Dissertations / Theses: 'Australian waters'

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Phillips, Nicole. "Conservation genetics of Pristis sawfishes in Australian waters." Thesis, Phillips, Nicole (2012) Conservation genetics of Pristis sawfishes in Australian waters. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2012. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/10513/.

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Northern Australia is believed to contain the last ‘viable’ populations of the critically endangered Freshwater Sawfish, Pristis microdon, Dwarf Sawfish, Pristis clavata, and Green Sawfish, Pristis zijsron, making these populations of global significance. Mitochondrial and microsatellite markers were used to investigate the population structure, levels of genetic diversity, and evolutionary history of each of these species in northern Australian waters. Pristis microdon, which utilizes freshwater rivers as juveniles and marine waters as adults, has high levels of mtDNA heterogeneity and no nDNA heterogeneity; indicating that this species has female philopatry coupled with male-biased dispersal in northern Australian waters. The conservation plans for this species should, therefore, place a high priority on the protection of females, pupping grounds, and nursery areas to minimize the risk of extirpation. Conservation plans also need to consider the likelihood that a decline in the abundance of this species in one location could have an effect on its abundance and genetic ‘health’ in other locations via male gene flow. In contrast, P. clavata and P. zijsron, which spend their entire lives in marine and/or estuarine waters, each have heterogeneity in the mtDNA and nDNA markers, suggesting that gene flow in both males and females is restricted at large spatial scales in northern Australian waters. Consequently, the risk of extirpation for each of these species is relatively high since a decline in abundance is unlikely to be replenished by immigration from other locations. Therefore, conservation plans for P. clavata and P. zijsron should place a high priority on the protection of males and females, as well as pupping grounds and nursery areas. Most of the assemblages of each of the Pristis species contained moderate and high levels of diversity in mtDNA and nDNA markers, respectively. This suggests that the prognosis for the short and medium-term survival of each of these species in Australian waters is relatively good, providing that measures are put in place to curb any further declines in abundance. However, the levels of mtDNA diversity in the assemblage of each of P. clavata and P. zijsron in the Gulf of Carpentaria were reduced and, therefore, these assemblages may warrant special conservation status. Finally, the evolutionary histories of the Pristis species in Australian waters have most likely played an important role in shaping the observed patterns of population structure and levels of genetic diversity, however, the relative influence of contemporary versus historic factors on the amount and distribution of genetic variation in each of these species remains somewhat unresolved.

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2

Lum, Kah Yean. "Chemical and Biological Investigations of Australian Crinoids." Thesis, Griffith University, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/395558.

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Natural products (NPs) are commonly defined as the secondary metabolites derived from plants, microorganisms, fungi, insects, and marine invertebrates, as the result of adaptation to the environment or as defense mechanisms against predators. Throughout history, the use of NPs has been described in the form of traditional medicines in different cultures for the treatment of ailments. Apart from their role in medicinal applications, the structures of NPs can also act as lead molecules to inspire the design of new drugs. Of the 1562 new approved drugs by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1981–2014, 791 (51%) were NPs, NP derivatives or NP-inspired drugs. Since the development of SCUBA in the mid-twentieth century, the marine environment, which contains an incredible diversity of organisms, has been described as the most desired source of NPs for drug discovery research. To date, approximately 35,147 marine natural products (MNPs) had been identified from various organisms, such as marine invertebrates (e.g. sponges, crinoids and ascidians), microorganisms and algae. Many of these MNPs have been found to exhibit a wide variety of pharmaceutically relevant bioactivities, such as anticancer, antimicrobial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory activities. There are currently 12 marine-derived compounds that have been approved as therapeutic drugs for the treatment of cancer, viral infections, hypertriglyceridemia, and analgesia; while 27 drug candidates are currently in phase I, II, or III clinical trials. While numerous marine invertebrates have been well explored for bioactive MNPs in the last seven decades, crinoids belong to the phylum Echinodermata remained under investigated for their chemistry. Crinoids are the most primitive group of presentday echinoderms. They are known to produce diverse polyketide-derived pigments, which are not only responsible for their colourful appearance, but also have demonstrated significant activity in a range of biomedical assays. There are approximately 700 crinoid species that have been identified worldwide, however, only 36 species have been chemically investigated and only 91 new compounds have been reported to date. Owing to our continuing research interest on crinoid chemistry, the main aim of this PhD project was to identify new chemistry from crinoids sourced from Australian waters and subsequently screen the isolated compounds in a variety of biological assays. The first crinoid project of this thesis focused on the chemistry of the feather star Capillaster multiradiatus since no studies had been undertaken on this Australian species. Capillasterin A, a novel pyrano[2,3-f]chromene, together with seven known naphthopyrones including comaparvin, TMC-256C1, 6-methoxycomaparvin 5-methyl ether, 5,8-dihydroxy-6-methoxy-2-propyl-4H-naphtho[2,3-b]pyran-4-one, 5,8- dihydroxy-6,10-dimethoxy-2-propyl-4H-naphtho[2,3-b]pyran-4-one, TMC-256A1 and 6-methoxycomaparvin were isolated from an EtOH/H2O extract of C. multiradiatus collected by collaborators from the Queensland Museum. The structures of all the compounds were determined by detailed spectroscopic (1D/2D NMR and MS) data analysis. As previous studies demonstrated that HIV gene expression is dependent on the host transcription factor complex NF-B and naphthopyrones were reported to inhibit NF-B signalling pathway, the six known naphthopyrones isolated from this crinoid, together with capillasterin A were screened in an anti-HIV assay. Five known naphthopyrones were observed to display moderate inhibition of in vitro HIV-1 replication in a T cell line with EC50 values ranging from 7.5 to 25.5 μM without concomitant cytotoxicity. The three most abundant compounds, capillasterin A, 6- methoxycomaparvin 5-methyl ether, and TMC-256A1 were also tested for their ability to stimulate the proliferation of GFP-expressing immortalised mouse olfactory ensheathing cells (mOEC) using a cell proliferation assay; none of the compounds showed a significant increase in mOEC viability at 10 μM after 24 hours of treatment. The AIMS Bioresources Library, which consisted of over 3000 marine samples, has recently been transferred to the NatureBank biota repository, which presented us with the opportunity to explore several new crinoid samples from a chemical perspective. Hence, the second PhD project, two AIMS-derived Australian crinoid Comatula rotalaria specimens collected from different locations on the Great Barrier Reef were selected for potential new chemistry, since preliminary UHPLC analysis of these crinoid extracts suggested the presence of new anthraquinone chemistry; only four acyl derivatives of anthraquinones had been identified from this species prior to our studies. Five new taurine-conjugated anthraquinones, named comatulins A−E, together with 11 known metabolites, rhodocomatulin 7-methyl ether, 12-desethylrhodocomatulin 7-methyl ether, rhodocomatulin 5,7-dimethyl ether, 12-desethylrhodocomatulin 5,7-dimethyl ether, rhodocomatulin, rhodolamprometrin, 6-methoxyrhodocomatulin 7-methyl ether, rheoemodin, 6-methoxycomaparvin, 6-methoxycomaparvin 5-methyl ether, and 5,8- dihydroxy-6,10-dimethoxy-2-methyl-4H-benzo[h]chromen-4-one were identified. The structures of all the compounds were elucidated by detailed spectroscopic and spectrometric data analysis. The first X-ray crystal structure of a crinoid-derived acyl anthraquinone, rhodocomatulin 5,7-dimethyl ether, was also obtained. Ten compounds together with two additional naphthopyrone derivatives (comaparvin and 6- methoxycomaparvin 5,8-dimethyl ether) were evaluated for their ability to inhibit HIV-1 replication in vitro; none of the compounds were active at 100 μM. Furthermore, a subset of compounds was tested for their nematocidal activity against Haemonchus contortus, which is a highly pathogenic parasite of small ruminants. The semi-synthetic compound, 6-methoxycomaparvin 5,8-dimethyl ether, showed an inhibitory effect on larval motility (IC50 = 30 μM) and development (IC50 = 31 μM) and induced the eviscerated (Evi) phenotype. In Chapter 4, since none of the crinoid-derived polyketides identified during this PhD had been evaluated for their ability to increase phagocytic activity of human OECs (hOEC), six naphthopyrones and eight anthraquinones were screened using an hOEC phagocytosis assay that has recently been developed by the Clem Jones Centre for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research group. In addition, microthecaline A and its acetylated, methylated and pivaloylated derivatives, together with antimalarial drug amodiaquine obtained from the in-house Davis compound library, were incorporated into the screening. Results from the primary screening demonstrated that four compounds including 6-methoxycomaparvin 5-methyl ether, 5,8-dihydroxy-6,10-dimethoxy-2- methyl-4H-benzo[h]chromen-4-one, comatulin A, and amodiaquine were found to significantly increase the phagocytic activity and the phagocytic efficiency of hOECs. These findings warrant further investigations in the near future to further expand the preliminary biology results and gain insights in compound specificity and potency. Encouraged by our findings in Chapter 3, we developed a dereplication method using UHPLC-MS for the identification of new sulphur-containing metabolites from Australian crinoids, the details of which are described in Chapter 5. The n-BuOH soluble material of 16 crinoids, including the two C. rotalaria samples described in Chapter 3, were subjected to UHPLC-MS profiling using an optimised method. These crinoids were all sourced from Griffith University’s NatureBank biota repository. The generated UHPLC-MS data were analysed based on the characteristic fragment ions of sulphated compounds in conjunction with scientific database mining; SciFinder Scholar and MarinLit databases were used in this particular study. These investigations led to the large-scale extraction and isolation work on the prioritised crinoid Dichrometra flagellata, which resulted in the isolation of a previously undescribed sulphated compound, which we have tentatively assigned as 5,10-dihydroxy-6–methoxy-8- sulphate-2-propyl-4H-naphtho[2,3-b]pyran-4-one. In summary, this thesis describes the isolation of seven new polyketide constituents and 17 known compounds from four crinoids collected from Australian waters. The chemical structures of all compounds were determined by detailed spectroscopic and spectrometric data analysis. Among all the tested crinoid metabolites, comaparvin was the most active compound in an anti-HIV replication assay, with an IC50 of 7.5 ± 1.7 μM; 6-methoxycomaparvin 5,8-dimethyl ether displayed an inhibitory effect on larval motility (IC50 = 30 μM) and development (IC50 = 31 μM), and induced the Evi phenotype in an anthelmintic assay; 6-methoxycomaparvin 5-methyl ether, 5,8- dihydroxy-6,10-dimethoxy-2-methyl-4H-benzo[h]chromen-4-one, and comatulin A significantly increased the phagocytic activity and the phagocytic efficiency of hOECs. All compounds isolated during this PhD project will be deposited into the Davis Open- Access Compound Library, which is located at Compounds Australia, Griffith University. Compounds Australia makes this academic library available for biological evaluations by both local and international researchers. In addition, the UHPLC-MS methodology developed during these studies enabled the rapid identification of new sulphur-containing compounds from n-BuOH soluble material derived from 16 crinoids, which resulted in the isolation of a new sulphated compound from the prioritised crinoid Dichrometra flagellata; this is the first report of NP chemistry from this crinoid genus. These findings further highlight the importance of UHPLC-MS as a dereplication tool in NP research.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Environment and Sc
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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3

au, Esezmis@murdoch edu, and Ertug Sezmis. "The Population Genetic Structure of Portunus Pelagicus in Australian Waters." Murdoch University, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20050421.135525.

