Program Leader

Prof. Angela Arthington
Griffith University

Deputy Leader

Dr Mike Stewardson
The University of Melbourne

Goals

Research projects in this program apply new methods of landscape analysis to understand and model river ecosystem responses to natural drivers (such as hydrology and climate), human disturbances (such as climate change, river engineering, land use, flow regulation, estuary management and invasive alien species), and restoration interventions (such as land use controls, environmental flows, riparian rehabilitation, habitat improvements, establishment of connectivity) from micro- to macro scales, in rural and urban catchments.

eWater products including the Ecological Modelling Platform, the River and Catchment Restoration tools, and the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment System, depend on research outputs from this program.

Key Outputs

• Predict impacts of hydroclimatic variability and climate change on water resources systems and aquatic ecosystems.
• Predict population response to the spatial array of habitats, resources and connectivity, and to management interventions in complex river networks.
• Predict ecological response to multiple natural and human disturbance drivers and restoration interventions operating at various spatial scales within rivers and catchments.
• Predict transport of contaminants and ecological responses across urban catchments.
• Improve capacity to put climate in the context of other drivers and management interventions affecting water resources systems, aquatic populations and river ecosystems.
• Incorporate social constraints and opportunities into river restoration plans and test the social feasibility of optimal restoration designs.
• Provide models to investigate performance of innovative water sensitive urban design (WSUD) integrating water cycle issues and ecological impacts/responses in urban systems.
• Provide total error framework for model calibration and prediction.
• Models of climatic variability and climate change that can be used with hydrological and ecological models to quantify uncertainty in environmental systems associated with hydroclimatic variability.
• Optimal design of river restoration and protection strategies/works at multiple spatial scales and in various temporal sequences.
• Innovative urban design to optimise the management of water resources, service provision, and ecological restoration in urban catchments.
• Improved modelling capacity and error estimation to inform decision makers of the quality of the information produced by models simulating responses to natural and anthropogenic drivers and interventions.