Kirstie Fryirs

Macquarie University · Department of Environmental Sciences

The provision of a simplified GIS workflow to analyse the Open Access NSW River Styles database provides non-technical GIS users in river management with the ability to quickly and efficiently obtain information to assist them in catchment-scale rehabilitation prioritisation. Publicly available proprietary GIS software, standard GIS tools, and a pa...

Truths of the Riverscape refer to the use of geomorphological principles to inform sustainable approaches to nature-based river management. Across much of the world a command-and-control philosophy continues to assert human authority over rivers. Tasked to treat rivers as stable and predictable entities, engineers have ‘fixed rivers in place’ and ‘...

Process interactions on catenas have supported grazing adapted ecosystems and sustained biodiversity values in the source zone of the Yellow River in western China for millennia. In recent decades, anthropogenic disturbance and climate change have threatened the integrity of these systems, impacting upon environmental values and their capacity to s...

By connecting corridors of river recovery, resilience can be built into river systems to mitigate against future floods and droughts driven by anthropogenic disturbance or climate extremes. However, identifying where these corridors can be built is still lacking in river management practice. The Open Access NSW River Styles database contains compre...

Careful development of place-based catenal models and their application as transferable archetypes provides an integrative and generalisable framework for scientifically-informed approaches to environmental management. A workshop and field excursion to the Source Zone of the Yellow River in western China in July 2019 brought together local experts...

Throughout eastern Australia, and much of the New World, river systems have undergone a series of hydro-geomorphic and vegetative changes following colonisation. Recent research has shown that river recovery is occurring, as demonstrated by improved geomorphic and vegetative condition, but there is limited information on the extent of returning rip...

Despite research into the dynamics of seed transport in fluvial systems, few consider how far seeds will travel, and how far from local or upstream seed sources passive regeneration can occur. We experimentally test the seed floating time of 60 plant species (50 native and 10 exotic) commonly found in riparian corridors of southeastern Australia. A...

This commentary focusses on the pedagogy of a fluvial geomorphologist. It outlines some educational psychology and pedagogical theories that can be used to inform the design and delivery of a third year undergraduate fluvial geomorphology and river management course and two professional development units for industry. A worked example is used to de...

Modeling network‐scale sediment (dis)connectivity and its response to anthropic pressures provides a baseline understanding of river processes and sediment dynamics that can be used to forecast future hydro‐morphological changes in river basins. However, this requires a solid understanding of how a system is currently operating, and how it operated...

The imprint of geologic, climatic and anthropogenic memory as controls on geomorphic river diversity is assessed for twelve River Styles in the Sabarmati Catchment. Geologic controls are the primary determinant of river character and behavior in the hinterland and pediment landscape units, where headwater streams transition to partly confined valle...

The philosophy of ‘working with nature’ and ‘working with the river’ is increasingly embedded in global management practice. However, what does this mean? Has real progress been made in operationalising what is known, how scientists and practitioners work and how rivers are conceptualised as integral parts of landscapes, culture and society? The fi...

Predictions of sediment flux and the evolutionary trajectory of river systems cannot be conducted effectively independent from quantitative understandings of sediment (dis)connectivity. This requires analysis of structural and functional interactions within and between landscape compartments, and the way these interactions play out at the catchment...

A geomorphic unit is a landform that has been created and reworked by a particular set of earth surface processes. Each geomorphic unit has a particular morphology and sediment properties. Characteristic assemblages and patterns of geomorphic units reflect the use of available energy at any particular location in the landscape. In river systems the...

Rivers act as ‘jerky conveyor belts’ that transmit fluxes of flow and sediment downstream. This transmission of fluxes can be highly variable within a drainage basin resulting in either abrupt or gradational sediment (dis)connectivity patterns and processes. This study assesses sediment (dis)connectivity across a basin as a means to understand the...

The process of interpretation, and the ways in which knowledge builds upon interpretations, has profound implications in scientific and managerial terms. Despite the significance of these issues, geomorphologists typically give scant regard to such deliberations. Geomorphology is not a linear, cause-and-effect science. Inherent complexities and unc...

The work presented at this conference outlines a study in upland peat swamps in the Blue Mountains of NSW, Australia. These swamps, highly biodiverse and endemic, are protected but also under great threat. The effect of urban development influences hydrology, internal nutrient supply and associated biological integrity.

Mulwaree Chain of Ponds is a geomorphically rare aquatic system in eastern Australia. Apparently stable and in a highly altered agricultural setting, these ponds are uncharacteristic of local river systems. The deep, large ponds are connected by shallow, vegetated and discontinuous preferential flow paths. Margins of the ponds are vegetated by aqua...