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This thesis describes the results of an investigation into the population genetic structure of the blue swimmer crab, Portunus pelagicus, in Australian waters. P. pelagicus is an Indo-West Pacific species, with adults and juveniles that inhabit sheltered benthic coastal environments and a planktonic phase (of modest duration) in its life cycle. The investigation was done by examining the patterns of variation at six microsatellite loci and in a 342 bp portion of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene in the mitochondrial DNA in samples of Portunus pelagicus from a total of 16 different assemblages/waterbodies. Overall, the samples were collected from throughout the geographical range of this species in Australian waters, i.e. from the western seaboard, from the eastern seaboard, from Darwin on the north coast and from South Australia on the south coast. The samples sizes ranged from 4 to 57 individuals, depending on the sample and the genetic assay. The population genetic structure of P. pelagicus was analysed from both a traditional population structure perspective and from a phylogeographical and historical demography perspective. The traditional assessment of the population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus indicates that this species exhibits a significant amount of genetic heterogeneity in Australian waters (e.g. FST for microsatellite data = 0.098; ¥èST for COI data = 0.375 and ¥ÕST for COI data = 0.492). This assessment also indicates that P. pelagicus exhibits varying degrees of genetic heterogeneity within and between geographical regions in Australian waters, as follows. (1) The genetic compositions of the samples from the different coastlines (i.e. north, south, east and west) invariably showed statistically significant differences for at least two microsatellite loci, although the differences between the samples from the eastern seaboard, Darwin and those from the western seaboard to the north of Port Denison were not as great as those within the western seaboard samples or within South Australian samples. (2) The genetic compositions of the samples from the assemblages on the eastern seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Mackay (21¨¬06¡ÇS) to Port Stephens (32¡Æ40¡ÇS), were essentially homogeneous. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Broome (17¡Æ58¡ÇS) to Geographe Bay (33¡Æ35¡ÇS), exhibited significant levels of genetic heterogeneity. Furthermore, those from south of Port Denison formed a highly distinctive (but not invariant) group compared to those from elsewhere. (4) The samples from South Australia were also highly genetically distinctive compared to those from elsewhere, although they also showed significant heterogeneity amongst themselves. The above findings were more or less suggested by both the microsatellite and COI markers, although the former generally provided a higher resolution picture of the population structure of P. pelagicus than did the latter. The main findings of the investigation into the phylogeography and recent demographic history of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters were as follows. (1) A phylogeny constructed from COI sequence variation was shallow, with the lineages showing varied geographical distributions. (2) The results of a nested clade analysis of this variation indicate that range expansion has been a predominant influence on the historical demography of P. pelagicus in Australian waters. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard to the south of Port Denison contained low levels of genetic diversity, a sub-set of the diversity present in the samples from lower latitude sites on the western seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. (4) The samples from the assemblages in South Australia contained low levels of genetic diversity, phylogenetic affinities with samples from the eastern seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. The two major interpretations to stem from the results of this investigation are as follows. (1) Overall, Portunus pelagicus has undergone a recent (in an evolutionary sense) range expansion, from a single source, within Australian waters. At a finer-scale, this species appears to have colonised south-western Australia from a lower latitude site(s) on the western seaboard and probably colonised South Australia from the southern margins of its range on the eastern seaboard. Regardless, there has been limited penetrance of genetic variation into temperate waters on the western seaboard and into South Australia, presumably due one or more of the barriers to gene flow listed below. (2) P. pelagicus experiences significant restrictions to gene flow within its present-day geographical range in Australian waters due to (i) geographic distance per se; (ii) discontinuities in the distribution of the sheltered coastal environments; (iii) hydrological barriers to dispersal and (iv) possibly low temperatures in the temperature margins of the range.

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4

Sezmis, Ertug. "The population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters." Sezmis, Ertug (2004) The population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2004. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/301/.

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Abstract:

This thesis describes the results of an investigation into the population genetic structure of the blue swimmer crab, Portunus pelagicus, in Australian waters. P. pelagicus is an Indo-West Pacific species, with adults and juveniles that inhabit sheltered benthic coastal environments and a planktonic phase (of modest duration) in its life cycle. The investigation was done by examining the patterns of variation at six microsatellite loci and in a 342 bp portion of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene in the mitochondrial DNA in samples of Portunus pelagicus from a total of 16 different assemblages/waterbodies. Overall, the samples were collected from throughout the geographical range of this species in Australian waters, i.e. from the western seaboard, from the eastern seaboard, from Darwin on the north coast and from South Australia on the south coast. The samples sizes ranged from 4 to 57 individuals, depending on the sample and the genetic assay. The population genetic structure of P. pelagicus was analysed from both a traditional population structure perspective and from a phylogeographical and historical demography perspective. The traditional assessment of the population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus indicates that this species exhibits a significant amount of genetic heterogeneity in Australian waters (e.g. FST for microsatellite data = 0.098; [Theta]ST for COI data = 0.375 and [Phi]ST for COI data = 0.492). This assessment also indicates that P. pelagicus exhibits varying degrees of genetic heterogeneity within and between geographical regions in Australian waters, as follows. (1) The genetic compositions of the samples from the different coastlines (i.e. north, south, east and west) invariably showed statistically significant differences for at least two microsatellite loci, although the differences between the samples from the eastern seaboard, Darwin and those from the western seaboard to the north of Port Denison were not as great as those within the western seaboard samples or within South Australian samples. (2) The genetic compositions of the samples from the assemblages on the eastern seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Mackay (21 degrees 06'S) to Port Stephens (32 degrees 40'S), were essentially homogeneous. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Broome (17 degrees 58'S) to Geographe Bay (33 degrees 35'S), exhibited significant levels of genetic heterogeneity. Furthermore, those from south of Port Denison formed a highly distinctive (but not invariant) group compared to those from elsewhere. (4) The samples from South Australia were also highly genetically distinctive compared to those from elsewhere, although they also showed significant heterogeneity amongst themselves. The above findings were more or less suggested by both the microsatellite and COI markers, although the former generally provided a higher resolution picture of the population structure of P. pelagicus than did the latter. The main findings of the investigation into the phylogeography and recent demographic history of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters were as follows. (1) A phylogeny constructed from COI sequence variation was shallow, with the lineages showing varied geographical distributions. (2) The results of a nested clade analysis of this variation indicate that range expansion has been a predominant influence on the historical demography of P. pelagicus in Australian waters. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard to the south of Port Denison contained low levels of genetic diversity, a sub-set of the diversity present in the samples from lower latitude sites on the western seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. (4) The samples from the assemblages in South Australia contained low levels of genetic diversity, phylogenetic affinities with samples from the eastern seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. The two major interpretations to stem from the results of this investigation are as follows. (1) Overall, Portunus pelagicus has undergone a recent (in an evolutionary sense) range expansion, from a single source, within Australian waters. At a finer-scale, this species appears to have colonised south-western Australia from a lower latitude site(s) on the western seaboard and probably colonised South Australia from the southern margins of its range on the eastern seaboard. Regardless, there has been limited penetrance of genetic variation into temperate waters on the western seaboard and into South Australia, presumably due one or more of the barriers to gene flow listed below. (2) P. pelagicus experiences significant restrictions to gene flow within its present-day geographical range in Australian waters due to (i) geographic distance per se; (ii) discontinuities in the distribution of the sheltered coastal environments; (iii) hydrological barriers to dispersal and (iv) possibly low temperatures in the temperature margins of the range.

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Sezmiş, Ertuğ. "The population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters /." Access via Murdoch University Digital Theses Project, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20050421.135525.

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6

Sezmiş, Ertuğ. "The population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters." Thesis, Sezmiş, Ertuğ (2004) The population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2004. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/301/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis describes the results of an investigation into the population genetic structure of the blue swimmer crab, Portunus pelagicus, in Australian waters. P. pelagicus is an Indo-West Pacific species, with adults and juveniles that inhabit sheltered benthic coastal environments and a planktonic phase (of modest duration) in its life cycle. The investigation was done by examining the patterns of variation at six microsatellite loci and in a 342 bp portion of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene in the mitochondrial DNA in samples of Portunus pelagicus from a total of 16 different assemblages/waterbodies. Overall, the samples were collected from throughout the geographical range of this species in Australian waters, i.e. from the western seaboard, from the eastern seaboard, from Darwin on the north coast and from South Australia on the south coast. The samples sizes ranged from 4 to 57 individuals, depending on the sample and the genetic assay. The population genetic structure of P. pelagicus was analysed from both a traditional population structure perspective and from a phylogeographical and historical demography perspective. The traditional assessment of the population genetic structure of Portunus pelagicus indicates that this species exhibits a significant amount of genetic heterogeneity in Australian waters (e.g. FST for microsatellite data = 0.098; [Theta]ST for COI data = 0.375 and [Phi]ST for COI data = 0.492). This assessment also indicates that P. pelagicus exhibits varying degrees of genetic heterogeneity within and between geographical regions in Australian waters, as follows. (1) The genetic compositions of the samples from the different coastlines (i.e. north, south, east and west) invariably showed statistically significant differences for at least two microsatellite loci, although the differences between the samples from the eastern seaboard, Darwin and those from the western seaboard to the north of Port Denison were not as great as those within the western seaboard samples or within South Australian samples. (2) The genetic compositions of the samples from the assemblages on the eastern seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Mackay (21 degrees 06'S) to Port Stephens (32 degrees 40'S), were essentially homogeneous. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard of Australia, which ranged from Broome (17 degrees 58'S) to Geographe Bay (33 degrees 35'S), exhibited significant levels of genetic heterogeneity. Furthermore, those from south of Port Denison formed a highly distinctive (but not invariant) group compared to those from elsewhere. (4) The samples from South Australia were also highly genetically distinctive compared to those from elsewhere, although they also showed significant heterogeneity amongst themselves. The above findings were more or less suggested by both the microsatellite and COI markers, although the former generally provided a higher resolution picture of the population structure of P. pelagicus than did the latter. The main findings of the investigation into the phylogeography and recent demographic history of Portunus pelagicus in Australian waters were as follows. (1) A phylogeny constructed from COI sequence variation was shallow, with the lineages showing varied geographical distributions. (2) The results of a nested clade analysis of this variation indicate that range expansion has been a predominant influence on the historical demography of P. pelagicus in Australian waters. (3) The samples from the assemblages on the western seaboard to the south of Port Denison contained low levels of genetic diversity, a sub-set of the diversity present in the samples from lower latitude sites on the western seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. (4) The samples from the assemblages in South Australia contained low levels of genetic diversity, phylogenetic affinities with samples from the eastern seaboard, and microsatellite-based evidence of having coming from assemblages that have undergone a bottleneck (or founder effect) followed by an expansion in size. The two major interpretations to stem from the results of this investigation are as follows. (1) Overall, Portunus pelagicus has undergone a recent (in an evolutionary sense) range expansion, from a single source, within Australian waters. At a finer-scale, this species appears to have colonised south-western Australia from a lower latitude site(s) on the western seaboard and probably colonised South Australia from the southern margins of its range on the eastern seaboard. Regardless, there has been limited penetrance of genetic variation into temperate waters on the western seaboard and into South Australia, presumably due one or more of the barriers to gene flow listed below. (2) P. pelagicus experiences significant restrictions to gene flow within its present-day geographical range in Australian waters due to (i) geographic distance per se; (ii) discontinuities in the distribution of the sheltered coastal environments; (iii) hydrological barriers to dispersal and (iv) possibly low temperatures in the temperature margins of the range.

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O'Bree, Terry Adam, and s9907681@student rmit edu au. "Investigations of light scattering by Australian natural waters for remote sensing applications." RMIT University. Applied Sciences, 2007. http://adt.lib.rmit.edu.au/adt/public/adt-VIT20080110.140055.

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Remote sensing is the collection of information about an object from a distance without physically being in contact with it. The type of remote sensing of interest here is in the form of digital images of water bodies acquired by satellite. The advantage over traditional sampling techniques is that data can be gathered quickly over large ranges, and be available for immediate analysis. Remote sensing is a powerful technique for the monitoring of water bodies. To interpret the remotely sensed data, however, knowledge of the optical properties of the water constituents is needed. One of the most important of these is the volume scattering function, which describes the angular distribution of light scattered by a sample. This thesis presents the first measurements of volume scattering functions for Australian waters. Measurements were made on around 40 different samples taken from several locations in the Gippsland lakes and the Great Barrier Reef. The measurements were made by modifying an existing static light scattering spectrometer in order to accurately measure the volume scattering functions. The development of the apparatus, its calibration and automation, and the application of a complex series of post-acquisition data corrections, are all discussed. In order to extrapolate the data over the full angular range, the data was analysed using theoretical curves calculated for multi-modal size distributions using Mie light scattering theory applied to each data set. From the Mie fits the scattering and backscattering coefficients were calculated. These were compared with scattering coefficients measured using in situ sensors ac-9 and Hydroscat-6, and with values from the literature. The effect of chlorophyll a concentrations on the scattering coefficients was examined, and a brief investigation of the polarisation properties of the samples was also undertaken. Finally the angular effects on the relationship between the backscattering coefficient and the volume scattering function were investigated. This is important as in situ backscattering sensors often assume that measuring at a single fixed-angle is a good approximation for calculating the backscattering coefficient. This assumption is tested, and the optimal measurement angle determined.

