Summary

My research focuses on environmental governance and policy, and how knowledge from multiple disciplines and stakeholders can inform more effective policy and management interventions.  My current project, an Australian Research Council DECRA fellowship, is called 'Fire and Transformation: Managing capacity for managing Australian Bushfires". My publications can be viewed on ORCID or Google Scholar.

I have worked as an environmental and social scientist both within and outside academia. My PhD focused on landscape-scale biodiversity conservation and social-ecological systems based scenario planning. After my PhD, I was a tenured member of faculty (teaching and research) in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool. More recently, I was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, where my DECRA was initially based. 

A key stream of my research is Governing the Anthropocene, exploring biodiversity conservation, climate change, novel ecosystems and other elements of transformational change.  Another stream of my research focuses on green infrastructure and nature-based solutions (NBS) for addressing environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and poor health outcomes, and exploring whether they can provide more democratic, innovative, or socially just solutions to such challenges. This includes my role as chief investigator for the university on the Horizon 2020 project Urban GreenUP and other projects discussed below.

My interdisciplinary background and mix of academic and practical experience informs my approach to research, impact, and engagement. Prior to undertaking a PhD, I worked as an environmental scientist, consultant, and environmental policy adviser for over a decade in the USA and Australia. I worked on both the social and ecological aspects of environmental issues in government, NGOs, and private companies. My projects as a researcher and a practitioner were across multiple sectors and issues, including water resource management, forest management, contaminated site remediation, ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation on private and public lands, social impact assessment, environmental impact assessment, and environmental behaviour change. 

Research Projects
Fire and Transformation: Building capacity for managing Australian Bushfires (Australian Research Council, DECRA)

This project focuses on how changes to governance (including policy and management) can help Australia better confront three fundamental challenges relating to bushfires: risk to life and property, conserving biodiversity, and escalating risks of climate change. The first two years involve identifying leverage points to more effectively manage these challenges and build adaptive capacity through a qualitative comparative analysis of Australian case studies and in-depth analysis of case studies in South West Western Australia and the Australian Alps. It also investigates expert perceptions internationally and in Australia of how current and future risk mitigation efforts may need to change, particularly in light of climate change and the expanding rural-urban interface. The third year develops novel foresight and social-ecological systems-based scenario methodologies, which are used to explore a wide range of futures, including those where there is potential social, economic, and ecological transformation. This will allow exploration and preparation for both 'desirable' and 'undesirable' futures, and testing whether leveraging key elements of governance can enable better outcomes for people and the environment.

A licence to burn? Exploring public perceptions of bushfire risk management in a changing climate (Brooke Bushfire Research Fund)

This project solicits public judgment to assess the acceptability of current practices, asking: Does the government have a social licence for their fuel management programmes, especially prescribed burning? The overall aim of this project is to assess the social licence of current fuel management practices. Social licence calls attention to legitimacy, credibility, and trust as key elements shaping the acceptability of policy choices. It is closely linked to the psychological concept of social acceptability, which is highly influenced by social, spatial, and temporal context, trust in decision-makers and information sources, perceptions of risk and uncertainties, and cognitive beliefs and attitudes. These are influenced by knowledge about the management options and perceived outcomes, personal values, and direct or indirect experiences with bushfires. This project seeks to engage those members of the public who have so far been silent in these polarised public debates, as social licence requires an understanding of general public sentiment, not merely the views of vocal minorities. Social licence is highly context-dependent and contingent on local relationships, so the research will focus on two case studies where these issues are highly salient: 1) the Great Southern in WA and 2) Canberra region, ACT. The project is led by Assoc Prof Sarah Clement, with Dr Pele Cannon as the co-investigator and postdoc. Dr Astrid Vachette, who is now based at CSU, will also be involved in the project.

