Deriving agriculturally specific land use models to track changes through time

Theme: Environmental Management

Description: 

The Great Barrier Reef Catchment Loads Monitoring Program (GBRCLMP) provides essential data which is used to track trends and to calibrate catchment scale models linking land management practices and water quality. While there is a substantial amount of water quality data, modellers tend to use land use datasets that are updated infrequently, which makes it difficult to correlate water quality to land use changes over time.

In the Burnett Mary region, there has been a significant change in agricultural land use practices, with a move away from sugarcane farming towards macadamia farming. This project would develop a model to derive agriculturally specific land use data at a specific point in time, and apply the model to investigate the linkage between water quality trends and land use change.

Additional Information: 

The Michael St John Warne (1962 – 2024) Memorial Scholarship is administered by the Reef Catchments Science Partnership in the School of the Environment. The purpose of the scholarship is to support UQ honours students. Up to three (3) scholarships will be awarded. Each scholarship is worth $5,000 (half paid in February 2026 and half paid on submission of thesis). A top up writing scholarship of $1,000 is available to publish one (1) journal paper from your thesis research after submission.
See https://environment.uq.edu.au/michael-st-john-warne-memorial-scholarship for more information or email rcsp.info@uq.edu.au

Contact: Assoc. Prof. Ryan Turner