TESS Seminar

Modelling environmental impacts of agriculture

Presented by A/Prof Paul Nelson (JCU)

Coordinator of the TESS Sustainable Tropical Agriculture Flagship

When?                4-5pm Wednesday 1^st March 2017, followed by drinks & nibbles

Where?              Cairns Institute D3.054 video-linked to Townsville ATSIP theatre 145.030

Who?                  All welcome!

Abstract

Most people involved in the production and consumption of agricultural products are interested in reducing or eliminating adverse environmental impacts of production while maintaining or improving productivity. To do that we need to know what the impacts are, and predict how they will change in response to changed management. Environmental impacts occur through movement and transformations of energy and materials. In an ideal world we might monitor all these processes, but that is simply not feasible. We therefore need to estimate them, and this involves models. This talk will describe the approaches currently being used and the directions research is taking.

Biography

Paul Nelson is a soil scientist whose research revolves mostly around improving the sustainability of agriculture, especially its effects on aquatic ecosystems, the greenhouse gas balance and soil health. Prior to joining academia fulltime in 2010 he worked mostly in agricultural industry research organisations, CSIRO and the Qld Department of Natural Resources. He has spent 17 of the last 20 years in North Qld, but hails originally from Adelaide, and has also worked in Sweden, France and Papua New Guinea.

Video-recordings will be posted to the TESS website the following week research.jcu.edu.au/tess/seminars-1.