Commission where he led the Science and Resource Management Divisions.
He has been awarded the CSIRO Chairman’s Medal for his work on monitoring and predicting the extent of dryland salinity, and the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology Award of Excellence for his work on the South Coast.
His current interests are in water yield estimation, water reuse and digital aerial photography for monitoring change in landuse and vegetation condition.
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Flood and drought monitoring - research from the Netherlands
Rogier Westerhoff, Deltares, Netherlands
Abstract
This presentation provides a short overview of the international work being done by Deltares in monitoring floods and droughts. Deltares is the premier independent research institute for water, soil and subsurface issues in the Netherlands. Examples discussed include groundwater modelling, earth observation visualisation and implementation in the Delft Flood Early Warning system, as well as validation of satellite flood mapping and soil moisture studies.
About the speaker
Rogier Westerhoff is a geophysicist with Deltares. Rogier works in the Subsurface and Groundwater Systems unit based in Utrecht, Netherlands, which undertakes geohydrological, geological and geohydrological research. Earth observation for floods, drought and subsidence is a new key focus. Working together with Netherlands Space Office, Deltares is trying bridge the distance between space technology and end users in water research.
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1. Overview of the International Sediment Initiative as part of the UNESCO-International Hydrological Programme
2. Integrated flood protection management and the impact of climate change - A view of Switzerland and of the International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine Basin
Prof. Manfred Spreafico, Professor in Hydrology, University of Berne, Switzerland
Abstract - This seminar will cover two topics:
1. Overview of the International Sediment Initiative as part of the UNESCO-International Hydrological Programme
The International Sediment Initiative (ISI) has been launched by UNESCO, as a major activity of the Sixth Phase of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP).
The seminar will contain:
- the mission, vision and goals of ISI
- information to the general topics and problems covered by ISI
- activities and projects carried out within ISI.
The seminar should help to motivate member countries to participate in the framework of ISI.
2. Integrated flood protection management and the impact of climate change - A view of Switzerland and of the International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine Basin
The recent federal law on flood protection (1991) of Switzerland provides a new basis for hazard assessment, differentiation of protection objectives, adequate planning of measures and limitation of remaining risks (emergency planning). Two main strategies must be pursued to prevent an exponential increase of flood damage in the near future: priority should be given to planning efforts to reduce vulnerability and damage potential, and emergency planning to reduce the after-effects of flood events should be undertaken.
Therefore the basic requirements for flood protection as hazard analysis, assessment and elimination of ecological deficiencies, differentiation of protection aims, flood retardation in retention areas, minimization of impacts, checking of possible failure points, maintenance and securing spatial requirements must be taken into account.
The impact of global and climate change on discharge of the Rhine river has been studied in the Rhine Commission and preliminary adaptation strategies developed.
The seminar will contain:
- information to the strategy and principle of flood protection management
- methods used and examples of flood protection management in Switzerland
- results of the climate change investigations of the Int. Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine basin
- implemented protection measures.
About the speaker
Prof. Manfred Spreafico is Professor in Hydrology at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He has been the director of the Swiss National Hydrology Survey for many years. His main activities cover all fields of operational hydrology, flood and sediment management as part of the integrated environmentally sound water management, reservoir operation and informa¬tion systems for natural disasters. He has worked with priority in the Hindukush Himalaya, in Central Asia, some countries in South East Asia and Europe. He is acting president of the International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine Basin, chairman of the ISI-Steering Committee and hydrology adviser of Switzerland to World Meteorological Organization.
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Understanding and modelling flow, nutrients and benthic plants in a perennial tropical river
Dr Barbara Robson, Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
Many of Australia's tropical rivers are relatively pristine in comparison with their temperate counterparts, but also relatively little studied. Now, however, there is pressure for further development of tropical land and water resources.
The TRaCK (Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge) consortium is working to improve our understanding of these systems and improve our ability to manage and predict their responses to change. As part of this programme, we have studied flow, nutrients, and primary production in the Daly River (N.T.), a perennial tropical river maintained in the dry season by ground-water.
