Peat Leith

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation | CSIRO · Agriculture and Food

Public engagement on climate change is a vital concern for both science and society. Despite more people engaging with climate change science today, there remains a high-level contestation in the public sphere regarding scientific credibility and identifying information needs, interests, and concerns of the non-technical public. In this paper, we p...

Irrigation development projects rely on visions of a better future to get funded. How do these visions shape investments in the present and with what effects? We combine concepts and perspectives from sociological studies of expectations and hydrosocial literature to examine how visions of the future shape interactions between water and society in...

Enhancing and maintaining on-farm diversity is a potential strategy to improve farming systems’ sustainability and resilience. However, diversification is driven or constrained by different factors and dynamics that vary across environmental, socio-economic and political contexts. Identifying drivers and constraints of diversification can help to s...

Citizen and stakeholder participation is held to bolster the democratic legitimacy of. marine governance by building trust in the decision-making system through inclusion.However, a growing body of literature points to increasing disillusionment and.exclusion, and thus decreased legitimacy. In this study we apply a ‘legitimacy lens’ to.examine a do...

Participatory practices are prominent strategies for increasing the legitimacy and effectiveness of resource commons governance. Despite increases in participatory practices legitimacy of such governance is in decline. Remaining commons are sites of conflict echoing wider disillusionment in democratic governance across mature liberal democracies. M...

Enhancing and maintaining on-farm diversity represent a potential strategy to improve farming systems sustainability, by reducing the pressure on the natural environment, alleviating farmers' risks and vulnerabilities, and increasing farms resilience. However, farms are complex systems and on-farm diversification, intended as the production of mult...

Participatory water valuation workshops are useful for their valuation outcomes, but can they also foster social learning? Social learning involves changes in understanding through social interactions between actors, which go beyond the individual to become situated within wider social units. Participatory water valuation workshops involve dialogui...

This dataset has been uploaded on figshare to complement the review article: "Drivers and constraints of on-farm diversity. A review". This review article has been submitted to the journal "Agroforestry for sustainable development". It consists in the data extracted from 97 articles (published between Jan 2010 and Dec 2019) selected for the review...

Globally, the increasing impacts of climate change can evoke feelings of overwhelm and helplessness. Many people feel ill equipped to fully perceive or take action against our changing climate. Here, we reflect upon the Curious Climate Tasmania project and demonstrate how innovative, collaborative communication can more effectively engage non-scien...

Co-production has become a cornerstone of research within the sustainability sciences, motivating collaborations of diverse actors to conduct research in the service of societal and policy change. This review examines theoretical and empirical literature from sustainability science, public administration, and science and technology studies (STS) wi...

Development of joint irrigation infrastructure increasingly depends on investment decisions made by individual farmers. Farmers base their decisions to invest on their current knowledge and understanding. As irrigation infrastructure development is ultimately a group decision, it is beneficial if individuals have a common understanding of the vario...

KEYWORDS Social learning, Value of water, Discussion support SUMMARY Tasmania is expanding its acreage under irrigation. Inexperienced water users are making investment decisions that influence both local and regional water availability. These investment decisions are non-uniform, meaning that the conditions under which someone would invest differ...

participatory water valuation

We report on an initiative that sought to negotiate the intersections of science, policy and practice through reconciling supply and demand (RSD) for research. We propose a synthesised framework that can be used to either inform or analyse the practice of RSD, then examine an Australia-wide program that was designed to link research with strategic...

Cultivating a more dynamic relationship between science and policy is essential for responding to complex social challenges such as sustainability. One approach to doing so is to “span the boundaries” between science and decision making and create a more comprehensive and inclusive knowledge exchange process. The exact definition and role of bounda...

Regional long-term water management plans increasingly depend on investments by local water users such as farmers. However, local circumstances and individual situations vary and investment decisions are made under uncertainty. Therefore, the perceived values of costs and benefits may also vary considerably among water users, leading to non-uniform...

Adaptation Pathways (AP) is receiving increased theoretical and practical interest as an approach to planning for climate change that engages with conditions of uncertainty. Participatory action research with environmental and natural resource management (NRM) planners, revealed that the contested, complex nature of NRM challenges the ready utility...

Climate change increases the complexity and uncertainty of regional natural resource management (NRM), calling into question the appropriateness of linear knowledge-transfer approaches. In this paper we reflect on knowledge practices among a partnership of researchers and NRM planners, under a federal program of NRM investment intended to ‘deliver...

Sustainability challenges blur the boundaries between academic disciplines, between research, policy and practice, and between states, markets and society. What do exemplary scientists and organisations do to bridge the gaps between these groups and help their research to make the greatest impact? How do they do it? And how can their best practices...

Natural resources directly support rural livelihoods and underpin much of the wealth of rural and regional Australia. Climate change manifesting as increasing frequency and or severity of extreme weather events poses a threat to sustainable management of natural resources because the recurrence of events may exceed the resilience of natural systems...

The individuals, communities and organisations who manage our natural resources all have an innate capacity to adapt to change. Changes in climate, markets and technology have shaped the way we adapt the management of natural resources in urban, rural and coastal landscapes. Some of these changes are predictable and easy to manage. Others are expec...

Making salient, credible and legitimate knowledge for natural resource management (NRM) and adaptation to climate change is achievable when scientific knowledge is grounded in place. Making scientific knowledge locally relevant can be assisted by an understanding of the way ‘placed knowledge' comes into being. Taking two prominent conceptions of pl...

There is little reliable information on how, why and on which crops plant growth regulators (PGRs) are currently used in Australia. Such information is needed to better link research and development with extension. Currently the four main classes of PGRs used in Australia include Ethephon (ETH), onium-types (chlormequat, CCC), and second and third...

