TNQ Drought Hub Scholarships

Congratulations to the TNQ Drought Hub drought resilience scholarship recipients.

The hub recently offered scholarship opportunities to JCU students who were interested in undertaking an Honours or Masters project that would contribute to drought resilience and the current and future agricultural needs of Tropical North Queensland.  Eight students were awarded up to $5,000 each for one year to conduct regionally focused drought resilience projects that will build academic knowledge in the agricultural sector.

Congratulations to:

• Elora Baird: Systematic interrogation of groundwater sampling techniques, equipment, and analytics to constrain their impact on water metrics and refine best practice sampling for North Queensland
• Declan Cargill: Optimising Drone Surveying for High Resolution Digital Terrain Mapping in Gullied Savanna Rangeland.
• Sarah Cassells: The influence of social identity on water conversation behaviour in Australia during periods of drought: A pilot study.
• Damon Colman: The effects of beef stocking strategies on ant community composition and seed removal in northern Australia: a study from the Wambiana experiment.
• Alex Dodge: Quantifying Small-Scale Rainfall-Runoff Processes on Gullied Savanna Rangelands of Northern Queensland.
• Lucy Gardner: Rapid Assessment of Mitchell Grass Tussock Density on Southern Gulf Rangelands Using High Resolution Drone Imagery and Machine Learning.
• Fredrick Holden: Carbon dioxide removal and sugarcane yield improvement through enhanced weathering of basalt in acidic soil.
• Jacob Valley: Bush food enterprises and business opportunities for Indigenous community development.

These projects were required to align with the TNQ Drought Hub’s priorities that encompass drought and climate change adaptation, land management, innovation and technology, enhancing skills and human capacity, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait agricultural enterprise.

These priorities help guide the key challenges and opportunities for agricultural businesses, their towns and communities and regions within Tropical North Queensland to build drought resilience and preparedness.

To follow our student’s journey, visit https://www.tnqdroughthub.com.au/tnq-hub-scholarships/ or subscribe to our newsletter https://ems.gs/3KjM0eSdwDs

Top image: Gullied Savanna Rangeland by Declan Cargill. Below image: Sugarcane field by Fredrick Holden. Images supplied.