Research Activities
- Regional
- National
- International
National
2020
2019
2018
Securing Safe Domestic Water
Institute Adjunct Professor Peter Waterman continued research activities associated with the Securing Safe Domestic Water (SSDW) project, which has came out of the SEGRA Challenge: Securing Adequate Safe Domestic Water for Rural and Regional Australia. In 2018 the project received a further $3500 ILWS Team Support to embed SSDW within the emrging regional development agedna of the Balranald Shire Council.
Letting people know
Dr Tahmid Nayeem has a small research project funded by CenWest and a small company called WabiSabie, a company which gives people the opportunity to customise their message before they pass away. He is helping it with the redesign of its website and target market.
Social Media research
Dr Tahmid Nayeem is involved in two social media research projects, one in relation to Australian audiences and service industries - customer engagement for water businesses; and another on branding research for non-profit organisations.
Collaborative research
Dr Tahmid Nayeem is working with colleagues from Central Queensland University (CQU) on a project that aims to evaluate the customer engagement (CE) strategies of the 2018 Victorian water price review process. "We will use both primary and secondary data to identify the best practices in CE, to quantify the resources used and to evaluate Essentials Services Commissions (ESC) performance rating on the issue," says Dr Nayeem. "The findings will definitely help synthesise the key learnings of CE in the PREMO [Performance, Risk, Engagement, Management, Outcomes] process, which will benefit water managers, regulators and policymakers.”
Women in the Military
Dr Donna Bridges is continuing to research women in the Australian military, her PhD topic, including women in aviation in the military.
Gender and social work
Dr Donna Bridges and Associate Professor Susan Mlcek are continuing their research on gender and social work, a project which received internal CSU Funding, Faculty Compact Funding, in 2016.
Historical ecology of Murray Cod
As part of his post-doc research position with the Faculty of Science Dr Keller Kopf is working on research questions around Murray Cod historical ecology, namely, whether or not useable DNA can be extracted from trophy Murray cod and museum specimens; and, what was Murray cod (an apex predator) eating before river regulation and the spread of invasive common carp. As part of this research Dr Kopf will be trialling the use of amino acid specific stable isotypes analyses to compare samples currently being collected throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, with the historical data from trophy and museum specimens.
Water quality impacts from inundation of floodplains during flooding
ILWS researchers Dr Xiaoying (Sha sha) Liu, Professor Robyn Watts, Dr Julia Howitt and Dr Nicole McCasker are undertaking a glasshouse experiment to examine carbon and nutrient release and effects on dissolved oxygen (DO) following the inundation of different types of soils, grasses and crops from the floodplain.
Soil samples and plants for the experiment were collected from redgum forest and cropland that are adjacent to each other, but separated by a levee bank, on the Edward-Wakool floodplain. Forest soil, forest soil with leaf litter, and forest soil with wallaby grass were collected from the forest. Bare paddock soil, wheat stubble with paddock soil, and ryegrass with paddock soil were collected from the cropland. These samples were put into large pots and inundated with riverwater in the glasshouse at CSU Wagga Wagga campus. Carbon, nutrient and DO was sampled on day 1, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 following inundation.
Preliminary results suggest that both of the forest and the paddock systems are a significant source contributors of dissolved organic carbon and nutrients during floods. Research results will be shared with managers, landholders and other community groups.
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2017
Ecological character report
Dr Wayne Robinson has assisted the South Australia Government’s revised description of the ecological character of the Coorong, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Ramsar site with his report: Robinson, W. A. (2017) Setting refined waterbird LAC [Limits if Acceptable Change] for the Coorong, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Ramsar site. Technical Report to DEWNR. November 2017.
Fair trade agreements
Dr Richard Culas is working with a recipient of an Endeavour Post-Doc Fellowship on a project on Free Trade Agreements and their implications for Australian agricultural products trade and regional farm economies.
Economic impact
Dr Richard Culas is involved in a three year project (2018-2020) administered by the Graham Centre and funded by Horticulture Innovation Australia looking at the economic impact of IPM (Integrated Pest Management) on Australian horticultural (fruits and vegetables) crops.
Effects of climate change
Faculty of Science post doc, Dr James Turner, together with Associate Professor Dale Nimmo, has begun a three year study on how heat waves and diet affect folivorous mammals - the ringtail possum.
Frog disease research
Dr Geoffrey Heard is working on a project looking at the change in the lifespan of frogs as a result of chytrid invading Australia. Together with Dr Ben Scheele, from ANU, they have been ageing frogs using skeletochronology, where they count the growth rings in a cross-section of bone using contemporary samples of bell frogs as well as specimens in museums.
Standing stone Aboriginal heritage sites
Institute Adjunct Dr Jim Birckhead has begun a research project on an ethnography of standing stone Aboriginal heritage sites throughout the Pilbara and into the eastern desert areas of WA. The project is being funded through BHP's Heritage Research Division, Perth as part of BHP's community outreach and obligations. It is being developed over a number of phases.
