Vishnu Prahalad

University of Tasmania · School of Geography Planning & Spatial Sciences

In a recent Forum Essay in Pacific Conservation Biology, the well known ecologist Harry Recher argued that over the past three decades Australia had experienced a ‘failure of science’ and a concomitant ‘death of nature’. In this essay we examine some of the propositions put forward by Recher (2015), with particular reference to the role played by n...

Fish use of coastal saltmarsh wetlands has been documented for many parts of Australia with the notable exception of Tasmania. An initial investigation to examine the diversity, density and patterns of fish use in the Circular Head coast saltmarshes of north-west Tasmania was undertaken. To aid decision making in repair strategies, the effect of sa...

Coastal wetlands and waterways are important for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Many have been under threat from land clearing, infill development and, increasingly, to sea level rise. Such wetlands not only need to be conserved at their present locations, they must be also able to retreat landwards if ecological functionality an...

1. Effective conservation of saltmarshes requires involves detailed and accurate mapping of their range, area of occupancy and plant community composition as part of region-wide inventories. There is also a need to identify the major mesoscale influences on the distributions of types of saltmarsh, obligate saltmarsh plants and salt pans, and evalua...

Temperate Australian saltmarshes, including those in the southern island state of Tasmania, are considered to be a threatened ecological community under Australian federal legislation. There is a need to improve our understanding of the ecological components, functional relationships and threatening processes of Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes and di...

In this chapter, we present an interdisciplinary scenario and role-play activity on climate-induced migration embedded in geographical pedagogies that challenge preconceived understandings of geography, climate change, and knowledge systems. We first provide a summary of the relevance of the activity for interdisciplinary ESD before describing the...

Deciding whether to plant native or non-native trees in public urban green spaces is becoming complex and conflicted, and decisions purely based on biotic nativeness are likely to be hamstrung as climate change and rising urban heat push many native species beyond their natural ranges. Importantly, tree selection considerations by urban planners an...

Concerns about the decline in uptake of secondary geography education continue despite arguments supporting the value of geography education, the power of geographical thinking, and geography's critical role in preparing students to deal with complex challenges. Already constrained by neoliberal politics of disadvantage, young people must plan and...

Vegetation changes in saltmarsh habitat can influence fish assemblages and abundance. In Tasmania, Australia, mid‐latitude succulent saltmarsh communities have been invaded by the introduced tall grass, Spartina anglica. Eradication efforts have been ongoing since the 1990s with purported benefits for fish access to intertidal foraging grounds, but...

Home food gardening is an important component of urban agriculture and sustainable food systems. However, globally there has been limited research into the barriers and enablers to home food gardening in cities. This study used an exploratory approach, utilising a questionnaire survey of households, and in-depth interviews with gardening experts, t...

There is wide recognition, championed by the Ramsar Convention, of the need to increase the public appreciation of wetlands and their conservation by providing meaningful experiences for visitors to Ramsar sites. In a case study of an Australian Ramsar site on the 50th anniversary of the treaty, we investigate the public's awareness of this interna...

The idea of which species are native, based on their biogeographic origin, is central to many policies and programmes. Yet definitions are contested and the meanings of ‘nativeness’ are often complex and confusing for many people. For example, a plant that would be considered 'native' in Australia might have a native bioregion that is thousands of...

Total organic carbon (TOC) sediment stocks as a CO2 mitigation service require exclusion of allochthonous black (BC) and particulate inorganic carbon corrected for water–atmospheric equilibrium (PICeq). For the first time, we address this bias for a temperate salt marsh and a coastal tropical seagrass in BC hotspots that represent two different blu...

Total organic carbon (TOC) sediment stocks as a CO 2 mitigation service require exclusion of allochthonous black (BC) and particulate inorganic carbon corrected for water–atmospheric equilibrium (PIC eq ). For the first time, we address this bias for a temperate salt marsh and a coastal tropical seagrass in BC hotspots that represent two different...

There is a growing body of research highlighting the importance of saltmarshes as habitats for fish for feeding, refuge from predation and reproduction. However, more work is needed on fish on vegetated marsh flats (or surfaces). We reviewed 60 studies that used 21 methods to sample fish assemblages on saltmarsh flats. Drop samplers, fyke nets and...

There are increasing pressures within the higher education sector to incorporate digital pedagogies into teaching and learning, a trend amplified by recent extensive recourse to online delivery within the sector. This trend carries with it both opportunities and challenges in effectively fostering those graduate competences that a converging consen...

Saltmarshes are well recognised as key environmental assets in the Derwent estuary. Yet, there has been a lack of knowledge about the plants, birds and ongoing human impacts on these wetlands. In response to this information gap, an estuary-wide, cross-tenure saltmarsh survey project commenced in 2018. Plant, bird, and human impact baseline data wa...

Marchwiel Marsh is a 92-ha wetland area dominated by saltmarsh vegetation communities, located in Marion Bay, south-east Tasmania. The area is the 6th largest contiguous saltmarsh patch in Tasmania and the largest in the southern part of the State. The historical (pre-European) extent and condition of Marchwiel has been altered due to the construct...

Saltmarsh soils impose harsh selection pressures on vegetation resulting in characteristic plant communities. For our study of the effect of edaphic factors on vegetation we chose Long Point in Moulting Lagoon, Tasmania's largest saltmarsh, which is dominated by a diverse assemblage of halophytic succulents and graminoids. Three transects were esta...