This article challenges the idea that success of boundary organizations is marked primarily by the stability of the science–policy interface. We review key theory in the literature on boundary work and boundary organizations. We then present a case, the Derwent Estuary Program (DEP) in South East Tasmania, Australia, to explore the evolution of suc...

Systematic approaches to understanding innovation are common, but these approaches still need testing as theories. This study aims to fill that gap by constructing sectoral and technological innovation system failure models as theories and by testing those models using a multiple case study and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. Both theor...

Our natural resource base is the primary source of our wealth and well-being. This means that looking after land, water and the other species with which we share the country underpins sustainability. Although there are some good news stories, widespread trends of continuing degradation indicate that we are unlikely to pass on the country to future...

We argue that for scientists and science communicators to build usable knowledge for various publics, they require social and political capital, skills in boundary work, and ethical acuity. Drawing on the context of communicating seasonal climate predictions to farmers in Australia, we detail four key issues that scientists and science communicator...

This playbook is a result of collaborative exploration, design and testing of the approach among the Southern Slopes Climate Change Adaptation Research Partnership (SCARP) research team and Natural Resources Management (NRM) planners from the nine agencies in the Southern Slopes region of Australia. It should be considered a working document that w...

The objective of this research was to improve our understanding of perceptions and use of plant growth regulators (PGRs) in cereal production in Australia and to develop relevant research priorities. PGRs applied at the appropriate rate reduce plant height when applied at early stem elongation in cereals. Information was collated from a telephone s...

Spatial prioritisation for NRM in Australia aims to support decisions about where scarce resources should be invested to create the best possible outcomes. Many NRM objectives or goals require identification of regions and then localities for such investment. This guide was developed through action research with Tasmanian NRM organisations to help...

Our natural resource base is the primary source of our wealth and well-being. This means that looking after land, water and the other species with which we share the country underpins sustainability. Although there are some good news stories, widespread trends of continuing degradation indicate that we are unlikely to pass on the country to future...

A diagnostic approach to climate change adaptation for fisheries is proposed to define potential climate adaptation pathways in well-managed fisheries. Traditional climate vulnerability and risk assessments tend to focus on biophysical threats and opportunities and thereby what needs to be done to adapt to climate change. Our diagnostic approach mo...

Social license reflects environmental and social change, and sees community as an important stakeholder and partner. Science, scientists, and science policy have a key role in the processes that generate social license. In this paper, we focus on the interaction between science and social license in salmon aquaculture in south-eastern Tasmania. Thi...

Empirical and theoretical research on trust has received little attention in climate change literature despite the central role of trust in determining responses to climate science. We reassess the challenge of climate change communication in light of recent research on trust across social, psychological, and neuroscientific disciplines. We argue t...

Australia’s NRM agencies have recently been developing plans for climate change mitigation (through carbon sequestration) and adaptation. Under a Federal (2012) Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Research Grants Program, project teams are working with nine clusters of regional NRM organisations across the country on using climate change science...

Australia’s Natural Resource Management (NRM) bodies provide regional, strategic frameworks that inform other agencies in sustainably managing biodiversity, land, coasts, and water. These organisations are developing plans that seek to address both climate change mitigation (through biodiverse carbon plantings) and adaptation for the complex social...

Through analysis of the dynamics between science and decision-making, we argue that diagnosing fit-for purpose approaches to linking science and decision-making may be possible. Such diagnosis should enable identification of appropriate processes, institutions, objects (e.g. tools, information products) and relationships that can facilitate outcome...

Conventional systems of government have not been very successful in resolving coastal management problems. This lack of progress is partially attributable to inadequate representation in governance processes of the variety of knowledges present on the coast. In particular there has been a struggle to engage effectively with climate science and its...

2013. Toward operationalizing resilience concepts in Australian marine sectors coping with climate change. Ecology and Society 18(3): 4. ABSTRACT. We seek to contribute to the scholarship on operationalizing resilience concepts via a working resilience indicator framework. Although it requires further refinement, this practical framework provides a...

Australians are famous for our love of the coast, although in many places this 'love' has caused serious and often irreversible impacts. The sustainable management of our society's many uses of the coast is complex and challenging. While a wealth of knowledge exists about the coast, this is not always brought to bear on decision-making. Coastal man...

The capacity of private landholders to manage natural resources is constrained and enabled by diverse, interconnected, and changing factors, which vary substantially across time and space. This context dependence of capacity makes it both a useful construct and a difficult one to evaluate, which makes targeting investment in capacity building acros...

Natural resource (NR) outcomes at catchment scale rely heavily on the adoption of sustainable practices by private NR managers because they control the bulk of the NR assets. Public funds are invested in capacity building of private landholders to encourage adoption of more sustainable natural resource management (NRM) practices. However, prioritis...

This social research project complements scientific, legal and economic policy work being done on climate change impact and adaptation within the Kingborough Council. The study provides local perspective on coastal hazard1 management. Using the town of Snug as a pilot site, the project explores community interest in adapting to coastal hazards and...

Sustainable management of the coastal zone represents a considerable challenge to Australian society. This challenge is rooted in the complexity of the biophysical and sociocultural characteristics of coastal areas, including uncertainty about system characteristics and processes, and the diversity of stakeholders, their interests, values and persp...

The key biophysical impacts associated with projected climate change in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) include: declines in pasture productivity, reduced forage quality, livestock heat stress, greater problems with some pests and weeds, more frequent droughts, more intense rainfall events, and greater risks of soil degradation. The most arid and le...

Between November 2003 and February 2004, I conducted in-depth interviews with graziers in three areas of the semi-arid rangelands of NSW and Queensland. Analysis of these interviews provides insights into some of the socio-cultural contexts of climat e information communication between scientists and graziers, as well as the ways in whic h climate...