Friday 6th October,
2006 at 11.00am
Sagebrush, cattle grazing and the endangered (and
very cute) pygmy rabbit
Associate
Professor Lisa Shipley, Department of
Natural Resource Sciences & Washington State University,
Washington
Seminar Summary
Pygmy rabbits occupy deep-soil sagebrush-steppe habitat in the north-western
U.S, and are the only mammal that eats a diet of primarily sagebrush, a
terpene-containing shrub. However, over the last few decades, these
animals have become extirpated in Washington and are rare in neighbouring states.
At Washington State University , we have studied many aspects of the ecology
of these endangered rabbits. In this presentation I will discuss how pygmy
rabbits cope with sagebrush as food, and the effects of cattle grazing on distribution,
diets, and nutritional quality of forages for pygmy rabbits.
About the Speaker
Associate Professor Lisa Shipley in the Department
of Natural Resource Sciences and Washington State University
in Pullman , Washington . Her research focuses on foraging
behaviour and nutrition of herbivores (everything from mice
to moose), and wildlife habitat. Prof. Shipley has a
Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and did a postdoc at Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences . She is on sabbatical
at JCU Townsville and Canberra in Bill Foley's lab, working
with plant chemistry and herbivores.
Wednesday 13th September, 2006
at 2.00pm
Sediment budgets in Great Barrier Reef catchments:
the balance between art and science
Dr
Rebecca Bartley, CSIRO Land and Water, Brisbane
Seminar Summary
The SedNet model is being used to determine sediment budgets for many of the
catchments draining to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. This model predicts
the source of sediments delivered from each catchment and the erosion processes
and/or land use types responsible. The results of the sediment budgets are
also being used to formulate policy related to land use practices as well
as to set water quality targets for many catchments. Results from field monitoring
and data collection in the Herbert, Burdekin and Daintree catchments are
now highlighting where these models work, and where the models need further
improvement.
Friday 1st September, 2006 at 11.00am
Residential location decisions and urbanising landscapes
Jeroen Udo, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Seminar Summary
Urban sprawl, or non-contiguous development at the urban-rural fringe, has
proven to be a remarkable socio-economic phenomenon that has received considerable
attention in recent literature. It has been increasingly recognized that
spatial distribution of environmental characteristics plays an important
part in the dynamic evolution of land use patterns. The ability to understand
the two-way relationship of human-nature interaction in urbanizing landscapes
will help policy makers to understand and predict the economic, social, and
ecological aspects of land use change. The objective of this paper is to
develop a simulation model, based on microeconomic foundations, that shows
how individual household’s location decisions are influenced by spatial
landscape characteristics and policy instruments.
Wednesday 30th August, 2006 at 11.00am
Contracts meeting challenges in the chain
Dr F. Saenz, International Centre of Political Economy
Seminar Summary
There are widely diverging experiences with contract farming in agriculture.
Early literature has been fairly pessimistic about the effectiveness of contracts.
In this research we challenge those pessimists point of views and confirm
the relevance of contracts as a key form of governance and alternative market
institution. New institutional economics approaches have been applied to
identify how contracts have different functions in particular market settings
for specific types of producers and their resources management. Consequently,
rather than focusing price and value arrangements alone, attention is given
to non-price aspects and life-cycle dimension of contracts during different
stages of market development.
Friday 4th August,
2006 at 11.00am
How much of the world is ‘green’?
Resource vs. consumer limitation
of ecosystems
Professor William Bond,
Botany Department, University of
Cape Town, South Africa
Seminar Summary
Traditionally the distribution
of world vegetation has been explained
by climate and soils and their
effects on plant growth. A controversial
alternative idea is that vegetation
is shaped by animals and their
trophic interactions. Herbivores
can create a very different ecosystem
from the ‘green’ world
set by resource limits on growth.
The idea is controversial because
it is claimed that most plants
are inedible, or that consumers
are regulated by predators and
pathogens, so that herbivory could
seldom exert significant control
on vegetation. However, both correlative
and mechanistic models show that
large areas of the world are far
from their ‘climate potential’ and
may therefore be consumer-controlled.