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Buckley, David, and n/a. "Sediment quality guidelines for Australian waters : a framework for development and use." University of Canberra. Resource, Environmental & Heritage Sciences, 1997. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060619.163639.

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The Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) and the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand (ARMCANZ) have announced that the 1997 review of the Australian Water Quality Guidelines will include for the first time, consideration of sediment quality guidelines. For this reason, it is timely to review the methods for establishing such guidelines, and the manner in which they could be used in managing the quality of sediments in Australian rivers, lakes and drainage systems. In this thesis, the problem of the development of sediment quality guidelines is introduced and basic questions relating to the development of such guidelines are addressed. The importance of sediment monitoring and sediment quality assessment in aquatic ecosystem management is demonstrated, and the role of sediment quality guidelines in the process of sediment quality assessment is discussed. The arguments considered in this thesis are illustrated by specific reference to the setting and use of sediment quality guidelines for heavy metal contamination. A number of physico-chemical factors (grain size distribution, pH, redox potential, alkalinity and hardness, salinity, organic matter) can affect the bioavailability and toxicity of contaminants in sediments, and these factors may vary spatially and temporally within and between sediment deposits. Changes in physico-chemical conditions as a result of natural or anthropogenic processes may lead to major changes in bioavailability of sediment contaminants. The variability of these physico-chemical factors has ramifications for the way in which sediment quality guidelines are derived and used. Factors affecting the way in which toxicity is measured (test species chosen, toxicological end-point measured, duration of test relative to life-cycle), and toxicity data is interpreted, are also important to the development of useful sediment quality guidelines. All of these factors must be taken into account in deriving sediment quality guidelines for Australian conditions. The large number of factors affecting the sensitivity and efficiency of sediment quality guidelines means that a simple set of numerical guidelines, as has been used in the past, is not appropriate. A multi-step assessment procedure will be required. Methods of setting sediment quality guidelines that have been used by authorities in overseas jurisdictions were reviewed. Advantages and disadvantages of the various methods were compared. None of the methods used overseas has been shown to be applicable to Australian conditions. In the absence of a suitable method for deriving Australian sediment quality guidelines in the short term, the adoption of the Canadian Interim Sediment Quality Guidelines as interim sediment quality guidelines for Australia is recommended. Sediment quality guidelines need to be viewed in the context of the overall environmental management process, of which they form an integral part. The policy background to environmental management in Australia, and the management frameworks that have been put in place to implement the policy, are outlined. The AS/NZS/ISO 14000 series of standards for environmental management systems provides a framework which is consistent with the principles and objectives of environmental management in Australia. It therefore provides an appropriate framework within which to develop and use sediment quality guidelines. Within the broad AS/NZS/ISO 14000 policy, a framework for the development and use of sediment quality guidelines is proposed, which will provide a technically and legally defensible basis for the management of aquatic sediments in Australia, in the short term and long term. The proposed framework involves the setting of Interim Sediment Quality Guidelines for Australia, based on the best scientific knowledge currently available. The framework recognises that the factors affecting the bioavailability and toxicity of sediment contaminants are complex, and that the current level of knowledge of sediment processes is incomplete. Therefore, a conservative approach to setting guidelines is taken, and a highly sensitive guideline based on that used in Canada, is proposed. The framework further recognises that this approach will lead to over protection of the environment in some cases, so a "Decision Tree" approach is taken. The "decision tree" allows the consideration of more complex interactions than can be incorporated into simple numeric guidelines, while attempting to simplify the assessment process. In keeping with the ISO 14000 series of standards for environmental management, the framework also explicitly includes steps designed to ensure that monitoring data are regularly collated, and analysed, and where necessary, guidelines are able to be updated in light of new knowledge gleaned from the review process. The proposed framework is appropriate to, and supportive of, the principles of environmental management as set out in Australian Government policy documents, inter governmental and international agreements, and legislation. It provides a basis for the on-going collection of data suited to increasing our understanding of the factors influencing the behaviour of contaminants in sediments, and thereby lead to continual improvement in sediment quality guidelines for use in Australian conditions.

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9

Brown, Alex. "The conservation biology of tropical inshore dolphins in north-western Australian waters." Thesis, Brown, Alex (2016) The conservation biology of tropical inshore dolphins in north-western Australian waters. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2016. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/30114/.

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Concerns exist over the vulnerability of tropical inshore dolphin populations in waters off northern Australia to anthropogenic impacts, yet a lack of data precludes assessment of their conservation status and the management of threats. Three species occur in shallow, nearshore waters: the Australian snubfin (Orcaella heinsohni), Australian humpback (Sousa sahulensis) and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus). In this thesis, I provide: i) quantitative data on the abundance and site fidelity of all three species at five sites in north-western Australia; (ii) an examination of population genetic structure in snubfin and humpback dolphins; (iii) a sex-specific investigation of the social structure of one population of snubfin dolphins; and, (iv) an analysis of sex- and geographic-differences in dorsal fin features of humpback dolphins. The abundance of each species was highly variable across the five c. 130 km2 study sites surveyed. While the estimated abundance of most species was ≤ 60 individuals, and fewer than 20 humpback dolphins were identified at each site in any one sampling period, larger estimates of c. 130 snubfin and c. 160 bottlenose dolphins were obtained at two different sites. Several local populations showed evidence of site fidelity, particularly snubfin dolphins. Mitochondrial and microsatellite data revealed significant genetic differentiation of local populations separated by geographic distances of >200 km, suggesting that snubfin and humpback dolphins may exist as metapopulations of small, predominantly isolated population fragments, and should be managed accordingly. Additionally, genetic data revealed the first documented case of hybridisation between a snubfin and a humpback dolphin. I documented pronounced sex-differences in individual sociability within a small population of snubfin dolphins: males formed stronger, longer-lasting associations and were far more gregarious than females. Associations were not correlated to genetic relatedness for either sex. Based on a quantitative analysis of dorsal fin images of a sample of humpback dolphins of known sex from north-western and north-eastern Australia, I revealed that the sex of adult individuals could be distinguished with a high level of accuracy (97%) based on dorsal fin features. Additionally, significant differences in dorsal fin colouration between the two regions suggested some level of population structure. Overall, these results extend the geographic scope of quantitative population data on Australia’s tropical inshore dolphins into the western third of their distribution, and provide valuable data to inform their conservation and management both within this region and throughout northern Australia.

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Fawcett, James. "Muddy Waters: A Molecular Approach to Clarifying Freshwater Mussel Diversity in Australia." Thesis, Griffith University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367764.

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Historically, when the terms “conservation, threatened, endangered or extinct” were used, it was in reference to vertebrate animal species. Funding for conservation and policy implementation for protection of invertebrates has historically been difficult, even though 95% of all animal species are invertebrates and are an important component of many ecosystems. Human impact on the earth has influenced the natural population structure of many organisms, through habitat destruction, fragmentation and degradation. Issues that affect population structure and dispersal are heightened when that species is confined to a specific range or habitat. This is especially paramount for aquatic organisms with the slightest change in weather pattern, damage to riparian zones or the stream environment, or alteration to stream engineering and water flow resulting in significant impacts to the stream biota. Freshwater mussels are organisms that have been found to be seriously affected by changes to stream conditions. Because mussels filter the water column, they are generally the first group of animals to react if contaminants enter a system and as a result freshwater mussels are considered by many scientific and government agencies worldwide as key indicator species for stream health assessments. Freshwater mussel conservation is a relatively unexplored field within Australia and little is known about mussel recruitment and patterns of population connectivity. Mussel taxonomy in Australia is based entirely on shell morphology, although local environmental conditions have been shown to have significant effects on shell morphology. Therefore, basing taxonomy purely on shell morphological characteristics may not to be systematically meaningful. Before effective conservation measures can be implemented within Australia, clarification of contemporary mussel diversity is required.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith School of Environment
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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11

McVey, Alexander. "You're a crook, Captain Hook: Criminal liability for maritime disasters causing death in Australian territorial waters." Thesis, McVey, Alexander (2015) You're a crook, Captain Hook: Criminal liability for maritime disasters causing death in Australian territorial waters. Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 2015. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/29161/.

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The world is seeing more maritime disasters every year, in a variety of jurisdictions around the world. Many of these disasters cause a large number of deaths. As a result of those deaths, there is often pressure on the relevant authorities to prosecute the parties responsible. The master of the vessel may be the most obvious party to charge, but there may have been other parties responsible for the operation and management of the vessel whose negligent or reckless conduct contributed to the vessel’s demise. Despite the contributions of other parties, the master of a vessel may become a scapegoat, and, as a result, bear the brunt of any prosecution. There are several reasons why the master may receive the most blame in these situations. One of those may be that the law in force within the relevant jurisdiction does not provide particular criminal charges that apply to parties other than the master. This paper asks whether Australian law encourages prosecuting bodies to scapegoat the master of a vessel and whether this is demonstrative of the wider problem of seafarer criminalisation worldwide. Criminal law will be fit for its intended purpose if it provides prosecuting authorities with the means to prosecute those truly responsible for damage caused, and to prosecute those parties in an appropriate manner. In 2012, the Australian government spearheaded sweeping changes to domestic maritime law. Those changes brought several new criminal charges relevant to maritime disasters causing death, and amended previous charges. This paper looks to the law in Australia applicable to maritime disasters causing death and asks whether the laws are fit for their intended purpose. The research conducted is doctrinal, focussing particularly on the Navigation Act 2012 (Cth), the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012 (Cth), and the Crimes at Sea Act 2000 (Cth).

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Sultan, Khawar University of Ballarat. "Distribution of arsenic and heavy metals in soils and surface waters in Central Victoria (Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon)." University of Ballarat, 2006. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/12767.

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"Three sampling campaigns were conducted in the Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon areas. The sampling area is part of the Golden Triangle region where significant gold-mining activities took place from the 1850s to the present day. [...] Locations were chosen to evaluate arsenic distribution in soils, surface waters and plants in different environments. Easy access to sampling locations allowed detailed scientific sampling, especially in the seasonality study. The different range of environments such as agricultural, state forest, mining, urban and rural provided an opportunity to compare the concentrations of arsenic and other elements in the study area. The study of the three selected areas combined provided further understanding of possible exposure and pathways through which arsenic can get into the food chain. "The objective of the study is to measure levels of heavy metals/metalloids in soils, water and plants in various environments, identify whether the heavy metals/metalloids are mobile and bioavailable and understand the importance of clays and oxide complexes in the fixation of metals."
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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13

Sultan, Khawar. "Distribution of arsenic and heavy metals in soils and surface waters in Central Victoria (Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon)." Thesis, University of Ballarat, 2006. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/32792.

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"Three sampling campaigns were conducted in the Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon areas. The sampling area is part of the Golden Triangle region where significant gold-mining activities took place from the 1850s to the present day. [...] Locations were chosen to evaluate arsenic distribution in soils, surface waters and plants in different environments. Easy access to sampling locations allowed detailed scientific sampling, especially in the seasonality study. The different range of environments such as agricultural, state forest, mining, urban and rural provided an opportunity to compare the concentrations of arsenic and other elements in the study area. The study of the three selected areas combined provided further understanding of possible exposure and pathways through which arsenic can get into the food chain. "The objective of the study is to measure levels of heavy metals/metalloids in soils, water and plants in various environments, identify whether the heavy metals/metalloids are mobile and bioavailable and understand the importance of clays and oxide complexes in the fixation of metals."
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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14

Sultan, Khawar. "Distribution of arsenic and heavy metals in soils and surface waters in Central Victoria (Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon)." University of Ballarat, 2006. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/15387.

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"Three sampling campaigns were conducted in the Ballarat, Creswick and Maldon areas. The sampling area is part of the Golden Triangle region where significant gold-mining activities took place from the 1850s to the present day. [...] Locations were chosen to evaluate arsenic distribution in soils, surface waters and plants in different environments. Easy access to sampling locations allowed detailed scientific sampling, especially in the seasonality study. The different range of environments such as agricultural, state forest, mining, urban and rural provided an opportunity to compare the concentrations of arsenic and other elements in the study area. The study of the three selected areas combined provided further understanding of possible exposure and pathways through which arsenic can get into the food chain. "The objective of the study is to measure levels of heavy metals/metalloids in soils, water and plants in various environments, identify whether the heavy metals/metalloids are mobile and bioavailable and understand the importance of clays and oxide complexes in the fixation of metals."
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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15

McAuley, Rory B. "Investigation of the fishery biology and population status of the sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus, Nardo 1827) in Western Australian waters." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2007. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/280.

