Available post-graduate projects

Post-graduate students (Honours, Masters, PhD) are invited to submit project ideas for study as part of the research in the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative across a range of areas:

• Productivity – farm and natural capital, including soil health

• Hydrological – surface & sub-surface water balance & quality

• Ecological Function – diversity & abundance

• Social Capital – people, adapting to change and adopting new methods.

Alluvial channel

There are a range of projects related to surface water quantity and quality at various scales: catchment, property, river reach.

• Surface water quantity (level and or storage), quality, flow rates, discharge using data from automated stream gauges and manual measurements

• Rapid stream assessment (manual) – previous data and reports

• Aquatic macro-invertebrates Honours project– two surveys completed by Dr Paul Cooper (Australian National University)

• Fish surveys – conducted by Dr Dan Starrs University of Canberra.

Riparian corridor

All these projects already have data available ready to build on to address research related to riparian corridor including aquatic zone as habit for indicator species.

• Rapid Appraisal of Riparian Condition (RARC) – baseline report completed

• Bird surveys – data collected by Damon Oliver (NSW Government Office of Environment & Heritage), further surveys, data analysis and reporting

• Frog surveys – surveys conducted in 2017 and 2020

• Fish surveys – conducted by Dr Dan Starrs University of Canberra.

Floodplain

There are numerous projects that can be scaled to property and/or catchment and focus on one or all zones: Alluvial channel, Riparian corridor, Alluvial Plain. 

• Groundwater sensors

  • Analyse levels and storage, quality, connectivity with stream, multiple aquifers (shallow and deep)

• Soil moisture sensors

  • Analyse for plant available water, volumetric water content, capacity, drainage upper limit

  • Require calibration with soil physical parameters eg bulk density

• Salinity in soil and deeper regolith

  • Modelling water balance APSIM SoilWAT

    Extensive climate station data in combination with water monitoring data

• Extent and duration of flood events

• Productivity of different management systems

  • Biomass sampling (manual and or plate meter)

  • Calibration of satellite data (Cibo Labs) and generate spatial analysis from point source.

• Landscape Function Analysis (LFA)

• Established sites across catchment in floodplains and across the catena sequence

• Brushpack assessment from previous ANU Fenner School of Environment & Society students

• Analyse spatial and temporal effect with satellite data.

• Soils analysis

  • Chemical parameters – i.e. soil organic matter, salinity (initial study conducted)

  • Physical attributes – i.e. bulk density, composition

  • Biological attributes – i.e. soil biota, fungi

  • Infiltrometer at various sites including LFA or other landscape interventions iecontours, brushpacks

  • Further analysis of previous ANU Fenner School soils mapping project 2015.

Satellite analysis – Cibo Labs

Satellite imagery provides a great range of applications in combination with other datasets.

• Spatial and temporal analysis of

  • Pasture cover

  • Pasture greenness and growing period (i.e. has it been extended?)

  • Woody cover change

  • Assessment of satellite derived outputs indicating biomass and food on offer (FOO)

  • Link with RARC or LFA datasets.

Contact

For more information, please contact Research Coordinator Luke Peel via luke@themullooninstitute.org or speak to your university supervisor.

The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. The initiative is also assisted by the NSW Government through its Environmental Trust.