In the dry season, the waters of the Daly River are clear and oligotrophic (low in nutrients). Primary production is dominated by benthic algae and macrophytes, and growth is limited by nitrogen and phosphorus availability and flow-dependent flux rates across a benthic boundary layer. Flow also controls the rate of loss due to sloughing of algal biomass at relatively low velocities and scouring of the river bed at higher velocities.
This seminar will describe work to understand and model these dynamics, and will discuss what this might mean for the river's future.
About the speaker
Dr Barbara Robson joined CSIRO Land and Water as a Research Scientist in 2002. Prior to that, she was a Research Associate at the Centre for Water Research, University of Western Australia. Her main research interest is process-based modelling of nutrients, sediments and plants (especially phytoplankton) in aquatic systems such as rivers and estuaries. Dr Robson uses models to draw together scientific understanding of a system, quantify process rates and material fluxes, and predict how the system is likely to respond to change.
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Understanding and modelling flow, nutrients and benthic plants in a perennial tropical riverGeographic Information Systems-based Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis in Spatial Multi-Criteria Decision Making
Dr Yun Chen, CSIRO Land and Water
Abstract
With growing interest in extending geographic information systems (GIS) to support multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), enhancing GIS-based MCDM with uncertainty and sensitivity analysis procedures becomes crucial.
This seminar presents a GIS framework for multi-criteria evaluation of land suitability with a fusion of sensitivity and uncertainty examinations. A set of tools is implemented to integrate Analytical Hierarchy Procedure (AHP), fuzzy logic (Fuzzy Linguistic Quantifier) and Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA), as well as OAT (one-at-a-time) methods, into a GIS environment to perform a rapid suitability assessment. It permits a range of user defined simulations/scenarios to be generated and visualised in the spatial context.
This provides a better understanding of spatial patterns of land suitability potentials for future regional-scale landuse planning and water resource management.
About the speaker
Dr Yun Chen holds a PhD in geographic information systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing from the University of New South Wales. She has been working in the field of spatial sciences for over 20 years in China and Australia.
Her research experience covers a wide rang of GIS and remote sensing applications, including land use, vegetation dynamics, soil erosion, land degradation, irrigation, hydrology, and sediment and nutrient accounting. Her current research interests are 3-D hydrogeological/biophysical characterisation of groundwater/irrigation systems, spatial eco-hydrology, artificial intelligence (AI) in multi-criteria decision making, as well as sensitivity and uncertainty in spatial modelling.
She has been appointed as a visiting professor of two universities in China, invited to make keynote addresses in international conferences and workshops, supervised PhD students and visiting scientists from overseas, and received several awards, e.g. 1991 Scientific Excellence Award from Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2005 CSIRO Service from Science Award, and 2007 CSIRO Land and Water Strategic Excellence Award.
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NASA's strategy on calibration and validation activities for ocean colour
Dr Stanford Hooker, Director, Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Calibration and Validation Office, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Chair: Dr Miriam Baltuck, Deputy Director of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
Abstract
Data from ocean colour satellite sensors is routinely used to provide information on the water quality and ecological status for open oceans and coastal waters. The accuracy of this environmentally relevant information relies on the calibration and validation of the spaceborne sensors.
The calibration and validation plan for NASA’s ocean colour sensors SeaWiFS and MODIS was based on an open-ocean, in-water, clear-sky perspective. A solitary vicarious calibration site off Hawaii was established (MOBY) using custom hardware that could not be easily replicated or redeployed. Simultaneous radiometry and in-water data collection from research vessels were used for algorithm validation.
With the next-generation ocean colour sensors the emphasis for the science questions and data products will shift towards the coastal ocean and more complicated air masses. In the paradigm for the future, radiometry, water optical properties, and biogeochemistry will play an equal role for the calibration and validation of the next-generation ocean colour data.
A network of replicated field systems that can be set up at multiple sites in both hemispheres will be pivotal for the characterization of spaceborne sensors. To ensure global partners have access to the requisite quality and traceability, new field and laboratory instruments are being developed and are already becoming commercially available.
In addition, international round robins (e.g. SeaHARRE) will continue and form an important basis for revising the Ocean Optics Protocols to support near-shore science objectives. Access to the benefits of updated protocols will be facilitated through Web-based data processing of field observations, which will be available to the worldwide community.