GroundsWell: Community-engaged and Data-informed Systems Transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for Population Health (UK Prevention Research Partnership)

GroundsWell aims to co-produce a whole systems approach to urban green and blue space to improve population health and reduce health inequalities. The main objective is to drive community innovation applying systems science that maximises the contribution of UGBS to the primary prevention of, and reduction of inequalities in, non-communicable disease in urban settings by addressing socio-economic causes. The project's ambitions and methods are described in more detail in Wellcome Open Research here.

Areas of Expertise and Past Projects

Below describes two key areas of expertise and some related research projects.

Nature-Based Solutions and Urban GreenUP (European Commission, Horizon 2020)

In urban environments, my work focuses on how green infrastructure and nature-based solutions can help address multiple environmental, social, and economic challenges; and how we might mainstream the use of such approaches in policy and planning if they prove to be effective. My interest in NBS started with my role as chief investigator for the University of Liverpool in the project Urban GreenUP. This 6-year project was funded by the European Commission's Horizon2020 programme, and implemented NBS in several cities across the world to test their impact on social, economic, and biophysical conditions as well as their feasibility in a variety of global urban settings. We also developed a transferable process for 're-naturing' cities and adapting to climate change. That project is still ongoing and more information and publications are available on the Urban GreenUP website. Our data dashboard is currently in the process of being completed, and will provide monitoring results pre- and post-intervention for all NBS. We also tested the IUCN's Global Standard self-assessment tool on the project, where it will be featured as one of the initial set of case studies.

As the concept of NBS becomes increasingly popular, I am particularly interested to see how it plays out in the governance realm, and whether the promise for more collaboration, participation, co-production, and stakeholder engagement will be realised. I am working on several smaller projects relating to greenspaces and their health, well-being, and biodiversity benefits. This includes the PhD Studentship in collaboration with Natural England, funded by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship, which examines use, access, and benefits of green and natural spaces for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. I am involved in the Groundswell consortium, funded by the UK Prevention Research Partnership. The project will identify and implement actions to maximise health benefits from urban green and blue spaces, and aims to address health inequalities in Belfast, Liverpool, and Edinburgh. The project has seven work packages that include co-development of new theoretical frameworks, novel data science including simulation, health economics and policy analysis. There is a strong focus on community engagement, co-production and citizen science to understand the system, identify how and where it is broken, and co-create solutions. It is a new project, but aims to have interventions aimed at how systems operate as well as small-scale interventions around actual spaces and their use.

Governance and the Anthropocene: Biodiversity, ecosystem transformation and environmental policy

Much of my research for the past few years has focused on the role of governance in improving ecosystem management in 'natural', cultural, and peri-urban landscapes. I am particularly interested in the interface between governance and the Anthropocene, especially with respect to issues such as wildfire, biodiversity, and climate change. I examine how governance can help build capacity for dealing with these issues and other major drivers of environmental change. My work in this arena is detailed in my first book, Governing the Anthropocene: Novel ecosystems, transformation, and environmental policy (Palgrave, 2021).  I draw on ideas from adaptive governance, anticipatory governance, and resilience-based governance to understand how we can improve decision-making and improve the policies, laws and strategies we use to address environmental problems. My research in this area also includes how climate change and other human drivers of transformation impact the choices and preferences of conservation and restoration experts and practitioners. Some of this work also informed my contribution to Biodiversity Revisited, where I wrote about culture and biodiversity conservation in the Seeds of Change proceedings, and led the chapter on the Anthropocene, biodiversity, and culture.

My interest in the Anthropocene arose during the Landscapes and Policy Hub. My PhD and additional collaborative research with the hub is outlined on the Life at Large Website. I evaluated current approaches to biodiversity conservation federally and in the Tasmanian Midlands and Australian Alps. I developed and applied an original conceptual framework for designing adaptive biodiversity institutions. Focusing on the landscape scale, I developed governance reforms to address areas where institutions were not fit for purpose, and identified ways to build adaptive capacity to manage climate change and other major drivers of biodiversity decline. These reforms were tested using a social-ecological systems approach to modelling and through collaborative scenario planning exercises. This novel approach to scenario planning integrated governance drivers into social-ecological systems models in a detailed way, in order to understand the effect of governance reform on biodiversity outcomes in the future. This transdisciplinary collaboration across seven research institutions, examining how biodiversity conservation can be integrated into landscape-scale and bioregional planning, was funded by the Australian Government's National Environmental Research Program (now the National Environmental Science Program). This work sparked my interest in novel ecosystems and the Anthropocene, and also in improving foresight and scenario planning methods.