The most likely candidates for
globally influential consumers
are large mammals and fire. Because
they are uncoupled from direct
climate control, consumer-controlled
ecosystems pose interesting challenges
for global change and conservation.
About the Speaker
William Bond has worked
on the ecology of mediterranean
shrublands, grasslands and savannas.
He has co-authored the fire ecology
textbook, "Fire
and Plants”. He and his colleagues
are currently studying the interplay
between Africa’s large mammal
herbivores and fire in the last
continent where the megafauna is
still intact.
Monday 24th July,
2006 at 11.00am
The use of weather radar
for flood forecasting in South
East Queensland
Dr Bofu Yu, Griffith University,
Brisbane
Friday 14th July, 2006 at 11.00am
Towards one-step estimation of crop water requirements
Prof. W. J. Shuttleworth, University of Arizona -
Director, Center for Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and
Riparian Areas (SAHRA).
Seminar Summary
This talk provides theoretical analyses that facilitate the use
of the Penman-Monteith equation to make a one-step estimate of
crop water requirements. Reluctance to using a one-step estimate
results from two outstanding issues, both of which are
addressed. First, no method has been yet defined to handle the
problem that meteorological variables are commonly available
only at 2 m above the ground while, when using the Penman-Monteith
equation, they are required at some level above the crop. To
resolve this, a blending height is defined in the atmospheric
boundary layer (ABL) where meteorological conditions are
independent of the underlying crop. Expressions are derived to
calculate the aerodynamic resistances to, and the vapor pressure
deficit at, the blending height from climate variables at 2 m.
Consequently, 2 m climate data can be used in the Penman-Monteith
equation, either to estimate transpiration from surface
resistance or to calculate surface resistance from measured
transpiration. Second, no table of effective values currently
exists for the surface resistance of different crops equivalent
to that for the crop coefficient. This talk calls for field
studies to address this need. However, recognizing the need for
an interim source of crop-specific surface resistances, a
methodology is given for translating the crop coefficient into
equivalent surface resistance. To make this translation, it is
necessary to specify the relationship between the radiative and
aerodynamic energy inputs to evapotranspiration when the crop
coefficients were calibrated. Finally, a Penman-Monteith-based,
one-step estimation equation is derived that makes proper
allowance for the different aerodynamic characteristics of crops
in all conditions of atmospheric aridity, and that estimates
crop evaporation for any crop of specified height from existing
crop coefficients using standard 2 m climate data.
Speaker's Notes [PDF, 3MB]
Friday
7th July, 2006 at 11.00am
Asleep at the Switch? A
Case for Parallel Programming in
the Analysis of Big Geophysical
Data
Dr J. Walter Larson,
ANU Supercomputer Facility, The
Australian National University
Seminar Summary
In recent years, much effort has been devoted
to creating large geophysical datasets that in some
cases have ballooned past the terabyte mark, and in
the near future may approach the petabyte scale. The
activities driving what has been termed a “data explosion” have
been advances in remote sensing and increases in
the throughput of data assimilations systems and
coupled climate models. The main computational
technologies that have enabled this data explosion
are ongoing improvements in performance-to-price
ratios in both microprocessor speed and disk capacity
(the much-touted Moore’s Law gain), and the
advent of parallel computing (and in particular
message-passing parallelism).
Meanwhile, much of the toolset
commonly used to analyse these
data have not made this technological
leap. Topics to be discussed include:
1) the case for bringing parallel
computing techniques to bear on
the problem;
2) an inventory of useful pieces
of software infrastructure required
to solve the problem;
3) a discussion
of likely integration mechanisms;
and
4) a software roadmap for achieving
these aims.
Wednesday 7th June,
2006 at 11.00am
The EU Water Framework Directive:
a blueprint for sustainable water
resources management?
Dr
Robert Ferrier, Catchment Management
Group at the Macaulay Institute in
Aberdeen, Scotland
Seminar Summary
The Water Framework Directive
(WFD) represents the most substantial
waters legislation from the European
Union to date. Its aim is to establish
a new, integrated approach to the
protection, improvement and sustainable
use of Europe's rivers, lakes,
estuaries, coastal waters, wetlands,
and groundwaters.
