#Sustainable development

CSIRO has delivered the most extensive, integrated assessment of northern Australia’s water resources and the potential for further irrigated agricultural development. Big idea, big landscape, big data. Here is why the work was necessary and how the results can be used.

An extensive assessment of water resources in the Fitzroy River catchment points to the region’s largely untapped aquifer systems as key to the potential for irrigated agricultural development.

There’s talk of a ‘food bowl’ in northern Australia. Around Darwin in the Northern Territory it’s more likely to be a fruit bowl, according to a new study of the potential for irrigated agricultural development in the region’s river catchments.

Water alone won’t make irrigated agriculture financially viable in northern Australia’s Mitchell River catchment. Local processing facilities will be needed to get a return on investment for any large-scale investment.

A special issue of Pacific Conservation Biology celebrates women working in conservation science in Australia.

After cascading ecological catastrophes in the 90s, China spent 20 years seriously investing in sustainability. Now that effort is paying off.

Out of the ashes of the Tathra bushfire, and stories of heartbreaking loss and survival, a picture is emerging of how research is helping to save properties and improve bushfire outcomes.

Meat consumption has been on the increase with improved standards of living and growing populations around the world. But how do you quantify the environmental cost of feeding the stock feeding that increase?

You’ll have heard the usual arguments against electric cars – limited range, too few recharging stations around to make them worthwhile, and the problem of battery disposal. On the other hand, say proponents, electric vehicles offer the prospect of ‘zero emissions’ driving.