Monsoon extremes, environmental shifts, and catastrophic volcanic eruptions: quantifying impacts on the early human history of southern Australasia. The coincidence of a long, diverse Australasian human history with Earth's greatest climate systems presents the Australian and Indonesian communities with unrivalled opportunities for scientific discovery. Our study will improve understanding of global climate change, environmental shifts, volcanic catastrophes, and their role in early human disper ....Monsoon extremes, environmental shifts, and catastrophic volcanic eruptions: quantifying impacts on the early human history of southern Australasia. The coincidence of a long, diverse Australasian human history with Earth's greatest climate systems presents the Australian and Indonesian communities with unrivalled opportunities for scientific discovery. Our study will improve understanding of global climate change, environmental shifts, volcanic catastrophes, and their role in early human dispersal, and extinction, in Australasia. The significance of the results will extend to the modern world, where human behaviour modifies, and is modified by, climate and environment. Integration of research strengths in Australia and Indonesia will contribute to an improved bilateral relationship in science, education, and training, and engage the public in the excitement of scientific discovery.Read moreRead less
A Fundamental Understanding of Methane Driven Denitrification. Eutrophication in waterways due to the presence of nutrients including nitrogen is a well-recognised environmental problem. Moreton Bay, for example, used to receive 3,300 tons of nitrogen each year from point sources. Stringent nitrogen discharge limits have therefore been imposed on most wastewater treatment systems across Australia. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is commonly accomplished in a biological way involving the use of ....A Fundamental Understanding of Methane Driven Denitrification. Eutrophication in waterways due to the presence of nutrients including nitrogen is a well-recognised environmental problem. Moreton Bay, for example, used to receive 3,300 tons of nitrogen each year from point sources. Stringent nitrogen discharge limits have therefore been imposed on most wastewater treatment systems across Australia. Nitrogen removal from wastewater is commonly accomplished in a biological way involving the use of bacteria. The project aims to investigate a particular bacterial community, which is able to perform nitrogen removal from wastewater with methane as a renewable carbon source. The project will therefore lead to more sustainable wastewater treatment systems.Read moreRead less
Multiphase flow and transport in complex coastal wetland systems. Salt marshes play an essential role in maintaining Australia's coastal bio-diversity. They also function as barriers to fluxes of terrestrial pollutants to our coastal sea. Australia has a large number of salt marshes listed by the Ramsar Convention as coastal wetlands of international importance but many of them are subject to loss and degradation due to competing land uses. This project, examining in detail the flow and transpor ....Multiphase flow and transport in complex coastal wetland systems. Salt marshes play an essential role in maintaining Australia's coastal bio-diversity. They also function as barriers to fluxes of terrestrial pollutants to our coastal sea. Australia has a large number of salt marshes listed by the Ramsar Convention as coastal wetlands of international importance but many of them are subject to loss and degradation due to competing land uses. This project, examining in detail the flow and transport processes in marsh soils, will lead to (1) better understanding of the marsh's response to anthropogenic stress; and (2) improvement of strategies and methods for marsh wetland preservation and restoration.Read moreRead less
MoistureMap: A soil moisture monitoring, prediction and reporting system for sustainable land and water management. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal variation of surface and root zone soil moisture content is critical to environmental sustainability and risk adverse farm management. A paddock scale soil moisture prediction tool will allow i) grain growers to make informed decisions of what to plant and when, based on likely germination rates and crop yield, ii) graziers to be proactive rega ....MoistureMap: A soil moisture monitoring, prediction and reporting system for sustainable land and water management. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal variation of surface and root zone soil moisture content is critical to environmental sustainability and risk adverse farm management. A paddock scale soil moisture prediction tool will allow i) grain growers to make informed decisions of what to plant and when, based on likely germination rates and crop yield, ii) graziers to be proactive regarding management of stocking rates based on likely pasture growth, and iii) better weather and climate prediction skill. At regional scales moisture information can be used to support claims of drought exceptional circumstances.Read moreRead less
Natural convection induced exchange flows between near shore and central regions of reservoirs. Inland discharges into reservoirs often carry rich nutrients, pollutants and biological species into the coastal regions, which are redistributed across the central regions of reservoirs through dynamical mixing processes. One of the important mixing processes is the horizontal exchange flow between the near shore and central regions induced by diurnal heating and cooling through the water surface, wh ....Natural convection induced exchange flows between near shore and central regions of reservoirs. Inland discharges into reservoirs often carry rich nutrients, pollutants and biological species into the coastal regions, which are redistributed across the central regions of reservoirs through dynamical mixing processes. One of the important mixing processes is the horizontal exchange flow between the near shore and central regions induced by diurnal heating and cooling through the water surface, which is classified as a natural convection process. This process will be investigated in this project through a closely linked analytical, experimental and numerical research program. The output from this research will have direct application in water quality management and environmental planning.Read moreRead less
