Mr Brett Abbott

Brett Abbott is a Landscape Ecologist/Biologist/Spatial Analyst in CSIRO Land and Water’s Catchment Processes Group and part of the Northern Australia team.
With a background in terrestrial and aquatic biology, landscape ecology, GIS and remote sensing, Brett is a bit of an all-rounder, skilled in both field-based and remote sensing methods. His interests primarily lie in solving NRM issues within the Australian rangelands, more recently focussing on landscape condition issues affecting the GBR catchments and flow on effects to the reef - using GIS and Remote sensing techniques - Spatial/statistical analysis and Bayesian networks. Current projects also include working with indigenous landholders on wetland restoration and rehabilitation.

Expertise

• Landscape ecology – grazed landscapes specialist, plant/animal interactions - vegetation identification.

• Spatial Ecology (GIS, GIS programming - Remote sensing – condition assessment and detection, spatiotemporal analysis)

• Spatial/statistical analysis (standard and multivariate), database analysis, design and implementation (enterprise level)

• Field assessment and monitoring/sampling techniques and spatial sampling design. Primarily dealing with landscape condition assessment and grazing land management.

Research topics of special interest have included:

Activities have primarily included projects involving natural resource management issues in Northern Australia (grazing impact and management, rangeland condition, water quality and effects on reef, wetland weeds and restoration). Landscape condition assessment within grazed pastures is a special interest of Brett's and he has developed tools, mostly in his own time, to address these issues - PATCHKEY for on ground analysis of condition change, and an ABCD condition based model for determining landscape condition from AUSCOVER fractional cover imagery. Other activities have included wetland restoration work on an indigenous owned property and input into a book on climate change effects on Northern Indigenous communities (biophysical and social aspects), as well as work in the wheat belt of Western Australia (precision agriculture).

List of major projects and short description:

• Vegetation, grazing impact and landscape condition monitoring - long term work on military lands west of Townsville. Continuing work since ca.1996 (Townsville Field Training Area sustainability monitoring program).

• Mungalla wetlands revegetation and restoration – Project Leader - Working with indigenous landholders to restore/rehabilitate the Mungalla wetlands. Wetland health – developing techniques for weed removal native replacement and remote mapping of aquatic weeds in wetlands of North Queensland.

• Soil management and reinstatement, Management of excess trench spoil and factors for successful rehabilitation - Leader on revegetation processes and management for the project - Working with Origin energy within the coal seam gas region of south west Queensland to modify rehabilitation processes for better outcomes. Design and implementation of nested sampling designs for soil and vegetation impacts (with Hamish Cresswell) - analysis and presentation to Origin board. Suggested management/operational changes have been implemented by the company.

• Development of an ABCD landscape condition model for determining landscape condition from AUSCOVER fractional cover imagery - model developed on my own time - work in progress.

• Land condition assessment (D-condition) of the Burdekin and Fitzroy catchment regions – Project leader – condition assessment using satellite imagery and existing regional layers for mapping landscape condition and vulnerability to degradation (Temporal - Bayesian analysis). Collaborative project involving CSIRO, DPI&F and NRM&W.

• Development of a tool for rapid monitoring landscape condition - PATCHKEY - currently used by NRM and CSIRO on various projects - data collection and auto analysis of landscape condition centered on grazed patches - vegetation and soil indicators.

• Sustainable grazing in the Burdekin - Virginia Park – co-leader on the grazing component. Testing EcoGraze concepts at a property scale. Implementation of best practice grazing management. Spatiotemporal landscape condition and function using on-ground linked to remote sensing assessment.

• Benefits of Rangeland Heterogeneity – Analysis of massively large datasets for Australia and global rangelands. Benefit of spatial and temporal changes in NPP between multiple scales.

• Reef Rescue Integration – Linking rainfall and runoff to land use at catchment scales. Bayesian modelling of water quality from reef catchments to the reef.

• Risks from climate change to Indigenous communities in tropical North of Australia (book) - Analysis and mapping of social, economic and biophysical impacts due to climate change.