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The sandbar shark (Carchrarhinus plumbeus) is a commercially important shark species to fisheries around the world but is known to be highly susceptible to over·fishing. During the late 1990s, changes in the targeting practices of Western Australian demersal gillnet fishing vessels, and an expansion of targeted demersal longlining in the north of the State, caused a rapid escalation in C. plumbeus catches. This study therefore aimed to collect the biological and fishery data necessary to assess the impacts of increasing exploitation of the species and to develop biologically appropriate techniques for assessing the sustainability of these fishery developments.

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Winton, Victoria Holly Liberty. "Impact of biomass burning emissions and dust on soluble iron deposition to Australian waters, the Southern Ocean and Antarctica." Thesis, Curtin University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/630.

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The deposition of atmospheric iron to iron-limited ocean waters around Australia and Antarctica can dramatically stimulate the growth of microscopic marine plants. To date, mineral dust was assumed to be the primary source of iron to the ocean. However, only a small fraction of iron in dust is bioavailable. This study has found that Australian bushfires can indirectly increase the bioavailable iron fraction when smoke and mineral dust mix during long-range atmospheric transport to Antarctica.

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Bannon, Matthew. "The evolution of the role of Australian customs in maritime surveillance and border protection." Access electronically, 2007. http://www.library.uow.edu.au/adt-NWU/public/adt-NWU20080916.155511/index.html.

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Bostock, Helen C., and Helen Bostock@anu edu au. "Geochemically tracing the intermediate and surface waters in the Tasman Sea, southwest Pacific." The Australian National University. Faculty of Science, 2005. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20061106.123254.

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The relatively understudied intermediate waters of the world have been implicated as an important part of the global ocean circulation. This thesis discusses the intermediate waters of the Pacific over space and time. Initially, by using geochemical tracers to look at the present distribution, sources and mixing of the water masses. Secondly, by using oxygen and carbon isotopes from sediment cores to study changes in Antarctic Intermediate Waters (AAIW) over the late Quaternary in the north Tasman Sea. The sediment cores also provide sedimentological data on the hemipelagic sedimentation in the Capricorn Channel in the southern Great Barrier Reef as well information on changes in the East Australian surface current (EAC) over the last glacial-interglacial transition. [A more extended Abstract can be found in the files]

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Ward, Rhianne Nicole. "Southern right whale vocalisations, and the “spot” call in Australian waters: characteristics; spatial and temporal patterns; and a potential source - the southern right whale." Thesis, Curtin University, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80625.

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Passive acoustic recordings collected in Australian temperate waters were used to provide the first summary of southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) vocalisations in Australia, and to document the characteristics, and temporal and spatial patterns of an as yet unattributed whale sound, referred to as the “spot” call, which is suggested to be produced by the southern right whale.

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Rouliere, Camille. "Visions of Waters in Lower Murray Country." Thesis, Normandie, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018NORMC014/document.

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L’eau a creusé son chemin jusqu’au cœur des discussions sur le développement durable. Les discours autour de la gestion des eaux soulignent à la fois son abondance dévastatrice et son absence critique : la montée des eaux se juxtapose à la désertification ; les tornades et les inondations répondent à des périodes de sécheresse prolongées. Alors que nous polluons, canalisons et dessalinisons à un rythme toujours croissant, la nature ambiguë de notre relation avec l’eau devient visible. Pendant que nous continuons d’endommager ce qui, par-dessus tout, rend la vie possible, la précarité augmente pour l’ensemble de la population. Il n’est donc pas étonnant qu’un changement de paradigme dans notre compréhension des eaux, devant engendrer une modification dans leur utilisation, soit présenté comme l’un des plus grands et plus pressants défis de notre époque. Ma recherche répond à ce défi. Elle porte sur la poétique de l’espace, c’est-à-dire sur l’étude de la manière dont les êtres humains vivent et interagissent avec leur environnement à travers les arts. Plus précisément, j’explore les relations entre les humains, les eaux et les sons (à la fois propres et générés par les humains) dans la Lower Murray Country (Australie Méridionale). Mon but est de révéler et théoriser ces relations qui évoluent en parallèle afin d’élaborer une cartographie mettant à jour toute une gamme de manières de percevoir et de comprendre ces eaux, et d’être ensuite à même d’utiliser cette pluralité pour remettre en question—et potentiellement imaginer à nouveau—leur construction et représentation culturelles. Afin d’atteindre ce but, j’érige “les eaux” en leitmotiv qui me permet d’unifier ma recherche et me déplacer entre des espaces physiques et théoriques pour mettre en dialogue les individus et leur environnement, tant au niveau local que général. En particulier, je me sers du mouvement des eaux que forment le courant et la résonance pour opérer cette synthèse, mouvement que j’associe à la rythmanalyse et la réverbération (d’après les philosophes Henri Lefebvre et Fran Dyson, respectivement). Je me suis également inspirée du travail du philosophe et poète Édouard Glissant. En particulier, son concept de Relation est une clef pour me permettre de traduire textuellement ces mouvements des eaux. J’applique cette méthodologie aqueuse à presque deux siècles de production musicale—allant des pratiques ngarrindjeri et des ballades coloniales à la musique classique contemporaine et l’art sonore ; et presque deux siècles de modifications touchant au “caractère sonore” des eaux de la Lower Murray Country—matérialisée à travers la déforestation défigurante, la retenue des eaux, l’irrigation mais aussi la salinité croissante des eaux comme des sols. Ainsi, cette thèse se construit selon le principe d’accumulation d’exemples prôné par Glissant (Poetics of Relation 172-4). Elle est structurée autour de quatre sections—quatre visions punctiformes des eaux écrites comme un prélude à une potentielle infinité d’autres. Furtives, partielles, orientées et fragmentées, ces visions procèdent de périodes particulièrement significatives : de périodes pouvant subir des changements, de périodes charnières où des altérations radicales peuvent poindre ou apparaître effectivement
Waters are contested entities that are currently at the centre of most scientific discussions about sustainability. Discourse around water management underlines both the serious absence and devastating overabundance of water: rising sea levels compete against desertification; hurricanes and floods follow periods of prolonged drought. As we increasingly pollute, canalise and desalinate waters, the ambiguous nature of our relationship with these entities becomes visible. And, while we continue to damage what most sustains us, collective precarity grows. It is therefore unsurprising that shifting our understanding, and subsequent use, of water has been described as one of the biggest—and most pressing—challenges of our time.My research answers to this challenge. It centres on spatial poetics, that is, on the manner in which people engage and interact with their environment through art. More precisely, I explore the relationships between humans, waters and sound—both intrinsic and human-produced—in Lower Murray Country (South Australia). My aim is to unveil, theorise and create maps of these co-evolving relationships to reveal an array of manners to perceive and relate to these waters; and then draw on this plurality to question—and potentially reimagine—their cultural construction and representation. In order to do so, I transform waters into a leitmotif which enables me to weave my investigation together and move in-between theoretical and physical spaces to bring people and their environments into dialogue, both at the local and global levels. In particular, I draw on the watery movements of flow and resonance to operate this weaving, and associate these with rhythmanalysis and resounding (after philosophers Henri Lefebvre and Fran Dyson, respectively). I am also inspired by the work of philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant and use his concept of Relation as a key to enable me to translate these watery movements textually.I apply this aqueous theoretical frame to nearly two centuries of sonic production—ranging from Ngarrindjeri performance and colonial ballads through to contemporary classical music and sound art; and to nearly two centuries of evolution in the sonic character of Lower Murray Country’s waters—ranging from disfiguring deforestation and damming through to rising salinity and irrigation. As such, this thesis is built on the “accumulation of examples” advocated by Glissant (Poetics of Relation 172-4). It is structured around four sections—four punctiform visions of waters written as a prelude to a potential infinity of others. Furtive, partial, oriented and fragmented, these visions denote times of particular significance: times open to challenge; times of hinges and articulations where radical alteration (can) occur

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com, emmayuen@hotmail, and Emma Yuen. "Water Consumption Patterns in Australian Aboriginal Communities." Murdoch University, 2005. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20051119.134422.

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Aboriginal Australians have a significantly lower health status than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. To facilitate healthy living practices necessary for good health, a high level investment is currently made in water services, on the assumption that there is a relationship between the volume and quality of water supplied with health outcomes, despite the high economic and environmental cost. This thesis investigates whether the current design supply criteria of 1000-1200 litres per person per day of water, meeting the Australian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines, is both sufficient and necessary to improve the health of Aboriginal Australians. The scope of the thesis is limited to the sufficiency of design guidelines although it necessarily also touches on the broader issues of Aboriginal health. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to explore current water consumption patterns of consumers at multiple hierarchical levels (community, household and individual) and hence the requirements of physical infrastructure on which consumers depend. Multiple linear regression was used to consider factors correlated with supply volume, while metering was used at both the domestic and appliance level to determine where and how water was used. Meters were installed on fixtures in two houses in a community near Alice Springs. This was then complemented by qualitative information obtained through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and observation in the field. The appropriateness of the supply of high quality water for all uses was addressed by considering the volume of drinking water intake and its impact on the derivation of water quality guidelines. This was achieved by a face-to-face survey involving 57 volunteers. Fieldwork was conducted predominantly in three communities near Alice Springs although some additional data was collected in other communities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The results showed that the factors influencing water consumption were highly complex and variable between communities and individuals. However, there were some culturally specific needs identified in Aboriginal communities, such as the need for temperature and dust control, as well as the reduction of losses. The unique characteristics of each community made it difficult to provide a more precise estimate for design supply. As a result, overly conservative guidelines such as those already used are necessary in the short term despite there being no guarantee of improved health. In the long term, issues of community governance and capacity building will start to be addressed, and the realisation that social systems are both complex and dynamic will need to be reflected in policy. These issues were represented in a systemic conceptual model at the end of the thesis, which also highlighted inadequacies of reductionist approaches such as design supply guidelines. The thesis concluded that complex problem situations such as that of health, require a systems approach.

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Yuen, Emma. "Water consumption patterns in Australian Aboriginal communities /." Access via Murdoch University Digital Theses Project, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20051119.134422.

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23

Yuen, Emma. "Water consumption patterns in Australian Aboriginal communities." Thesis, Yuen, Emma (2005) Water consumption patterns in Australian Aboriginal communities. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2005. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/419/.

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Aboriginal Australians have a significantly lower health status than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. To facilitate healthy living practices necessary for good health, a high level investment is currently made in water services, on the assumption that there is a relationship between the volume and quality of water supplied with health outcomes, despite the high economic and environmental cost. This thesis investigates whether the current design supply criteria of 1000-1200 litres per person per day of water, meeting the Australian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines, is both sufficient and necessary to improve the health of Aboriginal Australians. The scope of the thesis is limited to the sufficiency of design guidelines although it necessarily also touches on the broader issues of Aboriginal health. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to explore current water consumption patterns of consumers at multiple hierarchical levels (community, household and individual) and hence the requirements of physical infrastructure on which consumers depend. Multiple linear regression was used to consider factors correlated with supply volume, while metering was used at both the domestic and appliance level to determine where and how water was used. Meters were installed on fixtures in two houses in a community near Alice Springs. This was then complemented by qualitative information obtained through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and observation in the field. The appropriateness of the supply of high quality water for all uses was addressed by considering the volume of drinking water intake and its impact on the derivation of water quality guidelines. This was achieved by a face-to-face survey involving 57 volunteers. Fieldwork was conducted predominantly in three communities near Alice Springs although some additional data was collected in other communities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The results showed that the factors influencing water consumption were highly complex and variable between communities and individuals. However, there were some culturally specific needs identified in Aboriginal communities, such as the need for temperature and dust control, as well as the reduction of losses. The unique characteristics of each community made it difficult to provide a more precise estimate for design supply. As a result, overly conservative guidelines such as those already used are necessary in the short term despite there being no guarantee of improved health. In the long term, issues of community governance and capacity building will start to be addressed, and the realisation that social systems are both complex and dynamic will need to be reflected in policy. These issues were represented in a systemic conceptual model at the end of the thesis, which also highlighted inadequacies of reductionist approaches such as design supply guidelines. The thesis concluded that complex problem situations such as that of health, require a systems approach.

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24

Yuen, Emma. "Water consumption patterns in Australian Aboriginal communities." Yuen, Emma (2005) Water consumption patterns in Australian Aboriginal communities. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2005. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/419/.

