Terrestrial Ecohydrology Research Group

Field site with Eddy Co-variance tower north of Alice Springs

Members

Professor Derek Eamus - Ecohydrology, land-surface gas exchange, plant ecophysiology
Dr Nicolaus Boulain - Plant function analyses
Dr Chao Chen - Ecohydrology of Australian landscapes.
Dr James Cleverly - Ecohydrology, carbon and water flux monitoring
Rolf Faux - Technical Officer
Stephen Fujiwara - Groundwater flux dynamics in Australian ecosystems with a shallow water table
Matt Hingee - Shifts in vegetation community structure and function along a depth to groundwater gradient
Prof Ray Leuning - Adjunct Professor, micrometerology and eddy covariance
Sam Maddox - Scintillometery and modelling
Jacinda Poole - Ecophysiology of surface crusts in Mulga woodlands.
Rizwana Rumman - Application of stable isotopes in the comparative ecophysiology of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems
Dr Randol Villalobos-Vega - Ecohydrology, groundwater dependent ecosystems
Dr Ying-Ping Wang - Adjunct Member
Dr Tomek Wyczesany - Stable isotope analyses of groundwater dependent ecosystems
Sepideh Zolfaghar - Examination of groundwater dependent ecosystem’s ecophysilogical traits and their responses to climate change

Key research strengths

The TERG is principally concerned with the investigating the relationships amongst climate, climate change, vegetation function and vegetation structure. We combine glasshouse and field measurements at cellular, leaf, whole-tree, canopy and landscape scales. We undertake a heady mix of pure and applied research in a range of topics for a number of end-users. Sponsors of our work include the mining industry, the waste management industry and State Governments. We address questions such as:

What will be the impact of climate change on vegetation function?
Can we minimise groundwater recharge using vegetation and can the mining and waste storage industries use this to minimise off-site impacts?
What are the mechanisms underlying stomatal responses to vapour pressure deficit?
What are the trade-offs between water and nitrogen in the C economy of a leaf?

Future research directions include:

modelling the relative impacts of temperature and VPD as causal factors in drought induced forest die-back
application of stable isotope analyses in tree ecophysiology
linking rapid and short-term changes in GW depth to evapotranspiration