About the speaker
Stanford Hooker received his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science in 1987. He held a postdoctoral position (1987-1988) at the Applied Physics Laboratory (Seattle, Washington), and a research scientist position at Areté Associates (Arlington, Virginia) where he worked with on non-acoustic antisubmarine warfare research (1988-1991). He joined NASA to work on the SeaWiFS Project (1991) and was the Deputy Project Scientist when the mission office closed (2004).
His areas of research include data acquisition, field calibration, and stability monitoring of optical instruments; intercomparison of above- and in-water optical methods; conception, design, and evaluation of optical instrumentation; and vicarious calibration and algorithm validation of ocean colour remote sensors.
His current responsibility is director of the NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Calibration and Validation Office.
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Characterisation and Agronomic Benefits of Wine and Citrus Industry Derived Biochars
Dr Wendy Quayle, CSIRO Land and Water, Griffith laboratory
Chair: Dr Hamish Cresswell, CSIRO Land and Water
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 (CLW), Griffith, NSW. 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.
In 1995 she was awarded a PhD (The Diagenesis of Nitrogen in Recent Sediments) from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, and subsequently worked for a large UK water corporation (1 year) followed by the British Antarctic Survey (5 years). In 2001 she joined CLW in Griffith, NSW.
Shared semantics – a sustainable approach to allowing information systems to be linked
Rob Atkinson
Abstract
Science, policy and operational management in the natural resources domain is increasingly concerned with exploiting available information to improve understanding of the changing state of the world. Although new data can be designed, or collected, to fill gaps in the knowledgebase, the detection of trends, or the discovery of interactions between aspects of the environment is largely reliant on effective integration of existing heterogeneous information. Unfortunately, current practice for such integration falls far short of being able to produce reliable results.
A key research area for WIRADA is to solve issues associated with the long term management and exploitation of water resources data in order to allow the Bureau of Meteorology to produce the many products required of it. As such, the Sustainable Water Information Models (SWIM) project has been examining the underlying challenges of information system evolution, and has developed a number of inter-related strategies for enabling progressive integration of multiple information systems. These strategies revolve around the sharing of critical semantic information across multiple related information systems. A series of software tools has been prototyped to demonstrate the feasibility of these approaches and to enable coherent management of the information models underpinning the components of WIRADA.
This seminar will introduce the audience to the challenges and opportunities associated with information system evolution and the methods and tools being developed by the SWIM project to address these at a general level. A follow-on seminar will focus in more technical detail on the tools and underlying theories being tested.
About the speaker
Rob Atkinson is a research scientist in the Environmental Information Systems Program of CSIRO Land and Water.
Since gaining a MSc (Hons) Research in microprocessor design, Rob’s interests have been grounded in the real world: in interoperability of natural resources information, in particular spatial information access over the Internet. He was one of the first practitioners to deploy integrated maps and databases on the Web, and active in the emergence of the Open Geospatial Consortium standards for web services.
After working with many communities nationally and internationally to develop technical and information standards to improve interoperability he has been researching means to overcome the major hurdles in information integration. Currently this is largely focussed on the water resources domain, but his research includes providing support and analysing interoperability issues in the geosciences, soils, land administration, humanitarian development and crisis management, meteorology and others.
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Adapting to Drought in the San Joaquin Valley of California
Dr Jim Ayars
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 Agricultural – 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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For a community to effectively share information between
largely autonomous information systems, it is necessary to
establish the semantics of each component and the
relationships between them. These semantics include
information about the structure of information exposed by
systems (messages and data sets), and critically the
controlled vocabularies required to make content
interoperable. Integration may be achieved by hard-coded
adaptor components, or by analysis and the building of a
bespoke ontology relating the concepts in the two systems
together. However, with many systems, evolving over time,
a range of such mappings effectively become yet more
components to be integrated.
The Sustainable Water Information Models (SWIM) project in
WIRADA is looking at the scope for formal information
models of component systems to be shared in a
“canonical” form, and the feasibility of tools to make
this process efficient and reliable.