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Abstract:

Aboriginal Australians have a significantly lower health status than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. To facilitate healthy living practices necessary for good health, a high level investment is currently made in water services, on the assumption that there is a relationship between the volume and quality of water supplied with health outcomes, despite the high economic and environmental cost. This thesis investigates whether the current design supply criteria of 1000-1200 litres per person per day of water, meeting the Australian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines, is both sufficient and necessary to improve the health of Aboriginal Australians. The scope of the thesis is limited to the sufficiency of design guidelines although it necessarily also touches on the broader issues of Aboriginal health. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to explore current water consumption patterns of consumers at multiple hierarchical levels (community, household and individual) and hence the requirements of physical infrastructure on which consumers depend. Multiple linear regression was used to consider factors correlated with supply volume, while metering was used at both the domestic and appliance level to determine where and how water was used. Meters were installed on fixtures in two houses in a community near Alice Springs. This was then complemented by qualitative information obtained through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and observation in the field. The appropriateness of the supply of high quality water for all uses was addressed by considering the volume of drinking water intake and its impact on the derivation of water quality guidelines. This was achieved by a face-to-face survey involving 57 volunteers. Fieldwork was conducted predominantly in three communities near Alice Springs although some additional data was collected in other communities in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The results showed that the factors influencing water consumption were highly complex and variable between communities and individuals. However, there were some culturally specific needs identified in Aboriginal communities, such as the need for temperature and dust control, as well as the reduction of losses. The unique characteristics of each community made it difficult to provide a more precise estimate for design supply. As a result, overly conservative guidelines such as those already used are necessary in the short term despite there being no guarantee of improved health. In the long term, issues of community governance and capacity building will start to be addressed, and the realisation that social systems are both complex and dynamic will need to be reflected in policy. These issues were represented in a systemic conceptual model at the end of the thesis, which also highlighted inadequacies of reductionist approaches such as design supply guidelines. The thesis concluded that complex problem situations such as that of health, require a systems approach.

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Oswald, Louisa Jane, and n/a. "Usefulness of Macroinvertebrates for In Situ Testing of Water Quality." University of Canberra. Institute for Applied Ecology, 2008. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20090107.130047.

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For various reasons, existing methods for the assessment of aquatic pollution do not always adequately address the way in which contaminants affect receiving environments and their component ecosystems. The main advantage of biological assessment over the measurements of physical and chemical aspects of water quality is that biota provide an integrated response to all prevailing influences in their environment. Biological assessment protocols have been developed for a range of test organisms, from bacteria to mammals using measurement from molecular biomarkers to indicators at the population or community level of organisation. Macroinvertebrates in particular have been popular for ecological assessment of habitat and water quality because they are small and straight forward to sample and identify using relatively simple and inexpensive equipment and readily available taxonomic keys. However, various biological assessment techniques also have their limitations. Field-based assessment of biological communities does not provide direct evidence to determine underlying causal relationships, while laboratory or mesocosm toxicity tests are criticised for their limited ability to extrapolate to natural field conditions. To help bridge the gap, this thesis aims to investigate the efficacy of using caged macroinvertebrates in situ to assess the ecological condition of aquatic environments, and whether a causal relationship can be established when macroinvertebrates are deployed in situ at sites known to have impaired water quality. Endpoints employed in this thesis include survival, measurements of morphology (as a surrogate for growth) and condition and, for trials assessing sites that receive mine drainage, the tissue concentration of certain trace metals. Development of an in situ approach to water quality monitoring and assessment will potentially provide methods for use by resource managers, community groups and aquatic researchers that are less expensive and faster to run than existing methods and will complement other approaches employed in the assessment of water quality. In situ testing of water quality using macroinvertebrates requires the collection, handling, caging, deployment and retrieval of test organisms at sites of suspected pollutant impact. As such procedural factors may affect test organisms and potentially confound their responses, it is important to consider and understand as many of these factors as possible. Aquatic macroinvertebrates held in finer mesh cages had larger heads than in coarser mesh cages. This was likely due to increased substrate available for growth of epilithon and periphyton on which the caged organisms could graze. Caging density had no effect on amphipod mortality over the trial period, however, individuals held at higher densities increased in size (as indicated by longer dorsal lengths) more than those held at lower or intermediate densities. Temporary storage of test organisms in laboratory aquaria may facilitate the collection of abundances required for in situ trials, however, tanked individuals were smaller and had lower biomasses than individuals collected and deployed immediately. While this is likely to result from differences in feeding during the storage period, it is also possible that tank storage and the ?double handling? deleteriously affected them, or reduced their tolerance. The effects of transplanting macroinvertebrates between sites varied considerably depending on the characteristics of "source" and "transplant" sites. Certain taxa suffered marked mortality within 24 hours even at their source site, indicating an adverse effect of the caging itself, or perhaps via the change in food, shelter or microclimate which could potentially render them unsuitable as test organisms in caging studies. Other taxa did not differ in survival or body size when relocated between sites, with some evidence of increased growth at sites dissimilar from their source site. In general, organisms relocated to sites that are "similar" to their source environment performed less well at the transplant site. However, organisms transplanted to "dissimilar" sites were found to be bigger than those caged and deployed back to the source site. When employed to assess known pollution scenarios in and around Canberra, macroinvertebrate responses were, in some instances, able to be linked to specific environmental parameters or combinations thereof. In Case Study 1, findings varied in relation to the response endpoint being examined, and between test species, although concentrations of metals were significantly higher in tissue of macroinvertebrates deployed at the impact site downstream of the abandoned Captains Flat mine and increased with time exposed. In Case Study 2, freshwater shrimp suffered significant mortality within 24 hours of deployment at the impact sites, with larger individuals more susceptible at sites receiving urban stormwater runoff. While various biological effects were most closely correlated with ammonia concentrations at the site, different body size endpoints were affected in opposite ways. In Case Study 3, body size endpoints for one test organism varied consistently with respect to site and time factors, but none of the changes could be linked to any of the environmental data collected. Response variables for a different test species also indicated significant effects arising from both deployment site and time, however, each endpoint responded in a different way to the treatment factors, and aligned with different combinations of environmental data. In general, linking of macroinvertebrate responses with environmental data was difficult because of the high variability in the environmental data. However, it was further complicated by the mismatch in the level of replication between the two datasets. As a consequence of this, the macroinvertebrate data had to be collapsed to a lower level for comparison with the environmental data, resulting in a loss of natural variability and analytical power. Since only the strongest treatment effects, which could be detected above the background "noise", were detected and modelled against the environmental data, it is possible that other "cause" and "effect" relationships may have been overlooked. From these results, it is clear that many macroinvertebrate taxa are suitable for use as bioindicators in in situ trials, but that criteria used for selection of test species should definitely include more than just impact-sensitivity and abundance. However, there are several aspects associated with the experimental set up of field-based protocols involving caged macroinvertebrates that may limit their usefulness as a rapid and reliable bioassessment tool, and need to be considered when designing and undertaking these kinds of trials. It is also apparent that choice of endpoint can greatly influence conclusions, with detection of treatment effects reported in this thesis varying greatly depending on which morphological endpoint was examined. This study clearly demonstrated that there may be significant difficulties in establishing causal relationships between environmental data and biotic responses of macroinvertebrates deployed under field conditions. However, it has also shown that deployment of caged macroinvertebrates in situ may assist in the determination of biological effects arising from impaired water quality, which can then serve as the basis for more focussed laboratory or mesocosm studies in which environmental conditions can be more readily controlled or monitored.

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26

Purtill, Marie University of Ballarat. "An Investigation into Spring Water." University of Ballarat, 2008. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/12754.

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This exegesis explores the sacred, holy and commercial aspects of spring water as revealed by an exploration of the relationships of Indigenous Australians and non–Indigenous European Australians to spring water. As a non–Indigenous Australian migrant, my knowledge of Indigenous Australian spiritual and cultural matters was limited, as was knowledge of Indigenous Australian history, both pre- and post-European settlement. As a migrant, I have many memories and experiences of spring water at European wells, springs and places of pilgrimage where healing, both physical and spiritual was sought. In childhood, I enjoyed reading the many myths and legends that surround the magical, mysterious and often invisible resource of spring water. Realising that my current knowledge of spring water relied more on folklore and anecdotal information than on fact, I decided that the topic of spring water offered worthwhile opportunities for research. [...] The availability of spring water is being challenged on more than one front. This research explores and investigates the abundance of (particularly) art references to spring water in Indigenous Australian culture and traditions, while noting the dearth of art references relating specifically to spring water in non-Indigenous Australian culture; although an abundance of art references to water in general is revealed. In the latter context, references to art depicting aspects of the hydrologic cycle have been substituted and explored.
Master of Arts

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27

Purtill, Marie. "An Investigation into spring water." Thesis, University of Ballarat, 2008. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/62547.

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This exegesis explores the sacred, holy and commercial aspects of spring water as revealed by an exploration of the relationships of Indigenous Australians and non–Indigenous European Australians to spring water. As a non–Indigenous Australian migrant, my knowledge of Indigenous Australian spiritual and cultural matters was limited, as was knowledge of Indigenous Australian history, both pre- and post-European settlement. As a migrant, I have many memories and experiences of spring water at European wells, springs and places of pilgrimage where healing, both physical and spiritual was sought. In childhood, I enjoyed reading the many myths and legends that surround the magical, mysterious and often invisible resource of spring water. Realising that my current knowledge of spring water relied more on folklore and anecdotal information than on fact, I decided that the topic of spring water offered worthwhile opportunities for research. [...] The availability of spring water is being challenged on more than one front. This research explores and investigates the abundance of (particularly) art references to spring water in Indigenous Australian culture and traditions, while noting the dearth of art references relating specifically to spring water in non-Indigenous Australian culture; although an abundance of art references to water in general is revealed. In the latter context, references to art depicting aspects of the hydrologic cycle have been substituted and explored.
Master of Arts

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28

Purtill, Marie. "An Investigation into spring water." University of Ballarat, 2008. http://archimedes.ballarat.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/15380.

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Abstract:

This exegesis explores the sacred, holy and commercial aspects of spring water as revealed by an exploration of the relationships of Indigenous Australians and non–Indigenous European Australians to spring water. As a non–Indigenous Australian migrant, my knowledge of Indigenous Australian spiritual and cultural matters was limited, as was knowledge of Indigenous Australian history, both pre- and post-European settlement. As a migrant, I have many memories and experiences of spring water at European wells, springs and places of pilgrimage where healing, both physical and spiritual was sought. In childhood, I enjoyed reading the many myths and legends that surround the magical, mysterious and often invisible resource of spring water. Realising that my current knowledge of spring water relied more on folklore and anecdotal information than on fact, I decided that the topic of spring water offered worthwhile opportunities for research. [...] The availability of spring water is being challenged on more than one front. This research explores and investigates the abundance of (particularly) art references to spring water in Indigenous Australian culture and traditions, while noting the dearth of art references relating specifically to spring water in non-Indigenous Australian culture; although an abundance of art references to water in general is revealed. In the latter context, references to art depicting aspects of the hydrologic cycle have been substituted and explored.
Master of Arts

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29

Kenny, Jillian L. "Exploring elements for innovation in the Australian water sector." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2016. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/93010/1/Jillian_Kenny_Thesis.pdf.

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This thesis explores innovation as a means to achieving an enhanced level of sustainability in the Australian water sector. A modified Delphi study uncovered sixteen key elements centred around themes of 'community acceptance' and 'innovator effectiveness', that provide insights for immediate application within the sector to address impacts of climate change, population increases and resource scarcity. This exploratory research builds a foundational understanding of the components for change and innovation within the Australian water sector, and forms the underpinning for more specific lines of enquiry.

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30

Jackson, Melissa. "Transformative Community Water Governance in Remote Australian Indigenous Communities." Thesis, Griffith University, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/406052.