A fundamental premise of river management is that practitioners understand the resource they are working with. In river management this requires that baseline information is available on the structure, function, health and trajectory of rivers. Such information provides the basis to contextualise, to plan, to be proactive, to prioritise, to set vis...

The worldwide availability of digital elevation models (DEMs) has enabled rapid (semi-)automated mapping of earth surface landforms. In this paper, we first present an approach for delineating valley bottom extent across a large catchment using only publicly available, coarse-resolution DEM input. We assess the sensitivity of our results to variabl...

River champions are people working for better water and river management in a range of capacities, and who are particularly influential and effective in driving progress. The championship concept is not new, but tends to emphasize the bold and highly visible leader. This archetypal champion is at odds with the more humble and quieter forms of leade...

Sustainable, science-based freshwater-ecosystem management requires strong and integrated systems and policies for governance and knowledge management. Often the focus is on availability of technical information, whereas deeper knowledge development, sharing and implementation also require social networks that cross disciplinary and organisational...

Mulwaree chain-of-ponds is a geomorphically unusual aquatic system on the south western slopes of New South Wales. Formed in a relictual river valley, the deep, vegetated ponds are connected seasonally by shallow and vegetated preferential flow lines. The ponds are situated in a highly agricultural setting and under significant grazing pressure and...

The Blue Mountains upland peat swamps (Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone) are a unique geomorphic system, situated on the sandstone escarpment west of Sydney, NSW Australia and north and south along the eastern seaboard. The swamps are a common feature in that region, but are of such natural value that they are listed under State and Fede...

Integrative approaches to land and water management apply scientifically informed policies that build upon a landscape template. The River Styles Framework supports the development and application of proactive, strategic and cost-effective management plans. This paper outlines eight key principles that build upon the River Styles Framework: (1) use...

Ongoing development, training and adaptive learning are fundamental to professional practice in river science and management. River Styles Framework provides a coherent, carefully structured (scaffolded) approach that synthesises geomorphic understandings of rivers as a baseline to support river management applications. As the approach is generic,...

In this paper, we demonstrate the application of a continuous confinement metric across entire river networks. Confinement is a useful metric for characterizing and discriminating valley setting. At the reach scale, valley bottom confinement is measured and quantified as the ratio of the length of channel confined on either bank by a confining marg...

Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone (THPSS) in Eastern Australia are Groundwater Dependent Terrestrial Ecosystems that occur in the headwaters of streams on low relief plateaus. Like upland swamps and peatlands globally, they provide base flow to downstream catchments. However, these swamps are subject to aquifer interference from mining an...

Passive riparian revegetation techniques are important tools in river rehabilitation. However, the utility of the sediment seed bank as a passive riparian regeneration option is poorly understood. After modelling a range of flows for field‐surveyed cross sections, a glasshouse seedling emergence experiment was undertaken to compare the effects of s...

River rehabilitation framed within a recovery-enhancement approach uses an understanding of river morphology, behavior and trajectory as a basis for improving river condition. On-ground rehabilitation activities commonly involve strategic, passive interventions, such as vegetation plantings, targeted weed management and livestock exclusion. However...

Geomorphic river recovery is driven and constrained by physical and social conditions and processes, or boundary conditions. Approaches to river rehabilitation that aim to enhance recovery processes require knowledge of these boundary conditions and a river's evolutionary trajectory in order to develop appropriate river management strategies. We dr...

Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone (THPSS) are a type of upland wetland, similar to fens in the Northern Hemisphere and are found at the headwaters of low-order streams on the plateaus of Eastern Australia. They are classified as endangered ecological communities under State and National legislation. Previous works have identified particul...

Mulwaree Chain of Ponds is a geomorphically rare aquatic system in eastern Australia. Apparently stable and in a highly altered agricultural setting, these ponds are uncharacteristic of local river systems. The deep, large ponds are connected by shallow, vegetated and discontinuous preferential flow paths. Margins of the ponds are vegetated by aqua...

Sustainable river management requires strong participation from technical and nontechnical experts. However, in many cases, the nontechnical element is lacking. This paper explores possibilities for participation that can emerge from a reorientation toward dialog. This reorientation is supported by a sociogeomorphological approach, which encourages...

At regional and catchment scales, geology and hydrogeology strongly influence the distribution of groundwater invertebrates (stygofauna), but the fine scale distribution of stygofauna in sedimentary aquifers remains poorly studied. In this study, we examine the small-scale distribution of stygofauna in sediments of a perched aquifer in an upland sw...

This atlas, consisting of 9 plates accompanies and provides the basis for the article in Journal of Maps. It shows specific maps for each stage of a geomorphic assessment in the Middle Fork John Day Watershed, including reach types, geomorphic condition, recovery potential, and a strategic management plan.