This seminar will examine the content of such information
models, the implications for management of these and the
requirements for infrastructure components to enable
sharing. These ideas are being tested in a set of
experiments with existing communities of practice to
realise improved management, quality and efficiency of
semantic resources that will in turn allow the WIRADA
stakeholders to exploit these resources in operational
systems. The seminar will demonstrate and discuss the
experimental progress, with a focus on the suite of
prototype tools (“SolidGround”) to support sharing
semantic resources. The demonstration will include tools
for management of model dependencies, linking models and
controlled vocabularies, derivation of implementation
artefacts from models, simplified data dictionary
interfaces, version management and reverse engineering
existing systems, and contrast these with the disjointed
manual processes currently in use. A roadmap for future
research and experimental validation of the emerging
methodologies communities will be discussed.
About the speaker
Rob Atkinson is a research scientist in the Environmental Information Systems Program of CSIRO Land and Water.
Since gaining a MSc (Hons) Research in microprocessor design, Rob’s interests have been grounded in the real world: in interoperability of natural resources information, in particular spatial information access over the Internet. He was one of the first practitioners to deploy integrated maps and databases on the Web, and active in the emergence of the Open Geospatial Consortium standards for web services.
After working with many communities nationally and internationally to develop technical and information standards to improve interoperability he has been researching means to overcome the major hurdles in information integration. Currently he is focussing largely on the water resources domain, but his research includes providing support and analysing interoperability issues in the geosciences, soils, land administration, humanitarian development and crisis management, meteorology and others.
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by James Bennett
Most studies of future climate impacts on Australian rivers have used the ‘perturbation method’, where historical rainfall and evaporation data are modified to reflect changes predicted by global climate models (GCMs). In this method rainfall events occur exactly as often as in the historical record – only the magnitude of events changes. This may mask effects on runoff caused by changes in the timing or duration of rainfall events due to future changes in weather systems, particularly for longer-term projections. The Climate Futures for Tasmania (CFT) project has been attempting to address this problem for Tasmanian rivers by using dynamically downscaled GCM outputs directly in hydrological models developed for CSIRO’s Tasmania Sustainable Yields project (TasSY).
CFT have dynamically downscaled six Global Climate Models - CSIRO-Mk3.5, ECHAM5/MPI-OM, GFDL-CM2.0, GFDL-CM2.1, MIROC3.2(medres) and UKMO-HadCM3 – for the SRES A2 scenario using CSIRO’s Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM) for the period 1961–2100. Dynamical downscaling of GCM projections is computing-intensive, but can simulate changes to rain-bearing weather systems (e.g. increases in convective storms). Downscaled projections indicate that the weather systems that bring rain to Tasmania are likely to change as the planet warms, altering the regional and seasonal character of Tasmanian rainfall.
Downscaled rainfall and evapotranspiration hindcasts generally showed good spatial and seasonal agreement with observations, however some spatial biases were still evident, particularly for rainfall. In some places – notably the Tamar valley in Northern Tasmania – downscaled rainfall hindcasts were biased by as much as 70 percent. Rainfall biases of this magnitude would have severely reduced the performance of the hydrological models. To account for these biases modelled rainfall and evaporation were bias-adjusted using a quantile-quantile method (applied seasonally).
A premise of applying bias-adjustments to future rainfalls is that discrepancies between observed and modelled data vary little through time. Split record sampling tests have been conducted to assess the temporal consistency of the bias-adjustments.
TasSY calibrated 5 hydrological rainfall-runoff models: AWBM, IHACRES, Sacramento, Simhyd and SMARG. Flows generated from bias-adjusted, dynamically downscaled GCM outputs were compared to observations for 86 Tasmanian catchments for all 5 hydrological models. Flows generated using the AWBM, Sacramento, Simhy and SMARG models showed reasonable agreement with observations for most catchments. However, the IHACRES model did not replicate historical flows well for a significant number of catchments. This indicates that not all rainfall-runoff models are suited to accepting bias-adjusted, dynamically downscaled climate data.
This seminar presents the bias-adjustment method used, including the tests used to assess the performance of the bias-adjustment. Selected projections of Tasmanian Runoff by 2100 will also be presented. The strengths and pitfalls of the bias-adjustment method will be discussed.
