Traditions of Artificial-Island Construction in the Western Pacific

Hundreds of years before contact with the world beyond the Pacific Ocean, the peoples of western Pacific Island groups constructed artificial islands, many still occupied.

This is testimony to the ingenuity and skill of early Pacific peoples but also concerning as the knowledge of island building remains known in only a few contexts, fewer than was the case half a century ago. In collaboration with national museums, this project targets artificial islands that exist today in parts of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM – six sites) and Fiji (six sites), engaging with local residents and knowledge holders in culturally appropriate ways to understand/document and visualise how artificial islands were created. Sea-level rise threatens the stability/existence of artificial islands. Their endangerment comes from both the loss of traditional knowledge and sea-level rise. The importance of preserving knowledge of artificial-island building is also as a possible solution for coping with future sea-level rise along Pacific Island coasts.

Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: Royal Geographical Society (UK)
Researchers: Professor Patrick Nunn, Dr Tricia King and Ms Rosie Kumar
Contact: Professor Patrick Nunn

Water-related migration in the Western Pacific

As the impacts of climate change cause sea levels to rise, a large-scale movement of people and their communities inland away from the coast is expected in the coming decades.

This project will work with communities in Fiji and Vanuatu to help inform sustainable decisions about where to relocate coastal villages.

It will focus on securing the future water supply of relocating coastal communities and will involve close collaboration with researchers from CSIRO, The Australian National University, The University of the South Pacific and Lincoln University (NZ).

Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: ACIAR
Researchers: Professor Patrick Nunn, Ms Rosie Kumar, Professor Tim Smith, Associate Professor Dana Thomsen and Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr
Contact: Rosie Kumar

Coastal governance: Embracing vulnerability and change

An Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project, the goal of this project was to improve the lives of more than 20 million Australians living in coastal areas through better governance solutions.

Coastal vulnerabilities and governance responses were explored in the fastest growing regions of each Australian State and the Northern Territory. Key findings included: (i) formal instruments are largely not substantive or intentional in relation to addressing coastal issues holistically; (ii) social-ecological vulnerabilities are worsening; (ii) while there have been some improvements in management practice, they are largely incremental rather than transformational, and do not keep pace with the increasing scale of threats; and (iv) systemic responses are needed but hindered by limited resourcing, competitive funding models, mandated approaches that reduce flexibility, legislative inertia, and organisational barriers that discourage experimentation and adaptive learning. Six recommendations are proposed to improve coastal governance in Australia.

Year: 2019—2023
Funding body: Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
Researchers: Tim Smith, Carmen Elrick-Barr and Dana Thomsen 
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Sustainable Transformation in Coal Region of the Global South: Challenges from a Resource Nexus Perspective (NEXtra Core)

This study analysed the perspectives for the Just Energy Transition in coal regions in Indonesia, Colombia, South Africa and Mozambique.

Year: 2022—2023
Contact: Dr Shannon Brincat

Heat Adaptation Planning at a Local Level

This research funded by the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science, SAP+ Co-investment Program, examined how to mitigate heat risk to seniors at a local level in tropical and sub-tropical Australia.

Outputs include a model Heat Adaptation Plan, which can be applied to hospitals, child-care centres, private and public spaces; a peer reviewed publication addressing environmental design for urban cooling; and book chapter on integrating green infrastructure with accessible design.

Year: 2020-2022
Researchers: Professor Claudia Baldwin, Associate Professor Tony Matthews, Dr Chris Boulton, and Silvia Tavares
Contact: Adjunct Professor Claudia Baldwin or Dr Silvia Tavares

Building community resilience to coastal climate hazards

Using research to build community resilience to coastal climate hazards in Australia.

By working with community members, NGOs and state and local government agencies across three states (Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales), this research seeks to generate new knowledge to guide the delivery of targeted support to communities: empowering at-risk neighbourhoods to prepare and respond to natural disasters and other social-ecological changes.

Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: Australian Research Council DECRA
Researchers: Carmen Elrick-Barr
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Policy impact on community perceptions of resilience, adaptation intentions and wellbeing

This project aims to examine the impact of a novel and emerging policy response to climate change and disasters on community resilience and wellbeing. Through an interpretive paradigm and qualitative research methods, the multidisciplinary team will engage with householders participating in a pilot program aimed at building household level resilience to the impacts of climate change through property investment (such as home retrofit and raising) and committing to a partnership with local government to build their communities resilience. It involves close collaboration with researchers from the Queensland University of Technology, and the City of Moreton Bay and the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ).

Year: 2025—2026
Funding body: UniSC Launch Partnership
Researchers: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr, Dr Dan Wadsworth, Dr Annah Piggott-McKellar (QUT)
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Building an effective forest health and biosecurity network in SE Asia

The research initiative involves scientists across Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam creating a coordinated network to share biosecurity knowledge, technologies and management strategies. Increased trade, travel and a changing climate are increasing pest threats to South-East Asian forest, and coordinated response can increase biosecurity capacity and protect the future of the region’s forests. The SRC brings expertise in Gender and Community engagement to this project, led by the Forestry Research Institute, UniSC.

Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: ACIAR
Researchers: Simon Lawson, Medline Healey, Harriot Beazley and Russel Warman
Contact: Associate Professor Harriot Beazley

MISTRA Environmental Communication Research Programme

This a four-year research project, in its second phase, is based in Sweden and implemented by an international consortium. The overarching aim is to mainstream an advanced and inclusive understanding of environmental communication in research, policy and practice such that it can effectively underpin and foster sustainability transformations.

Year: 2024—2027
Researchers: Marcus Bussey
Contact: Dr Marcus Bussey

Visit the project website

A New Vision for Coastal Resilience: Engaging Communities through Art to Design a Transformative Future

The project adopted new methods to engage with coastal communities to envision innovative solutions for a more resilient coastal future. Coastal communities were encouraged to express their desired future using arts-based approaches. The artworks where then coupled with the team’s knowledge of coastal processes, policy and economics to create a design brief that Landscape Architecture students used to generate designs. The viability of using this novel, interdisciplinary approach to generate community visions as decision support for coastal adaptation was explored.

View the design outputs here:

Rising Tides Book

Rising Tides Binalup Foldout

Year: 2023—2025
Researchers: Associate Professor Natasha Pauli (UWA) (Lead), Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr, Associate Professor Abbie Rogers (UWA), Dan Jan Martin (UWA), Rosie Halsmith (UWA), Dr Michael Cutler (UWA) and Dr Arnold van Rooijan (UWA)
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Stateless Children in Lombok

Participatory research with children of transnational migrants. 

Year: 2014-2018
Funding body: Canadian Social Science and Humanities Award 
Lead Researchers: Professor Leslie Butt and Professor Jessica Ball, University of Victoria, Canada.
Contact: Associate Professor Harriot Beazley