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Governing water systems to address issues of safety, security and sustainability and to build resilient communities is a key policy focus globally, as climate change and human impacts on freshwater resources are being increasingly felt. Yet, in remote Indigenous community contexts, Western management systems tend to focus on technical and engineering aspects of water services, often excluding Indigenous people from decisions about their own water resources. Unsustainable and inadequate water services have resulted that constrain local economic development and contribute to poor health and high mortality rates of Indigenous peoples. Sustainable water governance approaches are recognised as important to address such issues, but the pace and scale of uptake has been slow. Transformative governance is an emerging field of research and praxis that has potential to support scaling up sustainable water outcomes, however, very limited empirical or theoretical studies exist from which to guide action, particularly at the community scale, or in remote Indigenous community contexts. Focusing on remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia as a study setting, this thesis aims to explore Transformative Community Water Governance (TCWG) as an approach for practice and consider how it can be applied to contribute to sustainable and resilient remote Indigenous communities. Through a pragmatic and transdisciplinary lens, three objectives are addressed: 1) identify key concepts and principles for TCWG and assess current water governance arrangements and processes in remote Indigenous Australia; 2) develop an evidencebased framework for TCWG appropriate for application to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; 3) apply the conceptual TCWG framework in a remote Indigenous community context to identify lessons for practice. Employing mixed methods, the exploratory study identified key concepts and principles for TCWG and assessed current practice in remote Australia in relation to these. The findings reveal limited uptake in practice of processes that could support longer-term transformative sustainability outcomes. Barriers that prevent transformative governance being adopted are also identified across five categories: governance arrangements and processes; economic and financial; capacity, skills education and employment; data and information; and cultural values and norms. Enablers that can support transformative community water governance in this context are also identified. These findings provide the foundation for design of a novel TCWG framework applicable to remote Indigenous Australia. Key components of the framework include a guiding vision, five foundational principles to guide planning and action, an eight-step process for implementation, together with knowledge sharing activities across communities and regions. These components in combination create a comprehensive framework to guide community water governance for transformative change outcomes across communities and the water sector. Moving beyond conceptual research, the TCWG framework was applied through participatory action research in the remote community of Masig in the Torres Strait Islands (Australia), providing lessons for practice. Activities included installation, monitoring and feedback on household water use from high-resolution smart water meters, household end-use survey and in-depth interviews with community and other stakeholders. The action research demonstrated how technocratic management approaches occur, are reinforced and impact on communities at the local scale resulting in outcomes that do not fit the local conditions. For example on Masig, continued focus and investments in centralised water treatment ignores community member preferences for drinking rainwater, which is often untreated, over mains water; imposition of water restrictions increase health risks from storing water for use during the day; while existing strengths within the community that could support longterm sustainable water outcomes are generally not considered in water decisions. A co-designed household water demand management trial also resulted in a 39% reduction in water use over the research period, demonstrating that a coordinated and educative approach can be more effective than ‘stick’ approaches, at least in the shortterm, building a foundation for long-term change. The overall thesis findings suggest that there is significant potential for a TCWG approach to improve outcomes for sustainable, resilient communities and water systems at the local level and for scaling up on a larger scale. Recommendations are provided based on the research findings, for embedding this approach into governance institutions and supporting capacity building within the water governance system. Considerations for scaling up the TCWG approach across diverse community contexts, such as Pacific Island communities, and post-colonial settler nations such as New Zealand, Canada and the United States are also identified.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Eng & Built Env
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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31

Crouch, James A. M. "Towed array performance in the littoral waters of Northern Australia." Thesis, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/9082.

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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
The goal of this research was to investigate the performance of low frequency passive sonars in the Arafura Sea. Sound speed profiles representative of the wet and dry monsoon seasons and geoacoustic data were inputted into a finite element primitive equation transmission loss model to model the expected propagation at three frequencies, 10, 50 and 300 Hz. Initial detection ranges for several source/receiver depth combinations and geoacoustic areas (deep/ shallow water) were compared and evaluated. Results demonstrate that low frequency ( -10 Hz) detection ranges suffer due to cutoff frequency problems and to surface-decoupling loss. Propagation in deep water has the added disadvantage of excessive loss of signal power due to spherical spreading considerations. Conversely, higher frequencies (300 Hz) provided extended detection ranges in shallow water due to trapping of energy within the entire 50 m to 100 m water column. Additionally, investigation into advantages to be gained through advanced signal processing techniques shows that improvements of the order of 10 to 15 dB of detection gain are possible through the utilization of inverse beamforming.

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32

Fazakerley, Victor William. "Critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry." Thesis, Curtin University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/1246.

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This study makes a contribution to the Australian urban water supply industry because it highlights some of the critical issues the industry faces in the future. Through the scenarios it illuminates an alternative method to develop strategies for the future. Ultimately the end result of scenario planning is not a more accurate picture of the future, but better decision making for the future. This is a significant piece of research because it demonstrates the advantages of the scenario planning process as a method to illuminate the potential future dangers and opportunities in the water industry's business environment. The scenarios can be used as a launching pad for strategic planning and to prepare the water industry for the uncertainties it faces. Water is precious and essential to life. Water supply is arguably the ultimate essential service. Australia uses about 22,000 gigalitres of water [l gigalitre (GL) = 1,000,000,000 litres, approximately 444 Olympic swimming pools (ABS 2004)] per annum across all sectors, irrigation, industry and domestic. The aim of this study was to determine the critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. The study achieved this with the aid of scenarios that tell stories about urban water supply to the year 2025. A key to this study is the concept of organisations as living organisms, which are capable of learning and adapting to changes in their business environment. Today's business environment is constantly changing through globalisation, technological innovation and society's values. To survive, organisations must be able to anticipate and adapt to this often uncertain environment.Traditional methods, from a mechanistic perspective, of developing strategic plans for the future have a poor track record because they invariably rely on forecasting and predicting the future from historical information that, in an increasingly uncertain and fast changing world, may no longer be appropriate. Scenarios are stories about the future. They combine uncertainty and trends with creativity, insight and intuition to enable an organisation to learn and develop strategies for the future from an organic perspective. Scenarios are not predictions, but they are plausible stories about the future. The stories do allow an organisation to re-perceive a different world by questioning prevailing paradigms and assumptions. The underlying philosophical basis for scenario planning is constructivist which is consistent with the ontological position taken for this study. This study was undertaken under a qualitative research paradigm. The ontological position taken to answer the research question was constructivist with a critical perspective where realities are intangible mental constructs based on the culture and experience of individuals or groups. Constructs are more or less informed and changeable. From an epistemological perspective the constructivist position assumes that the enquirer and subject of the research are interactively linked so that findings are created. Research under a constructivist paradigm requires a hermeneutical and dialectical methodology leading to interpretation.The methodology adopted for this study was grounded research, being a modification of grounded theory and applicable to the business environment. Data were initially gathered by semi-structured interview, the objective being two fold. 1. The data were used to elicit critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. 2. The data were used to develop 'plausible' futures for the urban water supply industry in the form of scenarios. The data were analysed using grounded research principles and organised using NVivo (Richards 1999; NVivo 2002). After two stages of analysis, 16 major categories, focusing on the future emerged from the data. In order to write the scenarios two key uncertainties critical to the future of the urban water supply industry were required for the scenario matrix. The two selected were 'Water availability' and 'Technological change' from the water industry's contextual environment. These two key uncertainties were considered to be the most uncertain and have the greatest impact on the future of the water industry. These two key uncertainties formed the context for the scenarios into which over 200 other issues were de-dimentionalised, as in the scenario planning method, and crafted into four scenarios. A time horizon of 2025 was selected for the scenarios to reflect the water industry's long term planning horizon.The scenarios were called 'Decadent water use', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water and technology addresses the cost of service delivery; 'Smart water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce but is addressed by technology providing alternative sources of water; 'Muddy waters', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water but technology does not address the cost of delivery and issues of infrastructure deterioration and 'Mad Max water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce and technology does not address the scarcity, the situation becomes a crisis. From the scenarios and using concepts from complex adaptive systems theory a number of critical issues emerged from the data. Some were at a philosophical level such as whether water, as a common good, fits with society's philosophy about water. Others were at a practical level for example expressing the criticality for the water industry to build community trust and support. The research notes the potential for further qualitative research in the fields of community attitudes and behaviours towards water, water services, recycling wastewater and the preparedness to pay for water services. In addition there is potential to further develop scenarios presented in this study; 'Decadent water use', 'Smart water world', 'Muddy waters' and 'Mad Max water world'; for the Australian urban water supply industry using the data from this research as a basis for group consultation.

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33

Burdack, Doreen. "Water management policies and their impact on irrigated crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia." Phd thesis, Universität Potsdam, 2014. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2014/7224/.

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The economic impact analysis contained in this book shows how irrigation farming is particularly susceptible when applying certain water management policies in the Australian Murray-Darling Basin, one of the world largest river basins and Australia’s most fertile region. By comparing different pricing and non-pricing water management policies with the help of the Water Integrated Market Model, it is found that the impact of water demand reducing policies is most severe on crops that need to be intensively irrigated and are at the same time less water productive. A combination of increasingly frequent and severe droughts and the application of policies that decrease agricultural water demand, in the same region, will create a situation in which the highly water dependent crops rice and cotton cannot be cultivated at all.
Die ökonomische Folgenanalyse in diesem Buch zeigt, dass insbesondere Landwirte, die stark auf Bewässerung angewiesen sind, von Wasserregulierungsstrategien im Australischen Murray-Darling Becken betroffen sind. Dieses Gebiet ist eines der größten Flussbecken weltweit und zugleich Australiens fruchtbarste Region. Durch den Vergleich von verschiedenen Preisstrategien und anderen Ansätzen konnte mit Hilfe des Water Integrated Market Models herausgefunden werden, dass die Auswirkungen auf hochgradig wasserabhängige Feldfrüchte mit geringeren Wasserproduktivitäten am stärksten sind. Die Kombination von häufigeren und intensiveren Trockenzeiten und einer Regulierungspolitik mit dem Ziel, die Nachfrage nach Wasser zu verringern, führt dazu, dass in ein und derselben Region hochgradig wasserabhängige Feldfrüchte wie Reis und Baumwolle mit geringeren Wasserproduktivitäten nicht mehr angebaut werden können.

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34

Woo, Lai Mun. "Summer circulation and water masses along the West Australian coast." University of Western Australia. Centre for Water Research, 2005. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2005.0122.

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The Gascoyne continental shelf is located along the north-central coastline of Western Australia between latitudes 21° and 28°S. This study presents CTD and ADCP data together with concurrent wind and satellite imagery, to provide a description of the summer surface circulation pattern along the continental margin, and the hydrography present in the upper 1km of ocean, between latitudes 21° and 35°S. It also discusses the outcome of a numerical modelling study that examined the physical factors contributing to a bifurcation event persistently observed in satellite imagery at Point Cloates. The region comprises a complex system of four surface water types and current systems. The Leeuwin Current dominated the surface flow, transporting lower salinity, warmer water poleward along the shelf-break, and causing downwelling. Its signature ‘aged’ from a warm (24.7°C), lower salinity (34.6) water in the north to a cooler (21.9°C), more saline (35.2) water in the south, as a result of 2-4Sv geostrophic inflow of offshore waters. The structure and strength of the current altered with changing bottom topographies. The Ningaloo Current flowed along the northernmost inner coast of the Gascoyne shelf, carrying upwelled water and re-circulated Leeuwin Current water from the south. Bifurcation of the Ningaloo Current was seen south of the coastal promontory at Point Cloates. Numerical modelling demonstrated a combination of southerly winds and coastal and bottom topography off Point Cloates to be responsible for the recirculation, and indicated that the strength of southerly winds affect recirculation. Hypersaline Shark Bay outflow influenced shelf waters at the Bay’s mouth and to the south of the Bay. The Capes Current, a wind-driven current from south of the study region was identified as a cooler, more saline water mass flowing northward. Results of the hydrography study show five different water masses present in the upper-ocean. Their orientations were affected by the geopotential gradient driven Leeuwin Current/Undercurrent system at the continental margin. The Leeuwin Undercurrent was found at the shelf-slope, carrying (>252 μM/L) Subantarctic Mode Water at a depth of 400m

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35

Mallet, Marc D. "Water uptake and composition of natural Australian cloud condensation nuclei." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2017. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/104437/1/Marc_Mallet_Thesis.pdf.

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This project was an investigation of atmospheric aerosols emitted from the Great Barrier Reef and north Australian fires. The chemical and physical properties of these aerosols were examined to determine their role in cloud formation. Interactions between aerosols and clouds are associated with the largest uncertainty in global climate models. The work of this thesis will contribute towards reducing this uncertainty by providing data for these poorly characterised regions in Australia.

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36

Eberhard, Rachel. "The metagovernance of Australian water policy: Practices, rationales and outcomes." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2018. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/118143/1/Rachel_Eberhard_Thesis.pdf.