Three case studies spanning tropical, subtropical and temperate environments highlight the minimum potential benefits of investing in repair of coastal seascapes. Fisheries, a market benefit indicator readily understood by a range of stakeholders from policymakers to community advocates, were used as a surrogate for ecosystem services generated thr...

Tasmanian coastal saltmarsh wetlands are found in sheltered low-energy environments associated with large estuaries, creek mouths, lagoons and embayments. They are mapped as two major plant communities: Succulent Saline Herbland (TASVEG Code: ASS) and Saline Sedgeland/Rushland (TASVEG Code: ARS). In Aug 2013, coastal saltmarsh was the second vegeta...

The Tamar Saltmarsh Monitoring Program is a citizen science program started in 2016 as part of a State-wide effort to better map, monitor and manage Tasmanian saltmarsh ecosystems. Now in its third year (2018), the Program has facilitated the involvement of community volunteers in surveying and documenting the natural values of the Tamar River estu...

Australia's coastal marine biodiversity and accompanying benefits such as fisheries have been markedly reduced due to loss of essential inshore habitats. These coastal habitats provide a nursery ground for a multitude of animals, including fish, prawns and birds. Many species depend on inshore habitat during critical early life-stages characterised...

Cradle Coast NRM in partnership with the University of Tasmania aims to increase understanding of temperate saltmarshes (tidal saltwater wetlands) in the Cradle Coast Region of Tasmania, for planning and management, and to enable community-based monitoring of these wetlands through the provision of monitoring and information materials. A total of 1...

Coastal saltmarshes in subtropical and temperate Australia (including Tasmania) have been listed in 2013 as a vulnerable ecological community under Federal environment legislation (EPBC Act 1999). This listing acknowledges that these wetlands have suffered habitat fragmentation and loss of community integrity coupled with threats arising from human...

The ongoing decrease in the extent and health of saltmarsh wetlands from direct human impacts, which is exacerbated by climate change and sea level rise, has recently seen Subtropical and Temperate Coastal Saltmarsh listed as a ‘threatened ecological community’ (category: vulnerable) under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Co...

Rising sea levels and changing wind climates are widely expected to be associated with receding coastlines, creating a planning need for coastal change prediction, espe-cially for soft shores like those associated with saltmarsh. We ask whether it is possible use a simple cartographic wind-wave fetch method to estimate the spatial pattern of progra...

Coastal saltmarshes in subtropical and temperate Australia (including Tasmania) were listed in 2013 as a vulnerable ecological community under Federal environment legislation (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999). This listing acknowledges that wetlands have suffered habitat fragmentation and loss of community integrity co...

NRM North in partnership with the University of Tasmania aims to increase understanding of temperate saltmarshes (tidal saltwater wetlands) in Northern Tasmania, for planning and management, and to enable community-based monitoring of these wetlands through the provision of monitoring and information materials. A total of 1263 ha of saltmarsh wetla...

Coastal saltmarshes of temperate Australia are in decline and have recently been listed as a threatened ecological community under Federal legislation. Further research is required to better understand both the extent and nature of their decline in order to plan their recovery. A case study is presented of the most extensive area of saltmarshes in...

Southern Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes form a crucial link between terrestrial and marine systems, providing critical ecological functions that support a range of ecosystem services and biodiversity values. Close to a half of these important coastal ecosystems have already been lost or degraded due to land use change and impacts, sporadic and varia...

Southern Tasmanian coastal saltmarshes form a crucial 'link' between terrestrial and marine systems, providing critical ecological functions that support a range of ecosystem services and biodiversity values. Close to a half of these important coastal ecosystems have already been lost or degraded due to land use change and impacts, sporadic and var...

Coastal saltmarshes are reputed to be one of the most vulnerable communities to global warming, with widespread evidence of retreat and movement of lower marsh vegetation into areas previously occupied by upper marsh vegetation in response to rising sea levels, and potential changes in community composition from changes in rainfall, temperature and...

The upper Derwent Estuary wetlands are situated between New Norfolk and the Bridgewater causeway. They are comprised of tidally influenced freshwater wetlands interspersed with saline grasslands, rushlands and scrublands, with extensive Ruppia spp. beds in the submergent zone. The focus of this project is restricted to the emergent wetlands and the...

The Environmental Condition Assessment Framework (ECAF) was used to structure the project and the assessment. The assessment process was: (i) collate the management objectives and the values associated with the habitats; (ii) identify the benefits (ecosystem services) that flow to people from the habitats; (iii) assemble the available evidence abou...

A two-day national workshop was conducted in Canberra, on 30th September and 1st October 2009, to assist with the process of revisiting, improving and advancing the National Intertidal Subtidal Benthic (NISB) Habitat Classification Scheme (the Scheme) developed in 2007 (Mount and Bricher, 2008) and applied in the NISB Habitat Map (Mount et al., 200...

The primary objective of this project is to predict the future extent and migration pathways of tidal wetlands in the Derwent Estuary in the event of predicted future sea level rise. To enable this assessment, the current extent of all tidally influenced wetlands and saltmarshes and their immediately adjacent freshwater wetlands have been mapped (t...