The first desktop/archival phase has been completed with the resulting report - Birckhead, J. & Czerwinski, P. (2017) Ethnography of Stone Arrangements, Unpublished report, 36 pp for BHP Heritage Research, Land Access Solutions/Heritage WA, Perth. The next phase is liaising with researchers in WA and Tasmania, and visits to communities across the Pilbara to identify senior Traditional Owners who have the knowledge of these stone arrangements and the authority to speak for them.
Once identified, Jim will visit these sites with the appropriate elders to record their stories and the meaning of these sites. The final phase is to write a report of the research and to prepare journal and other research works based on the research.
Gender Spaces of Social Work
Associate Professor Susan Mlcek, a social work educator and social scientist, heads a small research group at Bathurst within the School of Humanities & Social Sciences made up of herself, fellow ILWS member Dr Donna Bridges, a sociologist, and Dr John Healy, a social work educator. The three are exploring gender and indigenous issues including the gender spaces of social work.
A small Faculty grant was used to employ a research assistant to assist them with a literature review. From that initial activity evolved a co-operative enquiry research activity and a thematic analysis paper - 'What does it mean to be part of the gendered space(s) of social work?' Susan presented on the paper's topic at an international conference, New Directions in Humanities, in London in July.
Fauna Research Alliance
Charles Sturt University, through the Institute, is one of the institutional members of the FAUNA (Future-proofing Australasia's Unique Native Animals) Research Alliance, a network which connects researchers and conservation "end user" practitioners from 47 organisations. Projects involving Institute members include:
- Rewilding Little Desert (Professor David Watson)
- Search for the Long-beaked echidna (Professor David Watson)
Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves
Dr Peter Spooner, who has had a long term interest in Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves is currently writing a book on the Historic Development of Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves, something he has been working on since 2015. Dr Terry Kass and Mr Iain Marshall from NSW Land and Property Information have been assisting him with the project. Honours student Bryce Vella began a project commencing mid 2017 aimed at exploring the gazettement history of Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves in NSW. The project is co-supervised by Dr Prue Gonzalez from CSU's Port Macquarie campus.
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International
2020
2019
Workshop to review of the drivers of wetland loss and degradation
From December 9 to 14, a small team of six international wetland experts met in Yackandandah, North-East Victoria for a five day workshop to consider the main drivers or causes of wetland loss and degradation and what responses had been agreed by the 170 countries that comprise the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. They began writing a report on the drivers of global wetland loss and degradation and what can be done to slow down this loss. The report will build on the Global Wetland Outlook produced by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 2018. Participants were:
1.Prof Roy Gardner, Stetson University, USA (ILWS adjunct) – management responses (legal and institutional processes) and former Chair of the Ramsar Convention’s technical advisory panel
2.Dr Matthew McCartney, IWMI, Sri Lanka (ILWS adjunct) – rivers and water, and member of CGIAR Land, Water & Ecosystem Program
3.Dr Ritesh Kumar, Wetlands International, India (ILWS adjunct) – management responses (economic and community), and member of the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
4.A/Prof Anne van Dam, IHE Delft, Netherlands (ILWS adjunct) – drivers of change, and fish/aquaculture
5.Prof Siobhan Fennessy, Kenyon College, USA – assessment of change, and member of Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and USA national wetland assessment program
6. Professor Max Finlayson Aust (ILWS adjunct) – wetland ecology and management, including restoration; former Chair of Ramsar Convention’s technical advisory panel; member of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the Global Environment Outlook
Training course in Laos on conflict management
Dr Jen Bond was contracted by FISHBIO Laos to develop and deliver a two-day training course on conflict management. The training was delivered on October 9 and 10, 2019 in Vientiane with participants coming from FISHBIO Laos, Laos Department of Livestock and Fisheries, and private hydropower companies. The second component of the trip included a three day field visit to one of FISHBIO Laos’ project sites and Fish Conservation Zones (FCZ). This visit included meetings with communities to discuss the challenges and benefits of the FCZs and provide recommendation to FISHBIO Laos on how to incorporate conflict management activities into their project work.
Ruth Stephan Fellowship
In October 2019, Associate Professor Margaret Woodward was awarded a Ruth Stephan Fellowship at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A. Along with collaborator Dr Justy Phillips, the two undertook research for Erratic Ecologies: A Field Guide, an artwork attending to material, relational and political conditions of ‘erraticness’.
This is the first of their series of experimental field stations—an apparatus for viewing and recording erratic activity, glacial movements and materialities of the body. Recording their activities, experiences and feelings over a 31 day period of research in the Beinecke and associated fieldwork in the post-glacial landscapes of New England, this work becomes a tool for attuning to archive, site, and the confused circulations of the body using languages of metallurgy, deep time and glaciology. This artwork (the viewer, a combined set of 62 daily cards, and a copy of a blueprint all housed in a watertight box) has now been acquired for the Beinecke’s American Literature Collection.
Margaret and Justy also participated in research seminars with other scholars at The Yale Centre for British Art and the Lewis Walpole Library and gave a number of presentations to fellow artists, writers, researchers and curators and staff from the Beinecke Library During October 2019 they were also artists in residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut.