The WFD continues to implement
objectives that protect particular
uses of the water environment from
the effects of pollution However,
it also introduces new, broader
ecological objectives, designed
to protect and, where necessary,
restore the structure and function
of aquatic ecosystems themselves,
and thereby safeguard the sustainable
use of water resources. Future
success in managing Europe’s
water environment will be judged
principally by the achievement
of these ecological goals.
The second key change is the introduction
of a basin planning process system
which must be produced in a participative
and consultative manner. This provides
the decision-making framework within
which proportionate and cost-effective
combinations of measures to achieve
environmental objectives can be
designed and implemented.
This seminar will introduce the
principles behind this approach
to resource management and highlight
the importance of robust scientific
underpinning to successful transposition
and implementation of the WFD.
About the Speaker
Bob Ferrier leads the Catchment
Management Group at the Macaulay
Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland,
which is the UKs leading land use
research institute. The research
programme focuses on the hydrological,
and hydrochemical consequences
of environmental change and subsequent
impacts on ecological. The research
group links biophysical and ecological
scientists with social scientists
and economists to deliver a holistic
approach to catchment management,
and provide an evidence base for
policy development and support.
Friday
28 April, 2006 at 11.00am
An antilopine autecology:
distribution, abundance and social
ecology of Macropus antilopinus
Euan Ritchie,
James Cook University
Seminar Summary
The
antilopine wallaroo (Macropus
antilopinus) is Australia’s
only large macropod restricted
entirely to the tropics, and there
is little information available
on the species biology, distribution,
abundance or conservation status.
This lack of information is particularly
concerning in light of the current
broad scale decline of many of
northern Australia’s
mammals, and anecdotal reports
of antilopine wallaroo populations
declining exist. I surveyed 50
sites by vehicle across the species
range, from the Kimberley region in Western
Australia, across the
top end of the Northern
Territory and the Cape
York and Einasleigh Uplands bioregions
of Queensland.
At each site I recorded the density
and group composition of antilopine
wallaroos and mapped the vegetation,
to establish the species habitat
preferences. Here I report on the
species distribution, abundance,
social structure and conservation
status. Antilopine wallaroo population
densities varied considerably,
and this variation appears to be
largely controlled by gradients
in soil fertility and water availability.
I recorded a large decline in the
abundance of antilopine wallaroos
at Coomalie Farm (N.T.), the only
site in Australia for
which reliable baseline data exists.
About the Speaker
I completed my BSc(hons)
at J.CU. in 1998 and since then have
worked on a number of taxonomic groups
and within various ecological disciplines
both in Australia and overseas. I
am currently writing up my PhD on
the ecology and conservation of the
antilopine wallaroo (Macropus
antilopinus).
My research interests lie in macroecological,
field-based studies of the ecology
and conservation of the mammals of
northern Australia
Friday 7 April,
2006 at 11.00am
The relationship between
land use change and the quantity
of streamflow: developing a predictive
approach for use in Tasmania
Peter Hairsine,
Stream Leader, Water Quality & Environmental
Flows, CSIRO Land and Water
Seminar Summary
It is now widely recognised that
major changes to land use change
the quantity of water flowing from
that land. This conclusion is based
on catchment studies conducted
in a diverse range of environments
both in Australia and overseas.
Catchment decision makers are now
seeking to incorporate these effects
into planning processes for their
own catchments. This seminar describes
a generic approach to inclusion
of these effects into decision
support then evaluates and demonstrates
it for a catchment in Tasmania.
Peter will describe the science
behind this approach and the limitations
of using outside of southern Australia.
About the Speaker
Read
his web CV.
Friday 24th March,
2006 at 2.00pm
Can science and management
actually partner each other effectively?
Experiences from in and around Kruger
Park
Harry C Biggs, Program
Manager: Systems Ecology Research
Skukuza, Kruger National Park
Seminar Summary
A pervasive deficit in resource
management is the ability of agencies
or societies to link science, monitoring
and management in any reasonably
fluent way. The words “adaptive
management” and its congeners
are widely touted, without there
existing actual processes to achieve
it. The Kruger National Park in
South Africa is traversed by the
middle courses of important rivers
whose water quality and quantity
is determined by upstream actions
outside the Park. This fact, together
with a window of opportunity after
political change in South Africa,
catalysed development of workable
adaptive management processes at
more than just the prototype level.
