Innovation Publications

Advanced airborne technologies for mapping and monitoring native Australian vegetation

Airborne sensors can be used by natural resource managers and researchers to collect data about things which can be seen, such as vegetation cover, as well as characteristics like canopy condition and water use, which are not visible. Importantly, faster and more accurate data collection over large areas can be achieved by combining light detection and ranging (lidar) with other airborne technologies which include multi and hyper spectral scanners, digital video and still photography. Lidar can be (more)...

Agricultural land retirement as an environmental policy

This fact sheet outlines research that uses the shadow price (the value of a land parcel over a year ) of land and analyses the potential use of contract design for cost-efficient agricultural land retirement schemes in Australia.

Breaking through the equity barrier in environmental policy

Environmental and natural resource policy has nowadays come under the banner of increased economic efficiency, as witnessed by the growing popularity of market-based instruments. While few argue against the need for efficiency, there are worries that othe

Characterising South-West Australia's rainfall using speleotherms and climate models

Final report on the project in which Dr Pauline Treble used chemical analysis in the layers formed on cave stalagmites to discover the prehistoric variability of Australia’s rainfall. These have then been compared with climate model’s predictions of the past. The research is providing a deeper understanding of the speleothem record for south-western Australia and the Murray Darling Basin. Pauline’s fieldwork has recovered material suitable to know what drip water tells about the surface rainfall (more)...

Climate change and water use of native vegetation

Under climate change conditions Australia will generally be hotter and, for many parts of the country drier. Vegetation water use is strongly influenced by soil moisture availability (which is influenced by rainfall) and evaporative demand. Soil moisture will be more scarce in the future across much of the continent due to declining rainfall. The major input of water into the Australian landscape is rainfall and most rainfall (70–95%) returns to the atmosphere as (more)...

Concepts for private sector funded conservation using tax-effective instruments

Drought, the "creeping disaster"

As a general phenomenon to cover most situations, drought is difficult to define, though basically a drought is due to a severe, abnormal deficit in the rainfall of a region. Four major types of drought are recognised: meteorological drought, agricultural drought, hydrological drought and socio-economic drought. This report is mainly concerned with hydrological drought, which is manifested in both the availability of surface water and the levels of groundwater. There are numerous indices for drought (more)...

Dynamics of sediment and nutrient fluxes from burnt forest catchments

The magnitude of the impact of wildfire on water quality in SE Australia has rarely been estimated because the location and timing of wildfires is unpredictable, usually precluding the establishment of robust before and after impact experimental designs.  However the 2003 Alpine fires presented a rare opportunity to overcome this constraint when two long-term water quality research catchments were burnt by wildfire. The combination of a sound experimental design and (more)...

Ecohydrological regionalisation of Australia: a tool for management and science

Human activities, such as land use and water extraction, and projected global climate change can lead to hydrological changes in rivers and streams. These changes are at the forefront of the many processes that threaten aquatic habitats and the flora and fauna (including humans) which depend on them.