Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment
Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies
Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies
Along with Dr Fleur Tiver, Dr John Boland is a member of the CRC for Desert Knowledge and they have won funding from that body for the project “A mathematical-ecological model with flexible computer implementation for sustainable management of shrublands”
In this project they will construct an ecological/mathematical model
and customised flexible computer applications for our end-users (four
state government departments) that will be capable of forecasting
long-term (decade to century scale) dynamics of arid zone shrubs and
trees, especially in the chenopod (salt-bush) shrub-lands of southern
Australia under various grazing and conservation management regimes and
environmental conditions over a range of theoretical futures.
The
innovative feature of the project will be its ability to add value to
data from existing monitoring programs, predict management outcomes and
allow for decision-making towards sustainable management of arid
vegetation.
The application will be customised for and used by state
government agencies (in the first instance those represented by three of
our research partners in WA, SA and NSW) for the purposes of monitoring
pastoral and conservation land for sustainability of plant populations.
Since one of our research partners and three of our collaborators are
also end-users, there will be full engagement by them in determining the
direction of the research and developing a final product that will be
useful to them in monitoring the land in WA, SA and NSW under their
jurisdiction.
Hence, the participants will be fully trained in the use,
value and any limitations of the computer applications at the end of the
project, and be in a position to incorporate them directly into their
vegetation monitoring programmes.