Student Supervisions

I have supervised more than 70 masters and UG dissertations and 5 HDR students to completion. My current supervisions are below:

PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR

• Anna Williams, Exploring Community Resilience to Cascading Disasters in Australia, 2023-2027 (Co-supervisors: Dr Chris Browne, ANU and Assoc Prof Petra Buergelt, University of Canberra)

Anna's research investigates community resilience to natural disasters. In particular she is interested in how Australian communities adapt, transform, and learn from disasters, and how these processes influence their resilience to subsequent disasters. Anna hopes that by exploring the range of community responses to recent cascading disasters her work can help communities to actively build their adaptive capacities to climate-driven environmental change. 

• James Delbene, Socio-cultural values: their integration and importance in marine and coastal planning and policy, 2022-2025 (Co-Supervisors: Dr Becca Shellock, University of Tasmania; Dr Ingrid van Putten, CSIRO; Dr Chris Cvitanovic, UNSW; Dr Carol Martin NSW Department of Primary Industries)

Jim's research aims to improve the integration of socio-cultural values (mainly intangible and non-monetized values) into marine and coastal decision-making processes. Through an interdisciplinary approach working with resource managers, policymakers, and community members, insights from research and practice will inform case studies in New South Wales, Australia, aligning with ongoing efforts described in the NSW Marine Estate Management Strategy. Through his research, Jim will examine successful integration of socio-cultural values into marine and coastal decision-making processes, determine specific pathways to improve knowledge exchange with decision-makers around socio-cultural values, and identify actions to advance these efforts in Australia and abroad.

• Joe Duggan, How can an understanding of Sense of Place inform how scientists and policy makers support communities to respond to social-ecological change, 2020-2024 (Co-Supervisors:Dr Chris Cvitanovic, UNSW; Dr Ingrid van Putten, CSIRO)

Joe's research aims to explore and understand the evolving conceptualisations of Sense of Place, and to identify its applicability to policy. Sense of Place,  that is, the emotional bond that a person (or group of people) has with a place impacts how individuals and groups interact with a place (i.e. their behaviours) and respond to disturbance or change (i.e. their adaptive capacity). In a changing world, an understanding of SoP and its relevance and applicability to policy is crucial. Joe believes this thesis will contribute both to research and practice with each research output designed to identify gaps in literature, to fill those gaps or to support the science-policy nexus.

• Paul Elton, The reforms and funding that Australian governments should deliver to achieve Goal A and targets 2, 3 and 4 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. (Co-supervisors: Prof Jamie Pittock, ANU and Prof Martine Maron, University of Queensland)

Paul's research seeks to better understand what it would take, in terms of public funding and reforms, to enable Australian governments to achieve the biodiversity restoration, conservation and recovery objectives (targets 2, 3 and 4, and Goal A) of the Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in Australia; and what may be required to catalyse the necessary urgent and transformative action. 

• Crystal Bradley, Legal and policy options for limiting the depletion of critical natural capital and ecosystem services in Australia (Co-supervisors: Emeritus Prof Steve Dovers, ANU; Assoc Prof Michael Vardon, ANU; Dr Ben Milligan, UNSW)

Crystal's research examines legal and policy options for limiting the depletion of critical natural capital and ecosystem services in Australia. Knowledge gaps about Australia’s critical natural capital will be assessed from a human survival perspective, through analysis of literature, existing data, and use of system dynamics and natural capital accounting techniques. Policy case studies will be used to test a new framework for prioritising critical natural capital in decision-making in increasingly difficult circumstances.