The resultant philosophy spread
to the entire ecosystem research,
monitoring and management activities
in and around the Park.
This presentation will deal with
the underlying philosophies, and
why co-learning is so important.
We will also discuss the methods
used (including the objectives
and threshold setting instruments),
early successes in our area and
the challenges ahead. Finally we
will ask whether we are really
entering a new era with a framework,
conceptual tools and vocabulary
for more effective partnering between
science and management.
About the Speaker
Harry Biggs: I am designated
Program Integrator: systems ecology
research for the agency SANParks
in the Kruger National Park.
It is
increasingly understood that the
word "Systems" includes
not only biophysical but also social
and economic systems as they interact
in the whole. In recent years I
have taken a particular interest
in strategic (forward-looking)
adaptive management in the park
setting, heavily leveraging the
concept "thresholds of potential
concern".
I work with NGOs
to the west of the park in trying
to achieve a meaningful socio-ecological
view of how the poor communities
interact with their natural resources
(especially water) and with the
park. I am also involved in bioregional
planning in the wider geographical
context, and am therefore challenged
to understand nested scaling of
ecosystem services. I see complexity
(usually tractable, at least at
the conceptual level) as the underlying
reality.
Finally, I am very involved
in the operationalisation of new
biodiversity and protocted area
legislation in South Africa, using
the above principles.
Thursday 16th March,
2006 at 11.00am
Issues and Challenges
Dr Petra Kuhnert, CSIRO Mathematical
and Information Sciences
Seminar Summary
Modelling sediment transportation
through a river network has been
explored using a wide range of
techniques with the aim of providing
estimates of loads entering into
the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). These
approaches have been used to inform
government bodies about the health
of the GBR and trigger management
actions when the sediment load
has reached an undesirable level.
SedNet is a package for modeling
sediment transportation through
a river network that makes use
of hillslope, gully and stream
bank erosion deposits at each link
in the river network.
One key feature that is lacking
in these types of models are standard
errors on the end-of-catchment
load estimates and those estimates
calculated further up stream. Standard
errors are important in determining
the accuracy of the load estimate
derived from the model as they
can identify specific links in
the network where the uncertainty
is appreciably large.
In this talk, I will discuss the
issues and challenges concerned
with incorporating uncertainty
into sediment transportation models,
with a particular emphasis on hillslope
erosion and the familiar Revised
Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE).
I will present a method for incorporating
uncertainty into the RUSLE equation
for the case when we assume independence.
I will discuss various extensions
to this approach that are currently
under investigation and how this
information will be used to assess
error through the SedNet model.
About the Speaker
Petra completed a PhD in Statistics at Queensland University
of Technology in 2003 under the supervision of
Prof Kerrie Mengersen (QUT) and Dr Bill Venables
(CSIRO). Since then, Petra worked as a postdoc
in the Ecology Centre at the University of Queensland
and as a statistician in the Water Sciences Unit
at the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.
Petra is a research statistician
in the Environmental Informatics
theme within CSIRO Mathematical
and Information Sciences and works
on a wide range of marine and aquatic
ecosystem problems. Her main interests
include non-parametric methods
such as the bootstrap and classification
and regression trees, the elicitation
of expert information and the incorporation
of this information into Bayesian
models. She also has an interest
in incorporating uncertainty into
complex, deterministic models,
especially where data is limited.
Friday 24th February,
2006 at 11.00am
Local knowledge, global
thinking and regional modelling:
Towards a new synergistic paradigm
shift?
Kostas Alexandridis,
Department of Forestry & Natural
Resources, Purdue University
Seminar Sumary
The presentation explores dynamic and innovative
approaches to spatial and environmental modeling
that aim to maximize the value and content of information
at multiple scales of complex problem formulation.
Understanding the dynamics of coupled human - environmental
systems and their attributes across spatial (geographic,
geophysical, ecological) and anthropogenic (social,
economics, inferential) domains is a key ingredient
for successful modeling enterprises. An integrative
approach for representing, interpreting, assessing
and modeling real - world systems and their complexity
properties across space and time is explored. The
regional character of systemic interactions is
examined across dynamic “scales that matter”,
across multiple impact scales and across some state-of-the-art
complex modeling and decision-support system development
techniques. An attainable goal is to utilize both
deterministic and stochastic coupled system properties
towards achieving new synergistic science from
the ground-up.