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This thesis examines how governments work with stakeholders to develop and implement water policy in Australia. Evidence from the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray Darling Basin showed the challenges involved, and how this can affect environmental outcomes. Results show how government can work more effectively with stakeholders, and the potential of non-government organisations to help broker better policy outcomes.

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37

Fazakerley, Victor William. "Critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry." Curtin University of Technology, Graduate School of Business, 2005. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=15971.

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Abstract:

This study makes a contribution to the Australian urban water supply industry because it highlights some of the critical issues the industry faces in the future. Through the scenarios it illuminates an alternative method to develop strategies for the future. Ultimately the end result of scenario planning is not a more accurate picture of the future, but better decision making for the future. This is a significant piece of research because it demonstrates the advantages of the scenario planning process as a method to illuminate the potential future dangers and opportunities in the water industry's business environment. The scenarios can be used as a launching pad for strategic planning and to prepare the water industry for the uncertainties it faces. Water is precious and essential to life. Water supply is arguably the ultimate essential service. Australia uses about 22,000 gigalitres of water [l gigalitre (GL) = 1,000,000,000 litres, approximately 444 Olympic swimming pools (ABS 2004)] per annum across all sectors, irrigation, industry and domestic. The aim of this study was to determine the critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. The study achieved this with the aid of scenarios that tell stories about urban water supply to the year 2025. A key to this study is the concept of organisations as living organisms, which are capable of learning and adapting to changes in their business environment. Today's business environment is constantly changing through globalisation, technological innovation and society's values. To survive, organisations must be able to anticipate and adapt to this often uncertain environment.
Traditional methods, from a mechanistic perspective, of developing strategic plans for the future have a poor track record because they invariably rely on forecasting and predicting the future from historical information that, in an increasingly uncertain and fast changing world, may no longer be appropriate. Scenarios are stories about the future. They combine uncertainty and trends with creativity, insight and intuition to enable an organisation to learn and develop strategies for the future from an organic perspective. Scenarios are not predictions, but they are plausible stories about the future. The stories do allow an organisation to re-perceive a different world by questioning prevailing paradigms and assumptions. The underlying philosophical basis for scenario planning is constructivist which is consistent with the ontological position taken for this study. This study was undertaken under a qualitative research paradigm. The ontological position taken to answer the research question was constructivist with a critical perspective where realities are intangible mental constructs based on the culture and experience of individuals or groups. Constructs are more or less informed and changeable. From an epistemological perspective the constructivist position assumes that the enquirer and subject of the research are interactively linked so that findings are created. Research under a constructivist paradigm requires a hermeneutical and dialectical methodology leading to interpretation.
The methodology adopted for this study was grounded research, being a modification of grounded theory and applicable to the business environment. Data were initially gathered by semi-structured interview, the objective being two fold. 1. The data were used to elicit critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. 2. The data were used to develop 'plausible' futures for the urban water supply industry in the form of scenarios. The data were analysed using grounded research principles and organised using NVivo (Richards 1999; NVivo 2002). After two stages of analysis, 16 major categories, focusing on the future emerged from the data. In order to write the scenarios two key uncertainties critical to the future of the urban water supply industry were required for the scenario matrix. The two selected were 'Water availability' and 'Technological change' from the water industry's contextual environment. These two key uncertainties were considered to be the most uncertain and have the greatest impact on the future of the water industry. These two key uncertainties formed the context for the scenarios into which over 200 other issues were de-dimentionalised, as in the scenario planning method, and crafted into four scenarios. A time horizon of 2025 was selected for the scenarios to reflect the water industry's long term planning horizon.
The scenarios were called 'Decadent water use', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water and technology addresses the cost of service delivery; 'Smart water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce but is addressed by technology providing alternative sources of water; 'Muddy waters', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water but technology does not address the cost of delivery and issues of infrastructure deterioration and 'Mad Max water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce and technology does not address the scarcity, the situation becomes a crisis. From the scenarios and using concepts from complex adaptive systems theory a number of critical issues emerged from the data. Some were at a philosophical level such as whether water, as a common good, fits with society's philosophy about water. Others were at a practical level for example expressing the criticality for the water industry to build community trust and support. The research notes the potential for further qualitative research in the fields of community attitudes and behaviours towards water, water services, recycling wastewater and the preparedness to pay for water services. In addition there is potential to further develop scenarios presented in this study; 'Decadent water use', 'Smart water world', 'Muddy waters' and 'Mad Max water world'; for the Australian urban water supply industry using the data from this research as a basis for group consultation.

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38

Lawrence, A. I., and n/a. "Organisations and change : a comparative analysis of seven Australian water authorities." University of Canberra. Administrative Studies, 1986. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060816.164817.

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39

Grover, Samantha Patricia Power, and samgrover1@gmail com. "Carbon and water dynamics of peat soils in the Australian Alps." La Trobe University. Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, School of Life Sciences, 2006. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au./thesis/public/adt-LTU20070627.172842.

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This research investigated carbon dynamics, water dynamics and peat formation at Wellington Plain peatland in the Victorian Alps. The properties of bog peat and dried peat were measured, and the ensuing results are outlined below. The carbon chemistries of both bog peat and dried peat displayed changes with depth consistent with an increase in the extent of decomposition of the organic material. Representative changes in the alkyl:O-alkyl ratio down the profile were 0.14 to 0.96 for bog peat and 0.28 to 1.07 for dried peat. Laboratory incubations on the influence of chemistry, particle size, water content and sample preparation indicated that, in the absence of confounding factors, peat chemistry was the most important factor in determining the size of the mineralisable carbon pool. Water content was the most important factor in determining the rate of carbon mineralization. In the field, both bog peat and dried peat emitted an average of 2 g CO2/m2/d from the surface. Carbon mineralisation was related to both soil temperature and soil water content, and this relationship was used to model peat mineralisation under a range of possible future climate scenarios. Below the surface, however, I measured lower rates of decomposition in the dried peat than in the bog peat. The water-holding capacity of peat was measured in the laboratory, as was the rate of water movement through peat. Specific yield decreased down the profile in both bog peat (0.88 to 0.45 cm3/cm3) and dried peat (0.36 to 0.11 cm3/cm3). Hydraulic conductivity also decreased down the profile in both peats: 5.1x10-4 to 3.0x10-6 m/s in bog peat, and 1.0x10-4 to 7.0x10-6 m/s in dried peat. Relationships between the hydrologic properties of peat and its physical and chemical properties were identified. In the field, fluctuations in the watertable were monitored in concert with rainfall. These laboratory and field measurements enabled me to develop models of the hydrology of bog peat and dried peat. Radioisotope dating indicated that both bog peat and dried peat began forming around 3300 years ago. The bog peat appeared to have drained to form dried peat between 131 and 139 years ago. Since that time, erosion appeared to have contributed more to the loss of organic material from dried peat than carbon mineralisation had.

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40

Bergh, Nicola G. "Comparative water relations of indigenous and invasive Australian Proteaceae in fynbos." Bachelor's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26049.

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Water-use efficiency (WUE) as reflected in the leaf carbon stable isotope ratio was compared between co-occurring indigenous fynbos proteoids and invasive Australian hakeas H. sericea, H. gibbosa and H. suaveolens. At the driest site, H. suaveolens was slightly more WUE than several co-occurring proteoids; there was no significant difference between hakeas and proteas at the other sites. Transpiration rates of shoots and of whole trees were compared between Hakea sericea and Protea repens growing on Stellenboschberg northeast of Cape Town. Both measurements showed no real difference between the species and it is concluded that differences in water relations are not responsible for the highly competitive growth rates of hakeas in fynbos. It is hypothesised that hakeas may be able to vegetatively outcompete proteoids as a consequence of monopodial architecture and some ability to prevent shade-limitation of photosynthesis. A rough estimate of water loss due to transpiration and interception by H. sericea stands indicates that this species may have a significant effect on catchment water loss relative to open-canopy proteoid fynbos. This effect would be due not to transpiration rates of individual trees but to consistently high densities of mature hakea stands.

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Grover, Samantha Patricia Power. "Carbon and water dynamics of peat soils in the Australian Alps /." Access full text, 2006. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/thesis/public/adt-LTU20070627.172842/index.html.

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Thesis (Ph.D.) -- La Trobe University, 2006.
Research. "A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, [to the] Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, Department of Agricultural Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering, La Trobe University, Bundoora". Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-186). Also available via the World Wide Web.

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42

Bellchambers, Brenton. "Sources of severe occupational injury in a major Australian water authority." Thesis, The Author [Mt. Helen, Vic.] :, 1992. http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/55415.

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An analysis of occuptational accidents (n=587) was completed for the years 1989/90/91 for a major Australian water authority for injuries of five or more days lost time.
Masters of Applied Science, Occupational Health and Safety

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43

Guo, Zihao. "Water footprint of Mallee biomass production in Western Australia." Thesis, Guo, Zihao (2017) Water footprint of Mallee biomass production in Western Australia. Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 2017. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/40475/.

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Mallee is a specific plant in Australia. In Western Australia, because of the economic and large-scale production of the mallee biomass, it is regarded as an important biological feedstock, which can be used to manage the salinization and water quality as well as recover the biological diversity. However, people are also worried about its influence on water because the large-scale production of the biological fuel might bring pressure to the fresh water. The life cycle water footprint assessment can evaluate the influence of mallee on the water resource. It can be a sustainable and effective system analysis tool of the water. Based on the weather and crops’ information of 31 places producing mallee in Western Australia, this research uses Cropwat 8.0 software to simulate the growth of mallee, thus conducting analysis the water footprint of the life cycle in the mallee planting period. In addition, Digimizer software, as well as the assumption and analysis to the mallee harvesting and farm transportation system, have also been utilized to calculate and analyze the consumed blue water. The result indicates that the water footprint in the life cycle of mallee is 1371m3/ton, in which the blue water consumption reaches 1102m3/ton while the green water and gray water are respectively 164m3/ton and 104m3/ton. In addition to this, this thesis also conducts sensitivity analysis to the analyzed results. All uncertain values are also estimated on the ranges. Finally, the analysis methods are evaluated and summarized, thus putting forward some improvement methods.

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Edwards, Peter. "Trust : Power and Engagement, Participatory Water Planning on the Gold Coast, Australia." Thesis, Griffith University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365305.

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Community and participatory engagement processes have received heightened attention on the political agenda with an increasing number of scholars and practitioners viewing them as a key component in robust, democratic decision-making. These participatory practices are, however, far from perfect. In order to refine and strengthen these imperfect practices it is first necessary to understand in detail how they work. This thesis uses a case study of the Gold Coast Waterfuture Strategy, a participatory engagement process held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia in 2004 and 2005 to focus on two elements that can strengthen or undermine participatory engagement processes. These two key elements are power and trust. This thesis argues, following a networked theory of power that a variety of different modalities of power are exercised during participatory engagement processes, with some of these power modalities contributing to strong trust relationships. Other modalities of power, however, undermine trust relationships. Understanding how these modalities of power undermine or strengthen trust is an important contribution to strengthening participatory engagement processes overall. In dissecting the Gold Coast Waterfuture Strategy Community Advisory Committee process in detail through the lens of specific modalities of power, several key outcomes came to light. First, when individual modalities of power are investigated, it was discovered that participants in the Gold Coast Waterfuture Strategy seemed able to selectively target their trust to deserving individuals or institutions. Second, not all negative modalities of power automatically engender distrust, nor do all positive modalities of power automatically engender trust. Third, the importance of context has been highlighted. It is truly a key issue that needs to replace blanket, universal institutions in many cases. Fourth, there are different mechanisms at play between expert planning and policy systems and participatory planning and policy-making. These mechanisms appear to be able to allow participants to selectively trust or distrust rather than have a general distrust of processes.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith School of Environment
Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology
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45

Ward, David Jefford. "People, fire, forest and water in Wungong: the landscape ecology of a West Australian water catchment." Thesis, Curtin University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2006.

