Improving Sub-national Population Forecasts. The aim of this project is to make significant advances in two related areas of regional, council area and local population forecasting, namely improving accuracy, and providing an indication of forecast uncertainty. Population forecasts often turn out to be far more inaccurate than users realise and fail to come with any information about reliability. Every year forecasts inform a wide variety of planning and policy development activities and influen ....Improving Sub-national Population Forecasts. The aim of this project is to make significant advances in two related areas of regional, council area and local population forecasting, namely improving accuracy, and providing an indication of forecast uncertainty. Population forecasts often turn out to be far more inaccurate than users realise and fail to come with any information about reliability. Every year forecasts inform a wide variety of planning and policy development activities and influence investment decisions worth billions of dollars. In order to increase the value of forecasts to users, this project aims to combine methods from a range of disciplines to devise more accurate ways of forecasting populations, and provide accompanying information on their likely error.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354789
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,000.00
Summary
Networking environmental science to achieve integrated management of Australian terrestrial biodiversity in an era of environmental change. Human activities impact Australian ecosystems profoundly and compound natural complexity by superimposing environmental changes. Thus, understanding, conserving and enhancing Australian biodiversity demands interdisciplinary research and management strategies. These activities lack overarching strategic coordination, being conducted mainly by groups with fo ....Networking environmental science to achieve integrated management of Australian terrestrial biodiversity in an era of environmental change. Human activities impact Australian ecosystems profoundly and compound natural complexity by superimposing environmental changes. Thus, understanding, conserving and enhancing Australian biodiversity demands interdisciplinary research and management strategies. These activities lack overarching strategic coordination, being conducted mainly by groups with focused interests. We will develop a Network uniting the skills, resources and energies of excellent and productive researchers and managers of natural resources across the relevant disciplines and organizations, and so work synergistically towards the National Research Priority of an Environmentally Sustainable Australia.Read moreRead less
Gambling-related harm in Northern Australia: A Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based spatiotemporal analysis of venue catchments. There is growing national concern about the impact of electronic gaming (poker) machines yet little is known about the effects of this gambling in rural and remote areas of Australia. We will develop a database to define the geographic distribution of gambling impacts, the nature of high-risk venues, and the characteristics, both spatial and social, of vulnerable ....Gambling-related harm in Northern Australia: A Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based spatiotemporal analysis of venue catchments. There is growing national concern about the impact of electronic gaming (poker) machines yet little is known about the effects of this gambling in rural and remote areas of Australia. We will develop a database to define the geographic distribution of gambling impacts, the nature of high-risk venues, and the characteristics, both spatial and social, of vulnerable communities. This will enable the design of much needed harm minimisation strategies and will provide regulatory bodies with insights into the capacity of local communities to absorb the impact of electronic gaming machine venues.Read moreRead less
Causes and consequences of population turnover in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory experiences an extraordinarily high rate of population turnover. Approximately one quarter (compared to less than 10% for most other states) of the Territory's resident population in 2001 had lived somewhere else 5 years earlier. The research will examine the characteristics and causes of this turnover as well as its long-term implications for the composition and associated planning capacity of the N ....Causes and consequences of population turnover in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory experiences an extraordinarily high rate of population turnover. Approximately one quarter (compared to less than 10% for most other states) of the Territory's resident population in 2001 had lived somewhere else 5 years earlier. The research will examine the characteristics and causes of this turnover as well as its long-term implications for the composition and associated planning capacity of the NT population. Of particular interest is the effect of population transience on the establishment, maintenance, and continuation of knowledge systems, both desert and tropical.Read moreRead less
Developing Robust Small Area Population Forecasts for Planning and Policy. This project aims to create more robust, detailed, and accurate small area population forecasts, and implement them in a sophisticated forecasting system for one jurisdiction in Australia, USA, UK and Canada. The project is significant as it expects to generate a suite of new and innovative methods, theory, and population forecasts that will be useful to researchers and planners both in Australia and overseas. Expected ou ....Developing Robust Small Area Population Forecasts for Planning and Policy. This project aims to create more robust, detailed, and accurate small area population forecasts, and implement them in a sophisticated forecasting system for one jurisdiction in Australia, USA, UK and Canada. The project is significant as it expects to generate a suite of new and innovative methods, theory, and population forecasts that will be useful to researchers and planners both in Australia and overseas. Expected outcomes include new forecasting methods, associated computer code, many open-access academic papers, and new international collaborations. More detailed and reliable population forecasts will bring substantial benefits to those planning our future infrastructure requirements (e.g. schools, hospitals, housing and transport).