A geomorphic assessment of the Middle Fork John Day Watershed, Oregon, USA, was used to generate a hierarchical, map-based understanding of watershed impairments and potential opportunities for improvements. Specifically, we (1) assessed river diversity (character and behavior) and patterns of reach types (and their controls); (2) evaluated the geo...

Chains of ponds are a discontinuous river type found in Australia. Their unusual morphology, important ecological functions and increasing rarity make them a priority for conservation, and yet very little research has investigated their physical structure, behaviour and evolution. This paper reconstructs the Holocene evolution and environmental his...

The nature of catchment-scale sediment (dis)connectivity is the primary influence on sediment delivery to trunk streams and controls the particle size distribution of channel bed sediments. Here, we examine the distribution of major sediment buffers (floodplains, terraces, alluvial fans, trapped tributary fills), barriers (weirs), and effective cat...

The increasing popularity of remote sensing techniques has created numerous options for researchers seeking spatial datasets, especially digital elevation models (DEMs), for geomorphic investigations. This yields an important question regarding what DEM resolution is most appropriate when answering questions of geomorphic significance. The highest...

In perennial stream settings, there is abundant literature confirming that riparian vegetation affects flood hydrology by attenuating the flood wave, enhancing deposition and reducing bank erosion. In contrast, relatively little is known about the effectiveness of riparian vegetation during floods in hydrologically-variable regions. The dominant ch...

Geomorphic effectiveness has been an influential concept in geomorphology since its introduction by Reds Wolman and John Miller in 1960. It provided a much needed framework to assess the significance of an event by comparing event magnitude to the resultant geomorphic effects. Initially, this concept was applied primarily in river channels, under t...

The ability to survive and thrive in repeatedly waterlogged soils is characteristic of plants adapted to riparian habitats. Rising atmospheric CO2 has the potential to fundamentally alter plant responses to waterlogging by altering gas exchange rates and stoichiometry, modifying growth, and shifting resource-economic trade-offs to favour different...

Understanding the potential for bedload sediment (dis)connectivity within and between trunk and tributary drainages is critical to characterizing the catchment-scale, geomorphic behavior of a basin. The ease with which sediment can flux between drainage system compartments is a key determining factor of geomorphic responses to disturbance events an...

Flood risk management is an essential responsibility of state governments and local councils to ensure the protection of people residing on floodplains. Globally, floodplains are under increasing pressure from growing populations. Typically, the engineering-type solutions that are used to predict local flood magnitude and frequency based on limited...

An understanding of the physical structure of fluvial systems is essential for explaining a range of ecosystem functions. Changes to system structure often lead to changes in function such as flow regime, water quality and nutrient cycling. Assessing functional attributes without examining system structure can lead to poorly designed management pro...

Integrative, participatory and adaptive approaches to river management are widely accepted as best practice, and yet in many cases the reality falls short of expectations. Recent developments in geomorphology, which work with social dimensions of rivers and a strong sense of place, may provide a way to connect communities with river science for the...

https://site.emrprojectsummaries.org/2016/05/24/a-framework-and-toolbox-for-assessing-and-monitoring-swamp-condition-and-ecosystem-health/

In an era of river repair, the concept of recovery enhancement has become central to river management practice. However, until about the early 2000s there were no coherent geomorphic frameworks with which to forecast river recovery potential. While the practical uptake of such frameworks has been slow, and debates continue about what recovery means...

https://site.emrprojectsummaries.org/2016/04/20/the-spatial-distribution-and-physical-characteristics-of-temperate-highland-peat-swamps-on-sandstone-thpss/

Variability in channel function (behavior) can be assessed by characterizing different forms of adjustment over time. Here, historical channel adjustments in three tributary systems of the Lockyer Valley, Southeast Queensland (SEQ) are analyzed in order to evaluate the range of catchment- and reach-scale controls on channel behavior. Over 300 indiv...

Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while identifying links between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has be...

Supporting text, figures, and tables for manuscript. (DOCX)

In the 21st Century, fluvial geomorphologists are ideally placed to use their science in an applied manner, and provide guidance on environmental issues of concern. Understanding the impact of floods and droughts, landuse and climate change, water use etc. on river forms, processes and evolution requires that we understand interactions between wate...

Valley setting and confinement (or lack thereof) are primary controls on river character and behaviour. Although thereare various proxies for valley confinement, direct measures that quantify the nature and extent of confinement are generally lackingand/or inconsistently described. As such they do not lend themselves to consistent analysis over lar...

A poster presented at the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences/ Australian Society for Limnology Joint Conference, Upper Hutt, November 22-26, 2015. This poster outlines the design and some preliminary results of a study of ecology of upland swamp associated streams in the Blue Mountains

Fluvial geomorphologists use close to a 100 different terms to describe the landforms that make up riverscapes. We identified 68 of these existing terms that describe truly distinctive landforms, in which form is maintained under characteristic conditions and fluvial processes. Clear topographic definitions for these landforms to consistently ident...