Yale University has produced a story and short video about their research which is viewable at:
https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/article/new-scholarship-beinecke-erratic-ecologies-field-station
Cambodian Fishway Success
The Cambodian Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute (IFReDI) and Cambodian Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology (MOWRAM) have constructed and monitored a new cone fishway on the Stung Pursat (Pursat River), a southern tributary of the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia. Funded by the US Department of Interior and with technical assistance from the CSU Lower Mekong Fish Passage Group and CSU adjunct Tim Marsden, the fishway is only the second fishway built in Cambodia and is the first to be monitored. The local Cambodian Fisheries and Irrigation teams have been sampling the fishway regularly, with sampling over 14 days in June resulting in over 36,000 fish from 61 different species being captured in the fishway. The rate of capture was closely tied to the flows in the river, with the biggest catches coming during significant rises in the river. The team plans to continue sampling through the remainder of the wet season. This data is the first comprehensive sampling data to target actively migrating fish and will provide great insight into the migration patterns of fish from the tributary rivers of the Tonle Sap, which is one of the world’s most productive freshwater fisheries. ”This project is an excellent example of research impact, as the results of our ACIAR funded work were picked up by a donor and extended to other countries,” says Associate Professor Lee Baumgartner who heads up the Fish passage project.
Inventory, assessment and monitoring strategy for Indian wetlands
From July 22 to 26, Professor Max Finlayson was in India at the request of Institute Adjunct Dr Ritesh Kumar, Head of Wetland International South Asia to discuss the development of a wetland inventory, assessment and monitoring strategy for Indian wetlands under climate change under a UN Global Environment Facility funded project.
Nepal Earthquake of 2015 and after
Institute Adjunct Dr Venkat Pulla began working with social workers and NGOs following the earthquake in Nepal in 2015, later beginning a community narrative project with Tribhuvan University Rai, which has led to two papers on plazce of culture and resilience to earthquake trauma, with two colleagues from Tribhuvan University. The papers trace the earthquake Aftermath, the emergency disaster response of the state, international bodies' social work response, and the long-term challenges for land-locked Nepal.
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2018
2017
Core Agriculture Support Program (CASP)
Institute Adjunct Dr Tony McDonald is a member of a multi-disciplinary team for a project which aims to offer small holder farmers across the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) improved capacity to produce and market “clean and green” produce. The project is promoting the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement’s (IFOAM) “Participatory Guarantee System” approach, a method to promote voluntary compliance with organic protocols. The team have been working with smallholder farmers across Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and the two southern provinces of PRC China. The broad strategy of CASP Phase II is to increase subregional agricultural competitiveness and agribusiness investment in the economic corridors.
Water governance regimes
Institute Adjunct Dr Patrick Cobbinah, who is with the Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, is a member of the research team for the project Urban Growth, Neo Liberal Failures and Water Scarcity in Accra and Atlanta. The project has received US$10,000 funding and is investigating water governance regimes in Atlanta (USA) and Accra (Ghana), two rapidly growing cities —one from the global North and the other from the global South—that share similar histories of neoliberal water governance failure.
Ecotourism in Ghana
Institute Adjunct Dr Patrick Cobbinah is involved in a long term on-going project - Conservation and livelihood - that examines environment-development relations in Africa focusing on Ghana. The first phase of the project (which received some financial support from the Institute for data collection) was Ecotourism in protected areas in Ghana: benefits for few, costs to many.
Impact of IPM on sweet potatoes
Dr Richard Culas is involved in an ACIAR funded and Graham Centre administered project (2017-2020) looking at the economic impact of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on sweet potato production in Papua New Guinea.
Call Playback research
Professor David Watson, together with Dr Mike Craig, University of WA, ILWS social scientist Dr Jennifer Bond and ILWS PhD student Liz Znidersic are investigating the "call playback" issue and whether or not the impact on birds is detrimental. Many birders use Apps on their Smartphones to help identify birds. However birders and guides are now using the App to try and attract birds so that they can have a look at them. While on a visit to Colombia in Latin America mid-year, Dave and Mike spent time out in the field in with birding guides in the foothills of the Andes and found that they all used call playback.
Carbon emissions
Dr Julia Howitt and Professor Max Finlayson are involved in a volunteer international research collaboration which is investigating the carbon emissions from dry wetland and river sediments around the world. The global dryflux investigation is led by a team in Germany. A standard sampling protocol is being used.
Others in the Australian team are Dr Jason Condon from the Graham Centre and Dr Catherine Leigh from Griffith University. The Australian team has done two rounds of sampling. During the week June 5 to 9, Drs Howitt, Condon and Leigh conducted measurements of carbon emissions in the Wagga region. In October, Dr Howitt and Professor Finlayson took 30 samples across 5 sites – the David Mitchell Wetlands on CSU's Albury-Wodonga campus, the Wonga Wetlands out of Albury near the Murray, and three sites at the Winton Wetlands near Benalla in Victoria - over two days.
The CSU samples are the only ones from Australia and are included in samples collected from more than 225 sites in 17 countries on 6 continents.