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The Condamine-Balonne project: Flood volume and continuous flow forecasting
Speakers: Ben Gouweleeuw, CSIRO Land and Water;
Dr Julien Lerat, CSIRO Land and Water;
Mr Peter Thew, CSIRO Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) Centre
Condamine-Balonne catchment, in Southern Queensland, forms a significant source of water for the Murray-Darling system and a large portion of the catchment is devoted to growing cotton and other crops.
The Condamine-Balonne project has developed a decision support system for the improved management of water use and flows in the Condamine-Balonne catchment. The main functions of the system are:
- Generate a map of the flood extent using imagery from the MODIS satellites. In the event of cloud cover, passive-microwave data from AMSR-E is combined with the MODIS data.
- Estimate the volume of water in the flood plain using the flood extent and a digital elevation model of the region.
- Automate the production of flow forecasts using the existing forecasting models used by Queensland Government. The models are run daily using the latest rainfall and river level data to generate 3-day forecasts for the rivers within the catchment.
The Condamine-Balonne flood plain, near the town of St. George, was used as a test case with a validation exercise for the flood extent work was performed for the floods from 2004 and 2010.
The presentation will discuss the achievements of the project and the results for the validation exercise.
About the speakers
Dr Ben Gouweleeuw, CSIRO Land and Water
Dr Gouweleeuw received his Doctor of Philosophy from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2000 for work related to drought monitoring in central Spain using satellite passive microwave technology.
After dedicating five years to flood forecasting at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Italy, he returned to microwave remote sensing at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, USA.
Dr Julien Lerat, CSIRO Land and Water
Dr Lerat has 10 years of expertise in surface water modelling. His first working experience in India provided him with a broad overview of the water sector and convinced him to start a career in this multi-faceted sector. Back in France, he joined a branch of the Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux group specialised in environmental engineering consulting (Safege).
There he managed projects dealing with flood risk mitigation for the benefit of French public authorities. Facing the shortcomings of existing hydrological and hydraulic modelling tools, he decided to join a research institute (Cemagref) to develop new methodologies in this field. His work has materialised with the realisation of a PhD entitled "Which hydrological inputs for hydraulic models? Toward an integrated model for flood modelling". At the same time, he has participated in international projects dealing with rainfall-runoff modelling.
Mr Peter Thew, CSIRO Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Mr Thew has been in the computing industry for over 25 years, and has worked in Canberra, interstate and overseas. During his career he has worked on a large number of diverse projects including satellite tracking fishing vessels in the South Pacific, saving historical documents from World War Two and working on several personnel systems.
He is currently the project manager for the "Condamine-Balonne" project which is developing a continuous river-flow forecasting system for the Condamine-Balonne catchment area in Southern Queensland. The system also includes a process to estimate the water volume within a flood using satellite imagery and the CSIRO's Digital Elevation Model of Australia.
SCaRPA (Site and Catchment Resource Assessment and Planning) is a software decision-support tool jointly developed by CSIRO and various NSW natural resource management (NRM) agencies. Its purpose is to assist catchment management authorities (CMAs) in planning and allocating incentive funding to landholders for NRM projects.
SCaRPA provides a comprehensive process-based system for planning and assessing incentives proposals for NRM activities which employs current best scientific modelling. It also allows for upgrading as new knowledge becomes available, and can be customised to suit regional preferences while retaining common elements, thus allowing state-wide comparisons and integration with corporately provided data and reporting systems in the future, supporting monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement programs.
Since the product was finished in 2008 it has been tested by a number of CMAs in NSW, particularly Murrumbidgee who have used it to allocate over $5m in funds for biodiversity enhancement. Other CMAs are now taking on its use.
The seminar will present an update on this rollout, and discuss lessons learnt during implementation of the software in live business systems and future plans.
About the speakers
Dr Greg Summerell
Dr Summerell obtained his PhD at the University of Melbourne in catchment field assessments in hydrology, salinity, soils and modeling. He has 15 years Natural Resource research and management experience with: NSW Public Service departments, several CRCs in Australia, and CSIRO.
