Senior Research Fellowships

Economic analysis of investment in stream–aquifer interaction technical and management challenges

Return on investment report Land & Water Australia investmented in this project through a Senior Research Fellowship granted by Land & Water Australia to Dr Richard Evans. The project was initiated in November 2004 and the final report submitted in March 2007. The rationale for this Land and Water Australia project included the lack of a national approach for managing Australian groundwater resources and no nationally (more)...

Modelling impacts of vegetation cover change on regional climate

This study provided new evidence of the interactions, feedbacks and risks of natural climate variability, climate change and land use/land cover change impacting on the Australian continent and how they vary regionally. We reviewed evidence of climate change and underlying processes resulting from interactions between global warming caused by increased concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and modification of the land surface. The consequences of ignoring the effect of land use/land cover change (more)...

How much water does a woodland or plantation use: a review of some measurement methods

Determining the water balance of a landscape is important to sustainable management of water, vegetation and land resources. Water flow through vegetation is the principle pathway for the discharge of water from Australian landscapes. The rate of this discharge is determined by solar radiation, leaf area index, vapour pressure deficit and soil moisture content. Tree transpiration from plantations and native woodlands and forests is an important determinant of the water balance of much of the (more)...

Carbon Uptake and Water Use of Vegetation Under Climate Change

Accumulation and storage of carbon in trees is one method of sequestration which may help offset increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, for every molecule of CO2 absorbed by a leaf, up to a thousand molecules of water are released as transpiration, water that has moved out of the soil into the atmosphere. Therefore, simply planting more trees to absorb more CO2 is not as risk-free as may originally be thought, (more)...

Impacts of Plantation Age, Fire and Disturbance on Catchment Yield

The problem of sustainable water resource management is a key issue confronting Australia in the 21st century. Increasing demand through increased population size, declining rainfall across parts of temperate Australia and consequently an increasing need to allocate water to maintain ecosystem health and ecosystem service provision are the dominant threats to the maintenance of an adequate supply of water to urban, peri-urban and rural communities.

Identifying Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems

Groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are important elements in the landscape that require access to groundwater to maintain their health and vigour. They are important because of their conservation, biodiversity, ecological, social and economic value.

There are two threats to GDEs — outright loss of habitat and outright loss of groundwater resources.