The Natural Resource Management Planning Portal: Perspectives for NRM Planning and Reporting

Natural Resource Management (NRM) is often conducted as a partnership between government and citizens. In Australia, government agencies formulate policy and fund implementation that may be delivered on-ground by community groups (such as Landcare). Since the late 1980s, over AUS$8b of Commonwealth investment has been made in NRM. However, quantitative evidence of environmental improvements is lacking. The NRM Planning Portal has been developed to (1) provide an online spatial information system for sharing Landcare and agency data; and (2) to facilitate NRM priority setting at local and regional planning scales. While the project successfully federates Landcare NRM activity data, challenges included (1) unstructured, non-standardized data, meaning that quantitative reporting against strategic objectives is not currently possible, and (2) a lack of common understanding about the value proposition for adopting the portal approach. Demonstrating the benefit of technology adoption is a key lesson for digital NRM planning.     

Late Holocene vertical land motion and relative sea‐level changes: lessons from the British Isles

Vertical land motion caused by continuing glacial isostatic adjustment is one of several important components of sea‐level change and is not limited just to previously glaciated regions. A national‐scale analysis for the British Isles shows an ellipse of present‐day relative uplift (relative sea‐level fall), ～1.2 mm a^?1, broadly centred on the deglaciated mountains of Scotland. The pattern of three foci of relative subsidence, ～1 mm a^?1, results from the additional interactions of the deglacial meltwater load on the Atlantic basin and the continental shelf, and the signal due to far‐field ice sheets. At a local scale, sediment compaction can more than double the rate of relative land subsidence. Relative land‐level change (the negative of relative sea‐level change) is not the same as vertical land motion. There is a spatial pattern in the difference between relative land‐level change and vertical land motion, with differences at present of approximately ?0.1 to ?0.3 mm a^?1 around the British Isles and +2.5 to ?1.5 mm a^?1 globally. For the wider scientific and user community, whether or not the differences are considered significant will depend upon the location, time frame and spatial scale of the study that uses such information. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison of two methods of estimating transpiration rates from a Sitka spruce plantation

Estimates of hourly transpiration from a 16–17 yr old Sitka spruce forest were calculated from the Penman-Monteith combination equation and compared with estimates from an eddy correlation/energy balance method.Canopy conductances were estimated from stomatal conductances measured using null balance diffusion porometers and took account of canopy variations of stomatal conductance and needle area index.Vertical heat fluxes were measured by the eddy correlation method; transpiration fluxes were then estimated from an energy balance of the forest.There was not a 1:1 relationship between the estimates of transpiration from the two methods. The major sources of error were concluded to be (i) difficulties of estimating the variation in stomatal conductance and leaf area through the canopy, (ii) errors in the value of total leaf area index, and (iii) errors in stomatal conductance measurements.The eddy correlation method was suggested as the more useful for future studies of the variation of forest transpiration in time or space, because the Penman-Monteith equation requires extensive biological measurements.     

Problems in the calibration of an acoustic device for the observation of bedload transport

Developments in theoretical and empirical modelling of bedload transport processes are hindered by the lack of an adequate data base for testing or establishing the models. Conventional methods of measuring bedload transport rates fail to provide the necessary continuous or frequent record of variations at a single section. Acoustic techniques have the potential to overcome this deficiency, but their application has been very limited. Some of the problems of calibrating an acoustic device in the field and in a laboratory flume are discussed, and a possible circuit design described which might minimize calibration difficulties by automatically subtracting the noise generated by flow turbulence.     

Calibrating a glaciological model of the Greenland ice sheet from the Last Glacial Maximum to present-day using field observations of relative sea level and ice extent

We constrain a three-dimensional thermomechanical model of Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) evolution from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 ka BP) to the present-day using, primarily, observations of relative sea level (RSL) as well as field data on past ice extent. Our new model (Huy2) fits a majority of the observations and is characterised by a number of key features: (i) the ice sheet had an excess volume (relative to present) of 4.1 m ice-equivalent sea level at the LGM, which increased to reach a maximum value of 4.6 m at 16.5 ka BP; (ii) retreat from the continental shelf was not continuous around the entire margin, as there was a Younger Dryas readvance in some areas. The final episode of marine retreat was rapid and relatively late (c. 12 ka BP), leaving the ice sheet land based by 10 ka BP; (iii) in response to the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) the ice margin retreated behind its present-day position by up to 80 km in the southwest, 20 km in the south and 80 km in a small area of the northeast. As a result of this retreat the modelled ice sheet reaches a minimum extent between 5 and 4 ka BP, which corresponds to a deficit volume (relative to present) of 0.17 m ice-equivalent sea level. Our results suggest that remaining discrepancies between the model and the observations are likely associated with non-Greenland ice load, differences between modelled and observed present-day ice elevation around the margin, lateral variations in Earth structure and/or the pattern of ice margin retreat.     

Relative sea‐level observations in western Scotland since the Last Glacial Maximum for testing models of glacial isostatic land movements and ice‐sheet reconstructions

Observations of relative sea‐level change and local deglaciation in western Scotland provide critical constraints for modelling glacio‐isostatic rebound in northern Britain over the last 18 000 years. The longest records come from Skye, Arisaig and Knapdale with a shorter, Holocene, record from Kintail. Biostratigraphic (diatom, pollen, dinoflagellate, foraminifera and thecamoebian), lithological and radiocarbon analyses provide age and elevation parameters for each sea‐level index point. All four sites reveal relative sea‐level change that is highly non‐monotonic in time as the local vertical component of glacio‐isostatic rebound and eustasy (or global meltwater influx) dominate at different periods. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relative sea‐level changes,glacial isostatic modelling and ice‐sheet reconstructions from the British Isles since the Last Glacial Maximum

While contributing <1 m equivalent eustatic sea‐level rise the British Isles ice sheet produced glacio‐isostatic rebound in northern Britain of similar magnitude to eustatic sea‐level change, or global meltwater influx, over the last 18 000 years. The resulting spatially variable relative sea‐level changes combine with observations from far‐field locations to produce a rigorous test for quantitative models of glacial isostatic adjustment, local ice‐sheet history and global meltwater influx. After a review of the attributes of relative sea‐level observations significant for constraining large‐scale models of the isostatic adjustment process we summarise long records of relative sea‐level change from the British Isles and far‐field locations. We give an overview of different global theoretical models of the isostatic adjustment process before presenting intercomparisons of observed and predicted relative sea levels at sites in the British Isles and far‐field for a range of Earth and ice model parameters in order to demonstrate model sensitivity and the resolving power available from using evidence from the British Isles. For the first time we show a good degree of fit between relative sea‐level observations and predictions that are based upon global Earth and ice model parameters, independently derived from analysis of far‐field data, with a terrain‐corrected model of the British Isles ice sheet that includes extensive glaciation of the North Sea and western continental shelf, that does not assume isostatic equilibrium at the Last Glacial Maximum and keeps to trimline constraints of ice surface elevation. We do not attempt to identify a unique solution for the model lithosphere thickness parameter or the local‐scale detail of the ice model in order to provide a fit for all sites, but argue that the next stage should be to incorporate an ice‐sheet model that is based on quantitative, glaciological model simulations. We hope that this paper will stimulate this debate and help to integrate research in glacial geomorphology, glaciology, sea‐level change, Earth rheology and quantitative modelling. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.