Dr Summerell currently manages 20 staff within a section of the Department of Environment Climate Change and Water NSW that specialises in Catchment Terrestrial and Aquatic Biodiversity modeling, hydrology and salinity, cultural heritage modeling and regional wind blown dust monitoring and modelling. He is a key researcher and DECCW representative in the Future Farm Industries CRC, and co-ordinates many of the departments multiagency research and NRM delivery programs of which one includes the Tools2 Project which we are presenting today.
Dr Alastair Grieve
Dr Grieve obtained his PhD at Sydney University in plant biochemistry, focusing on the developmental biology of photosynthetic systems. He has 40 years research experience with CSIRO; several universities in Australia and the UK; and various NSW Public Service Departments.
Dr Grieve's research interests include: environmental pollution effects on plants, irrigation management of horticultural crops, mechanisms of salt tolerance in higher plants, salinity effects on crop plants, organic waste recycling, remediation of contaminated sites, revegetation for catchment salinity management, carbon sequestration in forests, quantification of environmental services.
He has extensive experience at a senior executive level in administration of scientific research and development programs in the primary industries (including horticulture, agriculture, forestry) and natural resource management. He currently serves as the Chair of the Research Scientists Classification Committee, in the NSW Premiers Department, and is an Independent technical member, RIRDC Rice R&D Committee.
CSIRO has been a partner of the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) research program, focussing on research in tropical northern Australia and which has been underway for the last three years. This seminar will present a sediment budget study for the Mitchell River catchment, located on the western flanks of Cape York, where the major sources, transport pathways and sinks of sediment within the catchment are examined.
Our study presents budgets for the fine suspended (silt, clay) washload and coarser sand-sized bed material load of the river. We used the SedNet model to construct the budget. The model has been calibrated to (a) station-based fine sediment washload estimates at nine gauging stations, (b) geochemical tracer data indicating relative tributary contributions of fine sediment at river confluences, and (c) the ratio of surface to sub-surface soil being transported by the river at a number of locations. The model predicts 2.9 Mt per year of fine suspended sediment export from the Mitchell River outlet. Alluvial gully erosion is the dominant fine sediment source and is spatially restricted to the floodplains and megafan areas adjacent to the main channels once the river leaves the bedrock uplands. Previous SedNet applications in tropical regions have not explicitly represented alluvial gullies as a sediment source, yet based on this study these appear an important sediment source. Sediment deposition upon floodplains (3.4 Mt) is predicted to account for approximately half the fine sediment supply. Contemporary fine sediment yields are estimated to be approximately twice those of pre-European settlement conditions.
Modelling of bed material load indicated that response times in the lower catchment to variations in upstream coarse sediment input exceed 100 years. This implies that there may still be substantial coarse sediment pulses moving downstream through the river network that may impact on the lower reaches of the Mitchell River in coming decades. This study will also highlight the value of fallout radio-nuclide sediment tracer data to constraining modelling of catchment sediment budgets.
About the speaker
Dr Paul Rustomji
Dr Rustomji commenced with CSIRO in 1998 and has been involved with a range of hydrological and geomorphological studies. This includes contributing to the development of the SedNet model for the National Land and Water Resources Audit and has contributed to SedNet applications across a number of Australian catchments.
Dr Rustomji has extensive experience in GIS modelling of catchment process plus statistical modelling of hydrologic and water quality data.
Dr Rustomji's PhD focused on floodplain evolution over the last 20 000 years in two New South Wales coastal catchments in response to sea level rise and stabilisation since the end of the last ice age.
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The catchment of the Logan and Albert Rivers, south-east Queensland, is mainly rural with an area 3700 km2. Major land uses include native forest conservation zones, rotational cropping, grazing and dairying. The Logan-Albert estuary is characterised by high nutrient levels and turbidity. The ecological health of streams of the Logan catchment and the estuary is considered to be poor and it is likely that elevated sediment fluxes from the catchment are the cause.
