Integrating satellite observations into environmental accounts. Accounting for biomass, water and ecosystem helps to manage and protect Australia's natural capital. Existing data provide only limited information, but this project will build on recent advances in satellite observation and model-data fusion technology to produce national accounts with unprecedented detail, for each year since 1990.
From environmental monitoring to management: extracting knowledge about environmental events from sensor data. New, high-detail sources of environmental sensor data are useless without new methods for identifying patterns and extracting knowledge from that data. This project will develop improved techniques for interacting with environmental sensor data to assist environmental scientists and manager in understand the important events that are occurring.
Synthesis of Activated Carbon Supported Zero Valent Iron Nanoparticles and Application to Contaminant Degradation in Benthic Sediments. Sediment contamination is a major problem in harbours and estuaries around Australia. For example, in Sydney Harbour, a total fishing ban has been implemented as a result of excessive levels of dioxins and benzofurans in fish tissues. There is also concern at the possibility of large scale contamination of Botany Bay as a result of historic industrial activity a ....Synthesis of Activated Carbon Supported Zero Valent Iron Nanoparticles and Application to Contaminant Degradation in Benthic Sediments. Sediment contamination is a major problem in harbours and estuaries around Australia. For example, in Sydney Harbour, a total fishing ban has been implemented as a result of excessive levels of dioxins and benzofurans in fish tissues. There is also concern at the possibility of large scale contamination of Botany Bay as a result of historic industrial activity around the Bay. While dredging and on-land treatment of sediments is being adopted at the most severely contaminated sites, the cost of this approach is exorbitant. For sites where removal of contaminated sediments cannot be justified, the approach proposed in this study of a technology that entraps contaminants and enhances their in situ biodegradation is potentially a way forward.Read moreRead less
Data-driven water quality treatment management decision support system. Data-driven water quality treatment management decision support system. This project aims to develop a robust decision support system to predict manganese and the character and concentration of dissolved organic matter in drinking water reservoirs, using intelligent algorithms and data collected through remote autonomous instrumentation. These predicted water quality parameters could be used as model input variables to provi ....Data-driven water quality treatment management decision support system. Data-driven water quality treatment management decision support system. This project aims to develop a robust decision support system to predict manganese and the character and concentration of dissolved organic matter in drinking water reservoirs, using intelligent algorithms and data collected through remote autonomous instrumentation. These predicted water quality parameters could be used as model input variables to provide real-time decisions for plant operators on the required treatment regime for incoming raw water, and advise them on the optimal reservoir offtake depth. This will potentially minimise treatment costs and health risks for consumers. The ultimate goal is to significantly enhance current water supply management practices.Read moreRead less
In-situ electrochemical generation of caustic and oxygen from sewage for emission control in sewers. This project aims to deliver an innovative technology that controls the emission of notorious compounds from sewer networks using chemicals directly produced from sewage, with electricity being the input. Compared to existing methods, this technology provides a much safer and more environmentally friendly solution, at less than 50 per cent of the cost.
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354558
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,000.00
Summary
Reimagining the ecosocial sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin. Urgent work is required to prevent the ecological, social and economic collapse of the Murray-Darling Basin. Ecosocial sustainability, as a long-term goal for the Murray-Darling, requires dealing with complex patterns of settlement, production, consumption and governance. Traditional disciplines are too narrowly defined to deal with this complexity. This research network will advance Australia's interdisciplinary research on s ....Reimagining the ecosocial sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin. Urgent work is required to prevent the ecological, social and economic collapse of the Murray-Darling Basin. Ecosocial sustainability, as a long-term goal for the Murray-Darling, requires dealing with complex patterns of settlement, production, consumption and governance. Traditional disciplines are too narrowly defined to deal with this complexity. This research network will advance Australia's interdisciplinary research on sustainability of the Murray-Darling by creatively bringing into dialogue notable groups of scholars whose work traverses the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. This network will integrate new interdisciplinary research with bold policy analysis and creative representations, to build informed public engagement.Read moreRead less
Create Once, Use Many Times - The Clever Use of Metadata in eGovernment and eBusiness Recordkeeping Processes in Networked Environments. Descriptive metadata, i.e. structured context-rich information about business processes, agents, and information resources, is a vital tool in managing business transactions and related information objects in complex intranet/internet environments to support eBusiness and eGovernment. Implementation of recordkeeping metadata standards is problematic as metadata ....Create Once, Use Many Times - The Clever Use of Metadata in eGovernment and eBusiness Recordkeeping Processes in Networked Environments. Descriptive metadata, i.e. structured context-rich information about business processes, agents, and information resources, is a vital tool in managing business transactions and related information objects in complex intranet/internet environments to support eBusiness and eGovernment. Implementation of recordkeeping metadata standards is problematic as metadata generation and deployment are resource intensive and application specific. This project will develop a proof of concept prototype to demonstrate how standards-compliant metadata can be captured ONCE in particular application environments, then reused MANY times across business applications and in different environments. Implementation of the prototype in a test-bed site will provide a model for best practice.Read moreRead less
How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environ ....How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental flows, and promote greater understanding of the links between flow patterns and river health. The project will build upon existing knowledge to create a sound framework for planning, monitoring, and evaluation of environmental watering decisions across regional Australia, greatly improving our ability to sustainably manage rivers into the future.Read moreRead less
Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. This project aims to develop indices that link change in invertebrate communities to specific environmental stressors, and combine these indices with innovative, low cost molecular approaches to species identification to rapidly identify the causes of decline. River health assessment methods, usually based on aquatic invertebrates, identify if rivers are impaire ....Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. This project aims to develop indices that link change in invertebrate communities to specific environmental stressors, and combine these indices with innovative, low cost molecular approaches to species identification to rapidly identify the causes of decline. River health assessment methods, usually based on aquatic invertebrates, identify if rivers are impaired but must be developed to identify the causes of decline. The intended outcomes are improved sustainable water resource management within and among states, and improved natural resource policy development.Read moreRead less
E. coli as an indicator of faecal contamination in the Australian context. The goal of this research is to improve our ability to use Escherichia coli as an indicator of water quality by determining the extent to which non-faecal sources of E. coli contribute to coliform counts and to develop a method to differentiate non-faecal E. coli from those that are faecal derived.