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Bushfire is, in terms of human lives lost, property destroyed, and damage to natural systems, by far the most urgent environmental problem in Australia. This thesis tries to answer a number of questions about bushfire behaviour, history, effects, and management, in the Wungong Catchment of Western Australia. It does so by an overtly cross-disciplinary approach, involving a mixture of the three main streams of human knowledge, namely the humanities, natural science, and social science.First, I offer a literature review of several hundred books and papers drawn from the three main streams of knowledge mentioned above. The review includes some discussion of ‘bushfire epistemology’, a currently vague and neglected matter.The concept of ‘place’ is important to humans, so I then give a straightforward geographical description of Wungong Catchment, with some mention of the history of bushfire. To describe the vegetation, I use inductive statistics, and a method developed by me from the ideas of Delaunay (1929) and Dirichlet (1850). Given that there are hundreds of plant species within the catchment, I use a landscape approach, and only sketch the main tree species, and two iconic plants, the balga and the djiridji, both of which are important to the original custodians of the catchment, the Nyoongar people. There is discussion of other people’s research into the effect of bushfire on seed banks, and the flowering intervals of some plants of the jarrah forest.To see if Western Australia is anomalous, or fits into the worldwide pattern of humans using fire as a landscape management tool, I then examine some records of bushfire in other lands, including Africa, Madagascar, India, and Europe. The thesis then looks at the history of fire in the jarrah forest of Western Australia, based on observations by early European explorers and settlers from 1826 onward, the views of various foresters, and some opinions of current Nyoongar Elders.Using a mixture of natural science, applied mathematics, and archaeology, I give the results of cleaning the stems of those ancient plants called grasstrees, or balga (Xanthorrhoea spp.). These carry the marks of former bushfires, stretching back to 1750. They confirm historical reports of frequent fire in the jarrah forest, at 2-4 year intervals, and a recent decline in fire frequency. This contradicts the view, held by some, that European arrival increased the frequency of fire.As support for the balga findings, I present a simple mathematical model of self-organization in bushfire mosaics. It shows how lengthy bushfire exclusion can lead to disastrous situations, in which large areas of landscape become flammable and unstable. It shows how frequent, patchy burning can maintain a stable bushfire mosaic, with mild, beneficial fires. In the next chapter, I offer mathematical suggestions on how current unstable mosaics can be restabilized, by careful reintroduction of such burning.In dry, south-western Australia, water supply is an important topic, and a better understanding of the hydrological effects of bushfire may help with both bushfire and water management. I draw upon the natural science of forest hydrology, and the effects of fire in catchments. The evidence comes not only from Australia, but also from the United States, and South Africa.Turning to social science, I introduce Professor Peter Checkland’s ‘Soft Systems Methodology’, and suggest how it could be applied in resolving complicated conflict about bushfire management. I finish in legal style, with a summing up, and a verdict on the use of bushfire as a land management tool in Wungong Catchment, and possibly in other flammable landscapes.

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Bai, Zhengdong. "Near-Real-Time GPS Sensing of Atmospheric Water Vapour." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2005. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16059/1/Zhengdong_Bai_Thesis.pdf.

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An important goal in modern weather prediction is to improve short-term weather forecasts, especially of severe weather and precipitation. However, the ability to achieve this goal is hindered by the lack of timely and accurate observations of atmospheric water vapour, which is one of the most poorly measured and least understood constituents of the Earth's atmosphere due to its high temporal and spatial variability. This situation is being addressed by the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. GPS radio signals are slowed and bent by changes in temperature, pressure and water vapour in the atmosphere. Traditionally, the GPS signal propagation delay is considered a nuisance parameter that is an impediment to obtaining precise coordinates using GPS. Recent development in GPS precise positioning and orbit determination has enabled the atmospheric parameters to be determined to a high degree of accuracy on a routine basis, using continuous tracking data from ground-based GPS receivers. The aim of this research is to address several critical scientific challenges in estimating the atmospheric water vapour content in near-real-time (NRT) in Australia. Contributions are made to the field of GPS meteorology in the following five areas: First of all, research efforts were made to develop a technical platform for the ground-based GPS meteorology studies and demonstration of GPS Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) estimation using observations from Australian Regional GPS Networks (ARGN). Methods of estimation of water vapour from GPS and radiosonde data have been developed and tested. GAMIT-based GPS data processing strategies and compare analysis with radiosonde water vapour solutions from the Australia Upper Air Network (AUAN) were undertaken, providing an effective technical basis for further studies. Secondly, the research has developed techniques to allow estimation of atmospheric water vapour from GPS data and surface meteorological observations collected around the GPS sites. Ideally a dedicated meteorological sensor is installed adjacent to the GPS antenna. However, meteorological sensors are normally not installed at most Australian GPS stations. Installing a new meteorological sensor at each GPS station would involve additional cost at the level of one-third or half of the geodetic GPS receiver cost. We have experimentally developed and demonstrated interpolation methods for making use of hourly collected surface meteorological data from the Australian Automatic Weather Station (AWS) network operated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to estimate atmospheric water vapour. Thirdly, the research has studied ocean tidal loading and its effects on GPS derived precipitable water vapour estimates. The periodic motion of the Earth's surface due to ocean loading is one of the largest periodic motions. However, very little work has been done to quantify their effects on GPS-derived solutions at the GPS sites in the Australian region surrounded by ocean waters. The research presents the theoretical analysis and experimental results from the ARGN network, focusing on ocean loading and its effects on GPS derived precipitable water vapour estimates. The fourth important effort was the development of techniques for estimating highrate Slant Water Vapour (SWV) values for future operational meteorological applications in Australia, including addressing such issues as slant-path delay recovery from post-fit double-difference residuals, and overcoming site multipath effects. The experimental results have demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed methods. Finally, in order to address the meteorological applications with the existing and anticipated GPS reference stations in the Australian region, and measure the atmospheric water vapour content in near-real-time, the technical issues to implement NRT GPS water vapour estimation were identified and discussed, including the data requirements for meteorological and climate applications, NRT data processing and quality control procedures for GPS orbits. The experimental GPS PWV results from NRT and post data processing are compared and presented.

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47

Bai, Zhengdong. "Near-Real-Time GPS Sensing of Atmospheric Water Vapour." Queensland University of Technology, 2005. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16059/.

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An important goal in modern weather prediction is to improve short-term weather forecasts, especially of severe weather and precipitation. However, the ability to achieve this goal is hindered by the lack of timely and accurate observations of atmospheric water vapour, which is one of the most poorly measured and least understood constituents of the Earth's atmosphere due to its high temporal and spatial variability. This situation is being addressed by the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. GPS radio signals are slowed and bent by changes in temperature, pressure and water vapour in the atmosphere. Traditionally, the GPS signal propagation delay is considered a nuisance parameter that is an impediment to obtaining precise coordinates using GPS. Recent development in GPS precise positioning and orbit determination has enabled the atmospheric parameters to be determined to a high degree of accuracy on a routine basis, using continuous tracking data from ground-based GPS receivers. The aim of this research is to address several critical scientific challenges in estimating the atmospheric water vapour content in near-real-time (NRT) in Australia. Contributions are made to the field of GPS meteorology in the following five areas: First of all, research efforts were made to develop a technical platform for the ground-based GPS meteorology studies and demonstration of GPS Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) estimation using observations from Australian Regional GPS Networks (ARGN). Methods of estimation of water vapour from GPS and radiosonde data have been developed and tested. GAMIT-based GPS data processing strategies and compare analysis with radiosonde water vapour solutions from the Australia Upper Air Network (AUAN) were undertaken, providing an effective technical basis for further studies. Secondly, the research has developed techniques to allow estimation of atmospheric water vapour from GPS data and surface meteorological observations collected around the GPS sites. Ideally a dedicated meteorological sensor is installed adjacent to the GPS antenna. However, meteorological sensors are normally not installed at most Australian GPS stations. Installing a new meteorological sensor at each GPS station would involve additional cost at the level of one-third or half of the geodetic GPS receiver cost. We have experimentally developed and demonstrated interpolation methods for making use of hourly collected surface meteorological data from the Australian Automatic Weather Station (AWS) network operated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to estimate atmospheric water vapour. Thirdly, the research has studied ocean tidal loading and its effects on GPS derived precipitable water vapour estimates. The periodic motion of the Earth's surface due to ocean loading is one of the largest periodic motions. However, very little work has been done to quantify their effects on GPS-derived solutions at the GPS sites in the Australian region surrounded by ocean waters. The research presents the theoretical analysis and experimental results from the ARGN network, focusing on ocean loading and its effects on GPS derived precipitable water vapour estimates. The fourth important effort was the development of techniques for estimating highrate Slant Water Vapour (SWV) values for future operational meteorological applications in Australia, including addressing such issues as slant-path delay recovery from post-fit double-difference residuals, and overcoming site multipath effects. The experimental results have demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed methods. Finally, in order to address the meteorological applications with the existing and anticipated GPS reference stations in the Australian region, and measure the atmospheric water vapour content in near-real-time, the technical issues to implement NRT GPS water vapour estimation were identified and discussed, including the data requirements for meteorological and climate applications, NRT data processing and quality control procedures for GPS orbits. The experimental GPS PWV results from NRT and post data processing are compared and presented.

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48

Duignan, Tim. "Salt water: simply vital." Thesis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27GJM8DsIyA&index=2&list=PLdn0giYPTOk3y2B2KL2jtS6mHvMPFdj7u, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/13688.

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A mathematical equation, just a string of symbols scribbled on a page, can be more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Newton’s equations of motion took us to the moon. Schrodinger’s equation, the foundation of quantum mechanics describes the chemical properties of everything around you. These equations are so useful because they are tools for making incredibly accurate predictions, leading to some of the greatest achievements of human kind. Unfortunately though, in many complex situations solving these equations is too hard. For instance, we would like to predict whether or not two molecules dissolved in water will bind together, but using Schrodinger’s equation to do this can be beyond the powers of even the hugest supercomputer.

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Hunt, Christopher John. "Pricing policy sensitivity : the case of the Australian urban water industry (AUWI) /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2005. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe18713.pdf.

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50

com, barb muhling@gmail, and Barbara Muhling. "Larval fish assemblages in coastal, shelf and offshore waters of south-western Australia." Murdoch University, 2006. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20061129.110448.

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Larval fish assemblages were investigated during a three-year multidisciplinary project conducted off the coast of south-western Australia. Larvae were sampled using replicated oblique bongo net tows along a five-station transect extending from inshore (18m depth) to offshore waters (1000m depth). A total of 148 taxa from 93 teleost families were identified. Larvae of Gobiidae, and Blenniidae were abundant inshore, while larvae of pelagic and reef-dwelling families, such as Clupeidae, Engraulidae, Carangidae and Labridae were common in continental shelf waters. Larvae of oceanic families, particularly Myctophidae, Phosichthydae and Gonostomatidae, dominated offshore assemblages. Inshore larval fish assemblages were the most seasonal, in terms of species composition and abundance, with offshore assemblages the least so. Multivariate statistical analyses revealed larval fish assemblages to have a strong temporal and spatial structure. Assemblages were closely correlated to water masses, with species distributions reflecting both cross shelf and along-shore oceanographic processes and events. The strength and position of the warm, southward flowing Leeuwin Current, and of the cool, seasonal, northward flowing Capes Current were shown to drive much of the variability in the marine environment, and thus larval fish assemblages. Many of the distinctions between larval fish assemblages on the continental shelf were attributable to patterns of abundance in clupeiform larvae. While larvae of Engraulis australis and Spratelloides robustus showed clear seasonal and spatial distribution patterns, larvae of Sardinops sagax and Etrumeus teres were found throughout the year, with high interannual variability in abundance. Abundances of larvae from all pelagic clupeiform species were negatively correlated to microzooplankton concentrations. Peaks of abundance of S. sagax and E. teres, in particular, appeared to be better aligned with favourable transport and retention conditions. A detailed comparison of the horizontal and vertical distribution of larval fishes highlighted the influence of contrasting oceanographic conditions between summer and winter on larval fish assemblages. Although most fish larvae were found above the thermocline, depth distributions differed between taxa, and were shown to influence their offshore transport. Neustonic fish larvae showed potential for significant dispersion during summer, as a result of offshore Ekman transport. Mesoscale Leeuwin Current eddies were a feature of the oceanography of the region, and their influence on larval fish assemblages was examined in both an anti-cyclonic eddy (warm-core) and a cyclonic eddy (cold-core). The warm-core eddy contained larval fish assemblages that were distinct from those in the cold-core eddy, with lower larval fish concentrations, especially in the eddy centre. Although the eddies originated near the continental shelf, larval fish assemblages within both eddies were largely oceanic, probably a result of the age of the eddies when they were sampled (about 5 months). Overall, larval fish assemblages showed strong temporal and spatial structure, and were well aligned to water masses in the region. The unique oceanography off south western Australia thus has considerable implications for both larval fish transport, and potential recruitment to regional fisheries.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Australian waters'

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