Read moreRead less
Aboriginal patch burning and the quest for sustainable fire management. This project aims to document historical changes in the spatial grain of the patch burning mosaic in an Arnhem Land savannah with an unbroken history of management by Aboriginal people, and in adjacent areas where traditional management has ceased. The mosaic's spatial grain will be inferred by mapping the individual ages of the long-lived conifer Callitris intratropica. Prior research has shown that Callitris individuals c ....Aboriginal patch burning and the quest for sustainable fire management. This project aims to document historical changes in the spatial grain of the patch burning mosaic in an Arnhem Land savannah with an unbroken history of management by Aboriginal people, and in adjacent areas where traditional management has ceased. The mosaic's spatial grain will be inferred by mapping the individual ages of the long-lived conifer Callitris intratropica. Prior research has shown that Callitris individuals can be reliably aged, and population structures are very sensitive to fire regimes: saplings only establish if unburnt for 10 years. This research is expected to provide the first direct test of the hypothesis that Aboriginal people maintained fine-grained fire mosaics in savannas, and inform bushfire policy debates.Read moreRead less
The demographic consequences of extreme weather events in Australia. This project aims to understand how extreme weather events are likely to affect Australians’ residential mobility choices, using machine learning techniques to provide the first overview of the impact of natural hazards on where Australians are likely to live in the future. Expected outcomes include an understanding of the influence of extreme weather events on changes in population numbers and composition. Expected benefits in ....The demographic consequences of extreme weather events in Australia. This project aims to understand how extreme weather events are likely to affect Australians’ residential mobility choices, using machine learning techniques to provide the first overview of the impact of natural hazards on where Australians are likely to live in the future. Expected outcomes include an understanding of the influence of extreme weather events on changes in population numbers and composition. Expected benefits include an understanding of how environmental drivers are influencing internal migration in Australia, enabling better planning for service provision and economic growth.Read moreRead less
Applying macroecology to assist in the management of Kakadu National Park. The ecological integrity of Kakadu National Park is threatened by fires, weeds, and feral animals. To help tackle these problems, we will develop a cost-effective, culturally appropriate, park-wide monitoring system based on changes in the boundaries of closed forests, woodland and grassland. We will gauge the effect of broad-scale land management interventions, and predict the consequences of future change. The findings ....Applying macroecology to assist in the management of Kakadu National Park. The ecological integrity of Kakadu National Park is threatened by fires, weeds, and feral animals. To help tackle these problems, we will develop a cost-effective, culturally appropriate, park-wide monitoring system based on changes in the boundaries of closed forests, woodland and grassland. We will gauge the effect of broad-scale land management interventions, and predict the consequences of future change. The findings of this study will be transferable to other landscape settings in Australia and overseas. It will contribute to debates about the ecological consequences of current land management practices and how these compare with past Aboriginal land management.Read moreRead less
Landscape-scale population dynamics of open forests in the Australian monsoon tropics. Over the last century there has been a trend of increasing tree cover in many landscapes. Yet the causes of this globally important ecological phenomenon are poorly understood, but may include the effects of climate, fire, grazing and CO2. We will determine how an area of forest has changed over 50 years in Kakadu National Park, linking forest demography with remote sensing techniques, re-measurement and analy ....Landscape-scale population dynamics of open forests in the Australian monsoon tropics. Over the last century there has been a trend of increasing tree cover in many landscapes. Yet the causes of this globally important ecological phenomenon are poorly understood, but may include the effects of climate, fire, grazing and CO2. We will determine how an area of forest has changed over 50 years in Kakadu National Park, linking forest demography with remote sensing techniques, re-measurement and analysis of long-term tree demography datasets, and simulation models of tree population dynamics on a landscape scale. This will provide a scientific framework to develop sustainable land management and the conservation of Australia's forest biodiversity.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100434
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$371,114.00
Summary
What fire regimes can maintain biodiversity in northern Australia's savannah landscapes, and how do we implement them? Inappropriate fire regimes (the frequency, intensity and size of bushfires) are causing ongoing declines in Australia's biodiversity, yet we have little understanding of the fire regimes that should be implemented. Focussing on Kakadu National Park in northern Australia, this project will develop optimal fire management strategies for conserving biodiversity.