CO-SUPERVISOR/ASSOCIATE SUPERVISOR

• Andrew Palmer, Motivations to visit green and natural spaces: how perceptions of ‘quality’ vary across different communities, 2021-2025 (Principal Supervisor: Dr Mark Riley; Co-Supervisors: Dr Beth Brockett - Natural England, Professor Laurence Jones - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Dr Karl Evans - University of Sheffield)

Andrew's research is part of an ESRC-funded CASE studentship in collaboration with Natural England, drawing on insights from over a decade of data collected on green and natural spaces via the MENE and People and Nature Surveys. Evidence from these datasets and elsewhere shows green space is less accessible, visited less frequently, and provides less benefits to ethnic minority communities and communities with multiple deprivations. Despite the evident benefits of increasing access to quality green space among ethnic minority groups and disadvantaged communities, there is limited understanding of what ‘quality’ means to these important stakeholders; and a dearth of evidence on how to increase their access to – and motivation to use – green space. Andrew's research aims to fill this gap, focusing on BAME communities in Bristol, UK. Conceptually, he is exploring how bridging ideas from affordances thinking and Bourdieu’s theory of practice can inform a more intersectional and complete understanding of nature experiences, including the quality and inclusivity of green and natural spaces.

• Baige (Veblen) Zhang, Synergies and Trade-offs in Urban Green Infrastructure, 2021-2025 (Principal Supervisor: Peter Kanowski, ANU; Co-Supervisor: Dr Andrew MacKenzie, ANU)

Baige’s project is dedicated to uncovering the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services (ESs) and disservices (EDs) inherent in the implementation of urban green infrastructure. This research takes Canberra as a case study, examining the interrelationships between ESs and EDs when generated through ecosystem processes. Furthermore, it explores the coherence and divergence in stakeholders’ perceptions when they are delivered to different people. By employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the research is designed to achieve the dual objectives of optimising the benefits of urban greening and mitigating environmental inequity.

• Aiyewunmi Temitope Olusegun, Challenges and potential solutions to pluvial flood risk in urban tropical African communities, a case study using Ijebu-Ode, in South West Nigeria, 2019-2023 (University of Liverpool, Principal Supervisor: Prof Neil MacDonald; Co-Supervisor: Dr Heather Sangster) 

Tope's research focuses on resilience, vulnerability, and environmental precarity of communities affected by pluvial flooding in formal-informal settlements in Nigeria. He uses mixed methods from physical and human geography to enable a wide information base in a ‘data poor’ region. This research uncovers critical gaps in understanding of geophysical processes, vulnerability risk factors, and societal capacities and explores potential strategies to address them.

• Umrah J. Mahadik, Connecting religious values to climate change adaptation and planning in UK Cities, 2023-2026 (University of Liverpool, Principal Supervisor: Prof Thomas Fischer)

Umrah's research focuses on neglected dimensions of religion and values in our understanding of adaptive capacity. Her research aims to understand the perspectives of religious people with respect to environmental values and climate change. It has two practical objectives linked to this aim: 1) to enhance measures of adaptive capacity with understanding of religious values, and 2) to connect narratives and action about climate change to religious values. The project targets four different locations and focuses on the dominant religious faiths in Britain: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

• Roann P. Alberto, Impacts of Climate Change on Mangrove Subsistence Fisheries: A Case Study in Masinloc, Zambales, Philippines, 2019-2023 (Dual PhD in Sustainable Food Systems from University of Liverpool, UK and Central Luzon State University, Philippines; Principal Supervisor: Prof Andy Morse)

Roann's research explores mangrove subsistence fisers' perceptions of the direct effects of climate change in their respective areas and specifically to their livelihood; and to assess and identify how their local and traditional ecological knowledge and practices influence their perceptions, learnings, and behaviours in response to climate change.