Many plants disperse their seeds in waterbodies via hydrochoric transport. Despite a growing body of research into hydrochory, little is known about the fundamental seed traits that determine floatation ability or hydrochoric transport behaviour more generally. Seeds are transported in fluvial systems in one of three phases: surface transport, with...

River histories provide important guidance with which to inform river management. Evolutionary trajectories and appraisals of system responses to changing flux conditions and disturbance events can be used to determine the range of potential future states and associated behavioural regimes, assessing the likelihood that that these states will be at...

Purpose: Catchments subject to land clearance, soil tillage and grazing suffer legacy effects from altered sediment and hydrological regimes and from changes in sediment connectivity between hillslopes and channels. Sediment dynamics are routinely investigated using the fallout radionuclides (FRNs) caesium-137 (137Cs) and excess lead-210 (210Pbex),...

Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has bee...

Stream classification provides a means to understand the diversity and distribution of channels and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning, management, and restoration tool. At the same time, there has bee...

Frameworks for assessing geomorphic river condition constitute a core part of the river management process, providing a critical platform for environmental decision-making and associated actions. The evolution of approaches for assessing the geomorphic (also called physical, morphological, or hydromorphological) condition of rivers has shifted from...

Riparian ecosystems are biophysically complex and highly diverse taxonomically, structurally and functionally. While many environmental factors determine the structure and function of riparian vegetation communities, hydrology is thought to be the ‘master variable’. Flooding and variability in water availability are known to be key drivers of taxon...

This study aimed to determine the extent of geomorphic change resulting from the catastrophic flood of 2011 in the Lockyer Valley in southeast Queensland and to place these impacts within a history of geomorphic adjustment. Aerial photographs dated from 1933 to 2011, parish maps and historical on-ground photographs dating from 1865 to 1966 were exa...

1.Wood density is a key plant functional trait which integrates the trade-offs characteristic to riparian plant ecological strategies. Although high density wood is costly to construct, it confers mechanical stiffness to stems, increasing a plant's capacity to withstand flooding, and also enables increased tolerance to water stress. For riparian pl...

The sediment (dis)connectivity concept is the water-mediated transfer of sediment between different compartments of a catchment sediment cascade involving four possible dimensions or linkages (longitudinal, lateral, vertical and temporal). Quantifying the strength of these linkages within and between compartments provides a means to understand the...

Stream classification provide a means to understand the diversity and distributions of channel and floodplains that occur across a landscape while drawing linkages between geomorphic form and process. Accordingly, stream classification is frequently employed as a watershed planning tool. In practice, a variety of frameworks are available to manager...

The Antarctic Treaty has been the principal governing force in Antarctica since 1961. The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) requires that all past and present work and waste-disposal sites are cleaned up unless doing so would cause greater environmental damage or the site is considered to be a monument o...

Research in coupled human and natural systems can be quite a cross-disciplinary endeavour, requiring the combination of diverse concepts, methods, and approaches. While there is a wide recognition of the importance of incorporating different viewpoints, perspectives, and disciplines in achieving positive environmental and social outcomes, the metho...

Fieldwork is an integral component of environmental science pedagogy. In fluvial geomorphology, it entails efforts to relate local landforms to their landscape context, generating place-based understandings that can be related to theoretical principles about diversity of forms, formative processes, patterns/configurations of features, and evolution...

Remediation of metal-contaminated soils by phosphate fixation is successful in temperate environments, whereas its efficacy in cold and freezing environments is understudied. Phosphate fixation is a low-cost technique and is potentially very useful in these remote environments where the logistics of remediation are difficult and expensive. Here we...

There is a growing need for environmental scientists, geoscientists, and analysts skilled in the use of X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and X-ray diffractometry. The challenge for educators is how to inspire, teach, and make the next generation of professional X-ray users and analysts ready for employment. In this paper, we present vignettes from t...

Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone (THPSS) are a form of topogenous mire found on the plateau areas of eastern Australia. They are well recognised for their ecological value, but our understanding of their geomorphic structure, function and evolution remains limited. Across 19 sites, the valley fills of THPSS comprise sequences of mineral-...

Swamps, bogs and fens are diverse wetland ecosystems found worldwide. Within each region, different ecological processes and species dominate them, yet water levels and saturation of sediments appears key to the maintenance of vegetation and the ecosystem as a whole. Consequently, understanding how vegetation responds to water levels in these ecosy...

In response to peatland degradation by human activities worldwide, restoration through gully blocking is now being implemented in an attempt to return valuable ecological and hydrological services to degraded systems. Re-establishing these services requires an understanding of how systems have formed and evolved in order to establish conditions tha...