Resource Management and Geography - Theses
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ItemThe morphodynamics and evolution of intermittently closed and open coastal lakes and lagoons in Victoria, Australia( 2015)Intermittently Closed/Open Coastal Lakes/Lagoons (ICOLLs) are a form of wave-dominated, microtidal estuary that experience periodic closure in times of low river flow and high onshore sediment transport. Prolonged closure results in an array of management issues including flooding and a decline in water quality with low pH and anoxia. ICOLLs are important sites for ecology, recreation and are highly valued for amenity although the dynamic entrance condition also makes these estuaries highly sensitive to environmental change. Despite the complexities associated with the dynamic entrance condition, the specific processes controlling entrance opening and closure are not well understood over a weekly to daily scale. This thesis takes a scaled approach firstly investigating the global distribution of ICOLLs and the boundary conditions controlling this distribution. It then aims to differentiate between the different types of ICOLLs and identifies the processes controlling their entrance morphodynamics using the coast of Victoria, Australia as a case study. ICOLLs are identified to constitute the most common form of estuary along wave- dominated microtidal coastlines globally. In Australia, they are prominent along portions of the coast which where the relative tidal range (RTR) is <1.5 and as this increases over 1.5, estuaries become tide-dominated and permanently open. In Victoria, 91 % of all estuaries are identified as ICOLLs and within these there are a diverse range of morphologies and entrance opening regimes. A classification model identifies that there are a suite of three types of ICOLLs present in Victoria. The basin accommodation space of the estuarine lagoon, channel dimensions, and catchment size and topography are factors which control the frequency and duration of entrance closures. A field campaign was undertaken to identify the geomorphic drivers of entrance closure and opening under different marine and fluvial conditions. Closure processes include lateral or vertical accretion which can occur independently or together over a closure cycle. Entrance opening is a result of an increase in water depth within the estuarine lagoon by either fluvial discharge or wave overwash. The rate of entrance closure is largely dependent on the dominant marine processes driving deposition within the channel. The highest rates of deposition occur by vertical accretion and during storms (Hs = >4 m) and the slowest during low swells and when lateral accretion becomes the dominant mechanism of sedimentation. Using a combination of field measurements and observations, the six distinct stages of entrance condition were recognised showing that the precise threshold between closure and opening is controlled by a ratio between the berm crest elevation and basin water level. Within this sequence, the relative balance of wave, tidal and fluvial energy vary throughout, with fluvial dominance driving erosional processes and waves and tides driving deposition. The findings of this study present a better understanding regarding both the wider scale boundary conditions and the specific processes controlling opening and closure of estuaries thereby providing a background for better management in estuaries of this type.
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ItemNon-representational geographies of therapeutic art making( 2015-11-12)This thesis is an exploration of the non-representational geographies of therapeutic art making, drawing on practice-led research methods from the creative arts. It is, therefore, interdisciplinary. The work comprises two examinable components—a major project (creative work) and the written dissertation. After a review of three major bodies of literature, the thesis outlines a series of geographical engagements with the practices of visual art making, poetic permaculture, subterranean graffiti, fibre art, and dance therapy. The ‘findings’ are presented in two empirical chapters. The first is a collection of poetry designed to animate fieldwork encounters, and the second describes a body of creative work that was audienced at a PhD art exhibition in 2013. In its entirety, the work attempts to think therapeutic activity at the boundary of the body and extending outward—into the cosmos—rather than inward, in support of a fragile ego. Informed by contemporary feminism, Guattari’s ethico-aesthetic paradigm, Whitehead’s process-oriented ontology, and Deleuze’s thinking on sense and ‘the event’, the work reclaims therapeutics as ecological, spatial, and material.
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ItemOrganisational culture and adaptive decision-making( 2015)This thesis aims to explain the effect of organisational culture on adaptation decision-making. It examines the influences of culture on the adaptive decision-making capacity of four case study organisations interacting within the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan (Reefplan) for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It finds the mix, strength and persistence of adaptive decision-making practices is strongly influenced by organisational culture. It concludes that organisational cultures will continue to influence Reefplan’s effectiveness by mediating the adoption and sustainability of adaptive practices.