This presentation compares the utility of a suite of tracers to determine sources of sediment to the Logan and Albert rivers. The sediment tracing exercise has been applied to a flood event (10 year recurrence interval) which occurred in January 2008. In addition to the tracers routinely used in sediment sourcing studies (fallout tracers 137Cs and excess 210Pb, and major/minor element geochemistry) this study introduces new tracers; 7Be applied an erosion process tracer at the catchment scale, and compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA). Importantly, the addition of the new tracers has enabled the discrimination of erosion sources previously not able to be distinguished using tracing techniques. This includes the discrimination of surface soil sources according to land-use (forest, pasture cultivation), as well as the discrimination of sub-surface erosion sources such as river channel bank and incised gullies/scalds. In all, five distinct erosion sources were able to be characterised and their contributing proportions quantified.
This study has shown that the combined use of CSIA, fallout radionuclides and major/minor element geochemistry has the potential to identify major erosion sources in large catchments by land-use, spatial location and erosion process, thus testing the predictions of catchment sediment budget models.
About the speaker
Gary Hancock
Gary Hancock is a Senior Research Scientist in the Catchment and Aquatic Systems research. He commenced at CSIRO in 1991 and has specialised in research on the behaviour of heavy metals and radionuclides in the environment. Specifically, he has contributed to the measurement and modelling of the transport of natural and man-made radionuclides to estimate rates of soil erosion, sediment transport and sediment deposition.
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Catchment hydrological models have during the last many decades mainly focused on simulation of discharge from climate input data, e.g. for real-time forecasting. The requirements are now gradually being extended to include predictions of climate change effects and of impacts of alternative water management measures. These new applications differ from the traditional rainfall runoff simulations in one fundamental aspect, namely that the models are used to make predictions about the unknown future without having data for similar conditions to calibrate and validate the models. Model use for such extrapolations beyond the calibration base involves large prediction uncertainties that are even difficult to assess.
This presentation will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing model structures and modelling procedures in the light of these new challenges. The recognised problems of the existing paradigms are illustrated with respect to (a) scale problems; (b) limitations on small scale predictive capability; (c) equifinality; and (d) uncertainty. In addition to the technical aspects, modelling is undergoing a change from traditional stand-alone studies towards an integrated part of holistic water management procedures and increased focus is put on building credibility of model and data among stakeholders and on facilitate a learning process whereby all data and models, as well as stakeholders’ understanding of the system, are updated to currently available information. This presentation will outline new paradigms for model use and for the modelling process.
About the speaker
Professor Jens Refsgaard
Jens C Refsgaard is a Professor in water resources at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). He received an MSc (CENG) in 1976 from the Technical University of Denmark, and his Dr. Scient in 2007 from the University of Copenhagen. His former employments include chief hydrologist and head of research at Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) and associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark. He is a board member of International Research School of Water Resources (FIVA) and member of Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV). He is the co-ordinator for several major EU funded and Danish funded research projects, and of several multi-disciplinary international research and capacity building projects in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Professor Refsgaard has published more than 60 journal papers (h index 19). Professor Refsgaard’s major research interests: distributed catchment modeling including groundwater/surface water interaction, assessment of climate change impacts on hydrology, quality assurance and uncertainty assessment in the modeling process.
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Update on the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative
SWE extends the OGC open web services framework by providing additional services for integrating web-connected sensors and sensor systems. SWE services are designed to enable discovery of sensor assets and capabilities, access to these resources through data retrieval and subscription to alerts, and tasking of sensors to control observations. SWE is not restricted to sensors/sensor systems but also refers to associated observation archives, simulation models and processing algorithms. SWE enables interoperability between disparate sensors, simulation models and decision support systems.
The SWE initiative has developed draft specifications for modelling sensors and sensor systems (SensorML), observations from such systems (Observations and Measurements (O&M)) and processing chains to process observations (SensorML). The draft specifications provide semantics for constructing machine-readable descriptions of data, encodings and values, and are designed to improve prospects for plug and play sensors, data fusion, common data pro- cessing engines, automated discovery of sensors, and utilisation of sensor data.
SWE provides four types of web services: Sensor Observation Service (SOS), Sensor Event Service (SES), Sensor Planning Service (SPS) and Web Notification Service (WNS). The SOS provides a standard interface that allows users to retrieve raw or processed observations from different sensors, sensor systems and observation archives. The SES provides a mechanism for posting raw or processed observations from sensors, process chains or other data providers (including a SOS) based on user-specified events and alert/filter conditions. The WNS provides a standard interface to allow asynchronous communication between users and services and between different services. The SPS provides a standard interface to sensors and sensor systems and is used to coordinate the collection, processing, archiving and distribution of sensor observations.