About the Speaker
Kostas Alexandridis is
currently a Doctoral candidate
and a Purdue Research Foundation
Fellow at the Department of Forestry & Natural
Resources, Human-Environment Modeling & Analysis
Laboratory, Purdue University.
He specialises in stochastic and
artificial intelligent techniques
for modeling spatially complex
environmental systems of land use
change and decision-making, as
well as dynamic impact and statistical
accuracy assessment techniques,
such as multi-agent systems, artificial
neural networks, Bayesian decision
networks, and non-linear spatial
dynamics
Thursday 23rd February,
2006
at 2.00pm
Discovering resilient pathways
for water management in South Africa
Erin Bohensky, Centre for Environmental
Studies, University of Pretoria
Seminar Sumary
Resilience is the amount of change or disturbance
a system can withstand and still maintain its essential
identity, structure, and function. The notion of
resilience as it applies to water management is
in general poorly understood, yet it is a critical
issue to the successful implementation of the South
African Water Act and achievement of its three
principles of efficiency, equity, and sustainability.
Because social-ecological systems (SES) undergo
constant change, I suggest that managers of SES
must identify resilient ‘pathways,’ in
which learning how to maintain resilience is a
dynamic process; a journey to a desirable and achievable
future. I present two tools for discovering resilience
in South African water management. The first, scenarios,
as descriptive narratives about the future, provide
a mechanism for improving the understanding of
SES processes amid high uncertainty and uncontrollability.
The second, agent-based modelling, is used to simulate
the behavior of water users on the South African ‘waterscape’ under
alternative management scenarios and the role of
learning from collective experiences.
Together
these tools are used to investigate three questions:
which management scenario is best able to achieve
the Water Act principles; whether this is influenced
by agent ability to learn; and whether certain
social-ecological system conditions enable or constrain
learning? I find that no scenario succeeds at meeting
all three principles, and because scenario success
varies widely across regions, agents do better
than average when they are able to learn, and sustainability
is more likely to be achieved when agents use a
diversity of strategies. However, in areas with
high hydrological variability, agents are less
likely to benefit from past experience because
conditions change too rapidly. Agents in water-stressed
areas are more likely to try new strategies which
increases their ability to learn, while in small
areas, agents learn more quickly but are limited
to a more narrow range of experience.
These insights
suggest a need to consider variation in conditions
when designing catchment management strategies
and monitoring systems, both particularly important
during this time of change and innovation in the
South African water sector.
About the Speaker
Erin Bohensky is completing
a Ph.D. in the Centre for Environmental
Studies at the University of Pretoria
on social-ecological systems and
water management in South Africa.
Her areas of interest and expertise
include resilience theory, learning
and adaptation, scenario analysis
and agent-based modelling of complex
systems.
While working on her Ph.D.
she also participated extensively
in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,
a four-year global initiative to
provide decision-makers with scientific
information about the relationships
between ecosystems and human well-being.
She was the lead editor of a report
on the Gariep basin, part of the
Southern African Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (SAfMA), and an author
of various other assessment outputs,
including several publications
on the assessment process and findings.
Since the assessment’s completion,
she has been active in a United
Nations Environment Programme capacity-building
project in Africa to develop training
materials, teach training courses,
and assist with integrated ecosystem
assessments.
Previously, as a research
associate at the University of
California, Berkeley, she conducted
GIS and remote sensing analyses
of structure, function, and change
in various ecosystems including
the Kruger National Park, South
Africa. She holds a Master’s
degree in landscape ecology from
Duke University, for which she
completed her thesis on landscape
pattern and colobus monkeys in
Jozani Forest, Zanzibar. She earned
a Bachelor’s degree in environmental
and media studies from The Johns
Hopkins University, which led her
to work in journalism and publishing
for several years before deciding
to pursue a career in scientific
research.
Erin is currently based
in the Biocomplexity Research Group
at the University of Stellenbosch,
South Africa.
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