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ItemNegotiating the future: risk, meaning and politics in climate change adaptation in rural Vanuatu( 2015)This thesis examines the multiple constructions of risk, and of local adaptive capacity, shaping climate change adaptation planning and decision-making in rural Vanuatu. Climate change adaptation is often viewed instrumentally as a technical response to climate-related risks. Using a cultural-political approach, I recast it as process of negotiation among diverse actors, meanings and interests. I focus on how actors variously construct risks and local adaptive capacity, and struggle over what constitutes ‘appropriate’ adaptation to climate change. I analyse two climate change adaptation projects involving rural communities in Mota Lava and Tongoa islands in Vanuatu. A combination of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observation were used to capture constructions of risk and local adaptive capacity among actors engaged in the projects, and how these constructions translated into plans and interventions. I hone in on how villagers in Mota Lava and Tongoa talk about changing climatic risks and their capacity to adapt in their own terms. I seek out explanatory narratives that highlight villager’s notions of causality and agency in relation to changing risks. I contrast this with how practitioners and policymakers discuss changing climatic risks and adaptive capacity within rural communities. I identify what they see as adaptation priorities and appropriate types of interventions. I then examine whose constructions gained traction within the project, how and to what effect. I seek out examples of how actors interact, building consensus for or contesting the identified priorities and interventions. Analysis revealed distinct ways of imbuing meaning to risks and adaptive capacity, and issues of power and politics. Notably, villagers constructed and attached significance to changing climatic risks in relation to wider socio-economic changes. Maintaining their livelihoods and valued traditions were key in the face of future uncertainty. Practitioners and policymakers tended to construct these risks as a biophysical problem requiring a technical fix. Tensions arose over efforts to build adaptive capacity within the projects. However, villagers’ concerns were largely sidelined. Practitioners, policymakers and community representatives, such as chiefs and public officials, were able to exert influence due to their access to resources, political status, prevailing cultural norms, and an uneasy alliance. To ensure just and transparent outcomes, close attention is needed to the logic and politics of participation in adaptation planning and decision-making at the community level.
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ItemBackpacking in an unsustainable world: the places and practices of mobile people( 2015)This thesis integrates the geographical concerns of mobility, place and practices with the study of long-term, multi-destination tourists called backpackers. As backpackers are highly mobile but also reside in place for prolonged periods, they can help us to understand what happens to practices amongst people who have a fluctuating and dynamic relationship with place. Practice-based approaches applied in the study of sustainability have generally eschewed an engagement with mobile people, while scholars engaging with practice theory in sustainability-related research have often overlooked the actions of people on holiday. Recognising both the contribution that mobility studies makes to conceptualisations of place, and backpacking as a unique form of mobility, this thesis explores the differences that travel and mobility make to practices of sustainability. Using a pragmatist theoretical perspective and a mixed methods approach, this thesis integrates the research areas of sustainability, everyday practices, mobilities and place with the study of backpackers. The aim is to understand the differences place and mobility make to practices of sustainability. This thesis provides a broad account of the relationship between the everyday practices of mobile people and sustainability. To convey the dynamism of place and mobility and their influence on everyday backpacker practices related to sustainability, the thesis also develops the notions of destination and pace. Destination is a term that describes where mobile people are performing practices. It amplifies the interrelationships between practice, place and mobility. Three types of destination emerged in the backpacking context and each had a distinctive relationship with backpacker practices in the context of sustainability. The notion of pace combines speed and rhythm and it describes how mobility and backpacker practices are implicated in sustainability. Engaging with pace further explicated the interrelationships between practice, place and mobility. The relationship between sustainability, practices and place was shown to be tightly bound via a slow pace but loosened via a fast pace. Practices that I considered sustainable were then enabled or obstructed depending on the fluctuating pace of backpacker travel, with a slow pace associated with more sustainable practices than a fast pace. By attending to destination and to pace I demonstrate how place, mobility and practices are entwined with sustainability. As there is a lack of attention to place and mobility in the literature on social practices, this thesis contributes to this field of research by demonstrating the dynamic relations between practices, place and mobility. In so doing, it furthers debates in the social sciences regarding the use of practice-based approaches to issues of tourism and sustainability.
