Stories of science from the Australian Rivers Institute
"Our research, published today, paints a grim picture. We estimate that even under the most optimistic emissions scenarios, we’ll see dramatic reductions in coral reef growth globally. The good news is that 63% of all reefs in this emissions scenario will still be able to grow by 2100."
"Revegetating abandoned agricultural land is critical for maintaining sustainability and biodiversity within our farming landscapes. Our recent paper demonstrated the feasibility of a large-scale revegetation approach in one of Australia’s most iconic agricultural regions, the Murray-Darling Basin."
"By altering the environment, are humans tricking animals into making poor life choices?"
"Seagrasses are flowering plants that live submerged in salty water and perform vital ecosystem services that help us and the food-webs that rely on them. For example, seagrasses capture and store more atmospheric carbon (per unit area) than many terrestrial plants, they act as nursery areas for important fishery species, and provide coastal protection against things like erosion and storm surges," Dr Ryan Pearson.
Author's Dr Songyan Yu and Associate Professor Mark Kennard, Read Time: 622 words, about 3 minutes. There is a growing interest globally in the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of intermittently flowing streams and rivers. Previous studies have predominantly relied on the use of gauged streamflow data to make inferences about the distribution of intermittent streams. [...]
By Andria Ostrowski Read Time: 504 words, about 3 minutes. Vegetated coastal wetlands including saltmarshes, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows store large amounts of carbon, protect shorelines from storms and erosion, support enormous biodiversity and improve water quality by filtering nutrients, contaminants and sediments. Despite their ecological and economic importance, increasing human settlement and development [...]
Author: Author: PhD Alyssa Giffin Read time: 777 words about 6 minutes. Welcome to part three of the five-part Transition article series, the sequel to the Emergent series, that follows ARI’s Post-Doc Research Fellows as they navigate the next stage of their academic journey post-PhD. Take a journey with them and hear about some of [...]
By PhD candidate Ellen Ditria, Reading Time: 452 words, about 2 minutes. Fish IDing Sample. Photo: Global Wetlands Project. Deep learning has fast become recognised as a powerful data processing tool for ecologists faced with vast amounts of image-based data. The ability of deep learning to accurately detect target species in videos and images unlocks [...]
By Dr. Eva McClure Read Time: 550 words, about 3 minutes. People often imagine the future of technology, and science fiction has depicted many dystopian futures where artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over human civilisation. While AI surpassing human cognition is still in the realms of science fiction, AI technology and software with the capacity [...]
Rivers, lakes, and wetlands support extraordinary diversity. Such bodies of water host more species per square kilometre than forests or oceans. Yet they are losing this biodiversity two to three times faster than forests and oceans. Populations of freshwater animals, including river dolphins, sturgeon, beavers, crocodiles, and giant turtles, have already plummeted by 88%.
Catchment to Coast 