Dr Senani Karunaratne

Senani Karunaratne’s research focuses on measuring, modelling, and predicting variation present in environmentally important properties in space and time. His current research work is focused on how such knowledge can be contributed towards better understanding and managing the effects of agricultural land management practices and changing climatic scenarios on soil carbon with an emphasis on;

• Quantification of stocks, composition and fluxes of carbon in soil organic matter and assess the impacts on greenhouse gas emission

• Rapid and cost-effective measurement of soil carbon contents and composition using infrared spectroscopy

• Use a combination of empirical and process-based modelling approaches to predict/simulate the complex interactions present between ecosystem drivers and soil carbon to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture system at various spatial and temporal scales

• Utilising large volumes of freely available geospatial products as model drivers to characterise the variation in space and time more precisely through the novel re-arrangement of geospatial products as model drivers

Prior to joining CSIRO, he worked as a Senior Research Scientist for Agriculture Victoria Research and co-lead research activities on the development of new methodologies for the use of next-generation sensor technologies (proximal/aerial/satellite) in pasture agronomy research to enhance the productivity of Australian Dairy production systems.