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ItemEcological benefits of termite soil interaction and microbial symbiosis in the soil ecosystem in two climatic regions of Australia( 2015)Termite soil interaction is a multidimensional process, the interphase between the surface and subsurface being the most prominent location termitaria and other termite structures usually occupy. Genetic and environmental conditions, including soil type and moisture content, in different climatic regions affect this interaction. There is scant information on termite preferences, foraging behavior within these conditions and impact on soil profile and associated symbiont microorganisms. Foraging activity of termites (Coptotermes frenchi), depth and changes in soil profile with layers of top soil, fine sand, coarse sand and gravel, was studied using a test tank in a laboratory. Termite activities were intensive in only the longest foraging galleries via which they reached and foraged up to the edge of the tank. Wood stakes inserted vertically at three different depth level intervals (0-100, 100-200, and 200-300 mm), visual observations of soil profile samples taken using auger and excavated cross sections of the soil profile all confirmed presence of termite activity, transport and mixing of soil up to the lowest horizon in the otherwise uniform sandy or gravely lower horizons. However, termite activity did not result in complete mixing of soil horizons within the study period. Termites (Coptotermes acinaciformis) were tested for their preference topsoil, fine sand, potting mix and peat, in a laboratory condition at soil moisture contents of 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% for 30 days. The experimental apparatus involved termite colonies foraging from nesting jars connected to four sets of standing perspex tubes filled with each soil type and moisture content combination attached to the jar lid on top. Soil type had a significant effect on termite preference whereas soil moisture content did not. At lower moisture levels of 0 and 5%, termites preferred fine sand while topsoil was preferred at 10, 15 and 20%. Soil heterogeneity and textural variability with respect to particle size distribution due to termite activity was investigated in two climatic regions of Australia. Mound and surrounding soils of Coptotermes lacteus in Boola Boola State Forest, Victoria, and Amitermes laurensis and Nasutitermes eucalypti in Gove, Northern Territory were studied. The residual effects on bacteria and fungi counts were also investigated in the former. For C. lacteus and A. laurensis mounds the very fine particles sizes (< 0.045 mm) were significantly higher than that of the surrounding soil while the reverse was true for the 2 - 1 mm particle size ranges. For the Nasutitermes mound, however, they recorded significantly higher 2 - 1 mm particle sizes and significantly lower < 0.045 mm particle size ranges than the surrounding soils. For the other particle size ranges in both sites no significant difference was observed between the mound and surrounding soils except for the 0.5 – 0.2 and 0.20.063 mm ranges in the A. laurensis mound which were significantly higher than surrounding soil. Average moisture content of the surrounding soils was significantly higher than that of the mound surfaces which could have resulted in the higher bacteria and fungi counts (cfu/ml) in the surrounding soils.
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ItemImplications of oviposition site selection and habitat limitation for caddisfly populations in sand-bed streams( 2015)This work has established that oviposition habitat can be limiting in streams, thus adding to a small body of work on this area, but also expanding the generality of this concept in lotic systems to include a different type of oviposition habitat. Bark is a substrate type that is likely to be more variably available than rocks because it degrades, is easily transported by floods, and goes through periods of loss and renewal on a yearly basis. Historically, freshwater researchers have tended to attribute high levels of patchiness observed in the distribution of aquatic insect larvae across multiple scales to factors acting on the larval stage such as supposed habitat requirements related to flow. However, strong variation in the distribution of oviposition habitat combined with selective behaviours of females, where one choice gives rise to hundreds of offspring, make habitat limitation a very feasible alternative explanation for high spatial variation in larval densities. A recognition that larval densities may be best explained by adult behaviours in at least some stream may revolutionize the way that stream populations are viewed, just as it did for marine ecologists over the last 30 years. It is time that the field of stream ecology, especially as represented by studies of invertebrates, caught up to other fields of ecology, which have long since recognized and integrated the importance of multiple life history stages and spatial structure into understandings of population dynamics.