Image Based Visual Servo Control of Dynamic Under-Actuated Systems. The project builds on earlier work on visual servo control of under-actuated rigid body dynamics to develop and implement sophisticated and robust image based visual servo control for a wide class of under-actuated and fully actuated dynamic systems. The scope of the project extends far beyond basic testing of preliminary results to address key technical issues facing visual servo control algorithms at this time. The project i ....Image Based Visual Servo Control of Dynamic Under-Actuated Systems. The project builds on earlier work on visual servo control of under-actuated rigid body dynamics to develop and implement sophisticated and robust image based visual servo control for a wide class of under-actuated and fully actuated dynamic systems. The scope of the project extends far beyond basic testing of preliminary results to address key technical issues facing visual servo control algorithms at this time. The project is strongly motivated by the host of emerging applications for visual servo control of unmanned aerial vehicles. The experimental program within the project is based on control of a four rotor VTOL `hoverbot'.Read moreRead less
Contemporary sulfur biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes. This project aims to generate fundamental knowledge on the processes, kinetics and impacts to water quality of contemporary sulfur biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes. Extreme concentrations of highly reactive sulfides are forming in the surface sediments of floodplain drains, wetlands and agricultural soils. The newly forming sulfides are linked to severe oxygen depletion and acidification of coastal rivers a ....Contemporary sulfur biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes. This project aims to generate fundamental knowledge on the processes, kinetics and impacts to water quality of contemporary sulfur biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes. Extreme concentrations of highly reactive sulfides are forming in the surface sediments of floodplain drains, wetlands and agricultural soils. The newly forming sulfides are linked to severe oxygen depletion and acidification of coastal rivers and the complete failure of floodplain vegetation, leaving soils susceptible to erosion. The proposed study will greatly advance our understanding of how our precious coastal floodplain soil and water resources are being degraded, and will guide better land management.
Read moreRead less
An Ensemble Modelling Framework for Prediction in Ungauged Catchments. An important issue facing the water sector is a rationale for modeling flows in catchments having no prior measurements. Current approaches for modeling flow in ungauged catchments assume a rigid specification which is adopted for all catchments, irrespective of differences in regions and soil types. We propose here a modeling philosophy that better characterises the variability in the flow generation mechanism, with differen ....An Ensemble Modelling Framework for Prediction in Ungauged Catchments. An important issue facing the water sector is a rationale for modeling flows in catchments having no prior measurements. Current approaches for modeling flow in ungauged catchments assume a rigid specification which is adopted for all catchments, irrespective of differences in regions and soil types. We propose here a modeling philosophy that better characterises the variability in the flow generation mechanism, with different mechanisms being represented through different models in a probabilistic sense. We expect our approach to address the limitations of current schemes, and provide a much improved basis for estimating flows for design and management applications.Read moreRead less
Understanding Fugitive Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Wastewater Systems for Reliable Accounting and Effective Mitigation. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the most serious challenges facing mankind. Substantial reductions in emissions must be achieved, with responsibility shared by all industrial sectors. Wastewater systems contribute to GHG emission through not only energy consumption but also direct emissions of fugitive GHG such as methane and nitrous oxide. T ....Understanding Fugitive Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Wastewater Systems for Reliable Accounting and Effective Mitigation. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the most serious challenges facing mankind. Substantial reductions in emissions must be achieved, with responsibility shared by all industrial sectors. Wastewater systems contribute to GHG emission through not only energy consumption but also direct emissions of fugitive GHG such as methane and nitrous oxide. This project aims to deliver the urgently needed knowledge and technology support to the Australian wastewater industry to achieve reductions in fugitive emissions. The research will also provide support to the greenhouse office via more reliable estimation of such emissions.Read moreRead less
Enhancing nutrient retention in soils through management of microbial biomass. Soil microbial-processes are generally studied in relation to mineralisation of nutrients but rarely for their potential to retain nutrients and reduce nutrient leaching. We hypothesise that management of microbial immobilisation will enhance nutrient retention in nutrient enriched soils during seasonal rains. This hypothesis will be tested under strongly seasonal environments of southwest Australia where nutrient lea ....Enhancing nutrient retention in soils through management of microbial biomass. Soil microbial-processes are generally studied in relation to mineralisation of nutrients but rarely for their potential to retain nutrients and reduce nutrient leaching. We hypothesise that management of microbial immobilisation will enhance nutrient retention in nutrient enriched soils during seasonal rains. This hypothesis will be tested under strongly seasonal environments of southwest Australia where nutrient leaching from soils degrades quality of surface and groundwater. We will first investigate pathways and conditions leading to microbial immobilisation. We will then explore the regulation of substrate and nutrient conditions to promote such retention, and subsequently develop management interventions based on microbially-mediated nutrient retention.Read moreRead less