ProfessorWillem Vervoort

Project Opportunities

Title: Ecohydrological modelling of flood and groundwater dependent ecosystems

Summary of opportunity:

Protecting the iconic red gum and other floodplain forests in the Murray Darling Basin requires a good understanding of the long term water needs and how this interacts with climate and flow variability. More specifically it requires understanding how these vegetation communities balance the use of possible saline groundwater with very irregular fresh flooding water and rainfall. Using large scale modelling, this project aims to deliver management options for environmental flows by linking satellite data with field observations in a spatio-temporal model.

Opportunity synopsis:

The variable climate and streamflow in the Murray Darling Basin has shaped the structure and pattern of vegetation in the landscape. The long term ecological patterns result in ecosytem services through storage of flood water, feedback of moisture to rainfall and filtering of sediment. Surprisingly, little is known about these interlinked dynamics and their function across multiple scales, and in particular up to whole of basin and landscape scales. Here we aim to develop and verify a spatio-temporal landscape model, related to earlier ecohydrological work. This model aims to incorporate the important link between groundwater, flooding and vegetation growth in semi-arid inland Australia. Using available field and satellite data for verification we will predict responses in vegetation structure and density under changing climate, changing flood frequency and groundwater levels. The outcomes will highlight opportunities for vegetation management in relation to salinity and water sharing. This work builds on previous research in the area of ecohydrology (Vervoort and van der Zee 2008; 2009; van der Zee et al. 2014), and will use field data collected by different collaborating researchers. 


There are strong opportunities to interact with international researchers (particularly the Netherlands) and in Australia and CSIRO. The project involves a significant focus on analytical modelling using R (www.r-project.org), or Python and Google Earth Engine in both space and time. Different satellite data products would be used to extend the modelling over large spatial areas. 

van der Zee, S.E.A.T.M., Shah, S.H.H., Vervoort, R.W., 2014. Root zone salinity and sodicity under seasonal rainfall due to feedback of decreasing hydraulic conductivity. Water Resour. Res., 50(12): 9432-9446. DOI:10.1002/2013WR015208 Vervoort, R.W., van der Zee, S.E.A.T.M., 2008. Simulating the effect of capillary flux on the soil water balance in a stochastic ecohydrological framework. Water Resour. Res., 44: W08425. DOI:doi:10.1029/2008WR006889 Vervoort, R.W., van der Zee, S.E.A.T.M., 2009. Stochastic soil water dynamics of phreatophyte vegetation with dimorphic root systems. Water Resour. Res., 45: W10439. Vervoort, R.W., van der Zee, S.E.A.T.M., 2012. On stochastic modelling of groundwater uptake in semi-arid water-limited systems: root density and seasonality effects. Ecohydrology, 5(5): 580-595. DOI:10.1002/eco.1288

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Project Opportunities

Title: Portfolios of crop choices and water licences

Summary of opportunity:

Under increased climate variability and increased pressure on water resources, agricultural producers face difficult choices in terms of what corps to grow and which water to buy or hold licences for. The choice of the correct water and crop "portfolios" would depend on the biophysical and economic aspects of the different choices. This project would develop a framework to evaluate such choices and develop a range of case studies under changing and variable climate.

Opportunity synopsis:

This project will deliver important understanding on possible crop and water licence combinations for producers. In particular it will look at the choice between groundwater versus surface water access and different crop characteristics under strong climatic variability and varying economic returns. It subsequently will develop a tool to allow producers to assess these choices and portfolios of choices for their individual situation.
Specifically the project builds on the integration of biophysical modelling with economic theory. The project will be based on biophysical modelling using SWAT.

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Project Opportunities

Title: Scaling hydrological models from continent to catchment

Summary of opportunity:

A major question in hydrology revolves around scaling, that is, how we translate model results from for example a continental scale to a finer catchment or local scale. This is particularly relevant in relation climate based research as the complexity of such models only allows computation at global or continental scales. In addition, from a water resource management point of view, we would like to compare how we manage country or continental or state based water resources, and how policy can be translated to the smaller scale. Models are required to run scenarios and develop policies. This project involves modelling the Australian continent, the Murray Darling Basin (or a large portion of this) and a range of catchments and developing predictive relationships to scale the outcomes from continent to catchment.

Opportunity synopsis:

This project will deliver important understanding on the relevance of large scale model outcomes and policies based on this to smaller local catchments and locations. The project will be based on SWAT, which is an internationally recognised model. Data from the project will use satellite, satellite derived and publicly available data, and will involve running high performance computing using ARTEMIS. The project will have to opportunity to collaborate with world-renowned experts on SWAT in Texas and Belgium. In addition to developing scaling relationships, the project will drive major new development directions in SWAT to better represent hydrological process at all different scales.

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Project Opportunities

Title: Do hydrological models cope with complex Australian catchments?

Summary of opportunity:

Climate change and rapid land use change has forced a rethink on hydrological models. Non-stationarity (where trends in time-series are non-linear or non-uniform) is now the norm, and many hydrological model structure are not designed to cope with this. This leads to so-called "wicked hydrological problems". Australian catchments are specifically "wicked" due to the intermittent streamflow, long droughts, variable groundwater surface water connectivity, and often large scales with spatially variable and changing agricultural land use. Using new modelling approaches, such as Bayesian statistics, and remote sensing data, this project identifies how we can design spatially and temporally coherent tests to improve existing models to deal with these wicked problems.

Opportunity synopsis:

This project will deliver important understanding on how we test model performance in space and time, what models are best suited to deal with the variable Australian environment, or can be most easily adapted. Data from the project will use satellite, satellite derived and publicly available data, and will involve running high performance computing using ARTEMIS.

The project will actively collaborate with A/Prof Lucy Marshall at UNSW and other researchers at the University of Sydney, as well as other international experts. The project has the potential to be world leading in the areas of model structure assessment, Bayesian model calibration and uncertainty analysis. The outcomes will allow global comparisons to understand the uniqueness of Australian hydrology.