Ingo will explain how these standards/specifications are evolving, provide examples where SWE is being used to support operations and research, and highlight open issues that affect the adoption of the SWE standards/specifications. There will be ample opportunity to discuss merits/demerits of the SWE standards and specifications.
About the speaker
Ingo Simonis
Ingo Simonis, co-founder and principal of the International Geospatial Services Institute (iGSI) GmbH, has been an active participant in the OGC Technical Committee since 2001 and has been a key player in the design, development and promotion of the OGC's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards. Ingo co-founded and is Community Lead for 52°North, a German open source software company that has developed the primary open source software available for SWE services. This software has contributed significantly to uptake of SWE standards globally. In addition to software development and business management, Simonis advises PhD candidates, participates in dissertation reviews on SWE-related topics and presents at conferences around the world.
Water savings from willow removal
Willows (Salix. Spp.), while not endemic to Australia, form dense stands in many stream locations. Australia has been experiencing a long-term drought and potential water extraction by willows is considered a significant problem, although little global scientific evidence exists to support such concerns. The extent of willow occupation in Australian streams has been deemed large enough to warrant investigation of their evapotranspiration rates and quantification of potential water savings from willow removal. Willows situated in-stream (permanent water) and on stream banks (semi-permanent water) were monitored over three summers from August 2005 to May 2008 employing heat pulse velocity sap flux sensors and field measurement of water balance components. A comparative study of native riparian River Red Gum trees was also undertaken. Differences in transpiration flux rates between willows with permanent and semi-permanent access to water were substantial, with peak transpiration of 15.2 mm day-1 and 2.3 mm day-1 respectively. Water balance calculations over the three year period indicate an average potential net water saving of 5.5 ML year-1 ha-1 of crown projected area is achievable by removal of in-stream willows with permanent access to water. On stream banks, replacement of willows with native riparian vegetation will have no net impact on site water balances. Results also indicate that under the influence of natural environmental events such as drought, heat stress and willow sawfly infestation, evapotranspiration rates from in-stream willows remain greater than that from open water. These results will have important implications in environmental management of willows and in future water resource allocation and planning in Australia.
About the speaker
Tanya Doody
Tanya Doody is an experimental scientist working on spatial eco-hydrological projects within CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship. She has 17 years experience in quantifying the impacts of vegetation on water resources in many locations around Australia and more recently she has undertaken spatial and ecohydrological research to improve understanding of the effect of flooding regimes on the health of water dependent ecosystems on the Murray floodplains. Tanya is also completing a PhD to quantify evapotranspiration and the potential water savings achievable from removal of willow taxa from rivers and streams in Australia, in order to return vital water resources to the environment.
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Ecosystem approach, wetlands and environmental water management
The Ecosystem Approach (EA) has been adopted by Contracting Parties as the methodological framework for delivery of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD): biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of the benefits of genetic resources. It has been indicated as congruent with the wise use and related ecological condition concept of the Ramsar Convention.
The EA is underpinned by 12 principles. These are outlined and compared with the structure of the Water Framework Directive, the new, integrated approach to water policy in Europe. Application to wetland management is explored from the standpoint of environmental water requirements and the growing interest in functional analysis and delivery of ecosystem services. The National Ecosystem Assessment is a major outcome of the implementation in the UK of the EA within the context of demonstrating the wider social and economic values of ecosystem functioning.
Further international examples are used, including the Iraq marshes and the Mekong Delta, to examine lessons with potential relevance to implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
About the speaker
Professor Edward Maltby
Professor Edward Maltby is currently a Professor of Wetland Science, Water and Ecosystem Management, and the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Water, Integrated Management and Ecosystem Research at the university of Liverpool.
Professor Maltby has over 40 years of experience in scientific research and environment project management. He has provided technical and policy advice for supragovernment, government and non-government bodies, including the European Commission, the UK Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the United States Federal Government, and The United Nations Environment Program, among others.
He is currently advisor to the Secretary of State for Environment on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment.
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