The University of New South Wales supports the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES). BEES has 129 staff (academics, research fellows, research associates) engaged in research. UNSW Biologists were awarded the top ranking in this year’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative, indicating “outstanding performance - well above the world standard”. BEES was a major contributor to research areas that obtained 5 (Biological Science) and 4 (Earth Science) ratings in the ERA assessment. According to the ERA 2010 National Report, UNSW ranked 1st state-wide and 4th nationally on research performance. BEES leads the Science Faculty at UNSW in overall research grants and has acquired more external senior fellowships (including an APF, two FFs and a Laureate) than any other school at UNSW in the last 2 years. The Centre for Ecosystem Science (CES) is one of 5 research centres within BEES, with these also including the Climate Change Research Centre and Evolution and Ecology Research Centre. The CES was established in 2009 as a strategic focus for research and teaching.
Principal Investigator:
Richard Lucas is Professor at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), University of New South Wales, and has over 20 years experience in the remote sensing of terrestrial environments. His main expertise is in quantifying and understanding the response of terrestrial ecosystems and environments to change, including that associated with climatic variation. Throughout his career, his work has focused on tropical rainforests and mangroves, subtropical savannas and temperate ecosystems. This work has led to the development of a national classification of habitats in Wales from SPOT and ASTER data, the mapping of height and biomass across Australia through integration of Landsat-derived cover, ICESAT GLASS and ALOS PALSAR data, the combination of time-series of L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for quantifying changes in mangroves, and the use of time-series of Landsat sensor data for obtaining a greater understanding of the dynamics of tropical forest regeneration. His research is also establishing how time-series of optical and radar remote sensing data can be used to restore previously lost or degraded ecosystems for the benefit of biodiversity conservation and carbon preservation and sequestration.
Within Ecopotential he contributes to different tasks in WP4.