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ItemLearning & leadership for complex environmental problems: George Goyder and the innovation of forestry in Australia( 2015)Abstract The thesis challenges the assumption that contemporary complex, or ‘wicked’, environmental problems are without precedent. It does so in order to make the case for the contribution history can make to understanding and resolving such problems. While their precise content is necessarily of the present, the past contains models of problems of equal complexity an understanding of which can, by analogy, offer insights into contemporary issues. The policy and management definition of ‘wicked’ problems is used to identify and examine the innovation of forestry in nineteenth-century Australia, and the British Commonwealth, as one such problem. The leadership of ‘wicked’ problems is critical to their successful definition and resolution. A contemporary theory of leadership, the Theory of the U, is therefore used to frame the research questions to analyse the approach of key leaders of the innovation of forestry administration in South Australia, with a particular focus on George Goyder, Surveyor General in South Australian from 1861 to 1893. These Australian findings are validated by a similar investigation of the ‘father’ of forestry in the United States of America, Gifford Pinchot. The distinguishing feature of the theory is referred to by its authors as the ‘blind spot’, or the ‘who’ of the leader, is used as a primary guide to the analysis of Goyder and Pinchot. The research demonstrates that both men were able to successfully ‘read’ the complexity of the innovations they sought to introduce. They read well the interdependencies of their physical, social, economic and political environments in ways that were less accessible to their peers. They also made sense of such readings by engaging all of their human faculties for doing so – their rational, affective and sensual capacities – and making the bases of their thinking transparent to the audiences. Key to understanding the ‘who’ of their successful innovation as adults was their early educational histories. While on the surface their personal and professional lives appeared very different, the research demonstrates a shared set of foundational learning principles that both straddled science, social science and humanities, and were inclusive of their ‘head, heart and hand’. The thesis indicates that environmental problems of the past contain levels of complexity similar to those of the present. Investigation of these problems can contribute lessons of principle to the analysis of current problems. Similarly, successful leadership on the development of responses to such problems contain valuable models that contain lessons of principle for the improvement of leadership capacity. The historical evidence presented here also adds to the evidence-base that supports the validity of the Theory of the U while at the same time suggesting an expanded examination of the construction of the adult ‘who’ to include early biographical evidence. In the privileging of positivist disciplines in both policy and management studies, historical analysis has been significantly undervalued and under-utilised. The findings of this thesis support the value of historical analysis to the development of policy and leadership of current ‘wicked’ problems. .
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ItemThe effects of community based adaptation on enhancing adaptive capacity: lessons from the Koro( 2015)This thesis assesses the effectiveness of a community based adaptation (CBA) project in enhancing the institutional adaptive capacity of three koro communities (indigenous villages) to climate change in Fiji. The research helps to understand how adaptation projects can be better designed and implemented to respond to local needs and values while strengthening the adaptive capacity of local institutions. An in-depth understanding of the institutional dynamics in each study koro, and how these influence the outcomes of the Fiji CCA Project, was facilitated via an embedded ethnographic study. The study demonstrates that what differentiates CBA from other adaptation approaches is that it purposefully seeks to produce the kind of institutional outcomes that enable local actors to continuously mobilize collective action, inclusive decision-making and iterative learning towards immediate and long-term climate change adaptation goals.
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ItemContested place, conflicted knowledge: the everyday landscape of the firefighter( 2014)The everyday landscape can become both unfamiliar and non-negotiable for the firefighter. While we generally conceive of nature and ecology as dynamic, this study points to the dynamic realities of ‘place’, and the way that experience and social learning transform the meaning of place and the management of risk associated with fires. Firefighting is dangerous. Many firefighters who defend their local communities can expect to fight fires in other areas with different terrain and within communities with firefighters they do not know. Underpinning the formal structure of firefighting is the continuing western affirmation of the nature-culture divide. It can be reinforced in firefighter organisations and in local settings by societal expectations that positions bushfire as a separate event rather than an integral part of living in a socio-ecological system. Sixty-eight Australian bushfire firefighters from selected agencies and volunteer brigades in diverse localities contributed to the research. The study comprised 32 semi-structured in-depth individual and group interviews. Stories of fire events and the various roles undertaken were thematically analysed. This research uses a constructivist approach to explore how firefighters experience, understand and undertake their role in response to bushfire in the landscape. The research questions were designed to investigate local knowledge of landscape, community, and sense of place, when firefighters encounter a bushfire. The socio-ecological system is complex and this thesis incorporates an interdisciplinary approach. Framed by environmental sociology, I explore firefighters’ social construction of landscape with a focus on place theory and risk. Fire management imposes a hierarchical command-and-control response to fire and this is the backdrop in which firefighters operate. Fire agencies understand that even experienced firefighters will at times still step outside the ordered structure and make on-the-spot decisions for the fire attack. This is where the individual’s local knowledge can be an asset, but my research indicates it can also be a threat, as the reality of some aspects of ‘local knowing’ may increase response-based risk during a fire. Beginning with the expectation that local knowledge is key to understanding ‘fire in place’; the study has exposed how complex this assumption is in the face of social and ecological shocks. If being adaptive and making flexible on-ground decisions is a critical part of knowing the landscape and trusting experience, it apparently counters expectations associated with centralised and conventional firefighting responses. Notably local knowledge for firefighters means knowledge of the social as much as, and in some instances, more than acknowledging the physical aspects of an area. Firefighters inherently seem to understand a bushfire as part of an integrated socio-ecological system. Most importantly, this thesis has emphasised the importance of bringing place theory to firefighting practice. It is through exploring the linked social and ecological meaning of place that the complex role of local knowledge emerges.