School of Environmental Sciences
Assoc Prof Robyn Watts 
BSc Hons PhD
Position Associate Professor, Ecology
Associate Director Institute for Land, Water & Society
Campus Thurgoona Campus
Office Room 122, East Wing, SES Building
Phone (02) 6051 9607
Fax (02) 6051 9897
EMAIL ROBYN WATTS 
Member of ILWS
Robyn is interested in the ecology, biodiversity, management and restoration of aquatic ecosystems. She has collaborated with several natural resource management agencies to improve the management of rivers and riparian zones. She has examined ecological responses to flow regimes in regulated rivers and developed indicators for the assessment of environmental flows. Robyn has led a number of research projects and consultancies for the Murray-Darling Basin Commission including the evaluation of the Murrumbidgee River for the First Step of the Living Murray Initiative and the assessment managed flow pulses in the Mitta Mitta River.
Robyn undertakes research on two main complementary research themes:
1. Biodiversity and connectivity in aquatic ecosystems.
Robyn is interested in how environmental and biological factors affect biodiversity, dispersal and gene flow in aquatic environments. Her research has examined the circumstances under which genetic differences can develop between populations in aquatic ecosystems.
2. Ecological responses to flow regimes in regulated rivers.
Robyn has undertaken multidisciplinary research projects on regulated rivers in collaboration with ecologists, geomorphologists and hydrologists. This research addresses the issue that long periods of managed constant flows in regulated rivers can be detrimental to the health of rivers downstream of dams. The research teams have collaborated with management agencies to develop new operational plans for dams and have undertaken field-based experiments where dam operations were altered to increase the variability of flows downstream of dams. These changed management practices have had demonstrable environmental benefits for river health.
Teaching summary
BIO100 Concepts of Biology
BIO401 River and Floodplain Ecology
BIO402 River Restoration and Protection
BIO521 Restoration Ecology
Research Students
- Omar Arnaiz (PhD)
- Sue Buick (Hons)
- Keller Kopf (PhD)
- Stacey Kopf (PhD)
- Kiya Podnar (Hons)
- Nick Whiterod (PhD)
- Sylvia Zukowski (PhD)
Interests
- biodiversity and connectivity in aquatic ecosystems
- ecological responses to flow regimes in regulated rivers
- restoration of river and floodplain environments
- improving the operation of dams and weirs to improve river and wetland health